…And then she entered her confinement

Posted on April 15, 2013 by 8junebugs

Never have I had more conflicting feelings about gender and stereotypes and the norms of previous generations than the last couple of months.

I hate — HAAAAATE — the very idea that pregnancy is a disability or should be treated as such. I find the idea of a lady retiring from society and all manner of activity rather abhorrent, a throwback to a time that has never held any appeal for me, aside from the wicked hat designs.

And yet.

My body tells me that there was some wisdom in that paradigm; not that pregnant people should be pedestaled, but that this process, even with the best advice and anecdata, is more physically challenging than you think it’ll be when you see a double line on a pee stick. The list of symptoms is endless and varied, and the combination is entirely personal. What I didn’t quite grok early on is that the effects of the combination would start to feel…cumulative. That I would not recognize the signs that it was time to slow down until they blinked neon, right in front of my nose.

And by “blinked neon,” I mean “were repeatedly brought up” by the person watching me most closely, worrying most regularly, and suffering most acutely from the effects of my inability to admit weakness.

“No, really, I’m okay. I’m just a little breathless,” said I. Daily, while breathing deeply. Then hourly. Then while swaying and breathing deeply, regularly, even when I can tell the baby isn’t pressing a fibroid up into my lungs, which is what generally hindered my breathing before.

This, apparently, may be how my body does Braxton-Hicks contractions. Good to know, right?

I have no explanation for why I am stubborn about admitting weakness. I think maybe because I come from Yankee farmers on both sides? If I’m not actively pushing a child out of me, surely I can still do chores!

Yeah, not so much.

I stopped working at Week 36, which was…a Tuesday. There was a part of me that wanted to go through that Friday, but “to make the paperwork easier” isn’t always the best reason to do things. Or so I’m told. Plus, things started happening at Week 35 that made it harder to ignore that I AM ABOUT TO GIVE BIRTH SOMETIME SOON. There was the mucus plug. There was the ultrasound showing that the baby was already head-down on my cervix. There were new and varied pains. Although these things, even taken together, could still mean there were weeks left on the clock, they could also mean the exact opposite. And I wasn’t feeling physically prepared to have a baby, to say nothing of my mindset.

I feel much better now. I felt much better — and looked and acted like it — within 24 hours of making the decision to STOP.

The dumbest part of all of this is that I have a generous employer and an excited and supportive boss, I live in a blessedly progressive state, and I have some resources at my disposal. My company offers paid pregnancy-related leave (pro-rated, as I’m still in my first year, but it’s something). California offers state disability coverage for pregnancy/birth, followed by Paid Family Leave to bond with a newborn (payments are based on a percentage of your existing income). I have savings to cover the difference for the length of time I want to stay home…well, the length of time I feel I can reasonably, responsibly stay home.

Reasonably and responsibly. I’ve been thinking about that a lot. An awful lot of people, with nothing but your best interest in mind, will tell you that you should be resting and taking it easy at this (or any) stage of pregnancy. If you’re lucky, they are wise enough to preface this with, “Of course, I know everyone’s circumstances are different, but…if you can…” If you are unlucky, it will be something as simple as, “Why are you still working?”

The answer is just as simple: Because mortgage, utilities, groceries, etc. Because we aren’t Canada, or Australia, or The Netherlands, or France. Because we do not, as a culture, put our money where our mouths are when it comes to Family Values. Because it is…uncommon, here in the wealthiest nation on the planet, for a family to be able to sustain an extended un- or under-paid absence from work. We make do, if we can find a way, and we cross our fingers and hope that nothing breaks or blows up or needs replacing until we’re pulling money in again.

But, FMLA! someone will cry. Yes, true, I can’t be fired for taking time off to care for my family (not that employers haven’t found ways around that). But whoever thought unpaid leave was an acceptable substitute for paid leave to care for a fetus and then a newborn (or to care for anyone else) has clearly never had to worry about a monthly budget.

/soapbox (for now)

So I’m staring down the barrel of my 4/16 due date (having fallen into the traditional first-timer trap of being convinced I would go early) and carefully selecting which completely unproven folk remedies I’m willing to try because right now? Labor is the most productive thing on my To Do list. I’ve been cooking and stockpiling and setting up automatic financial stuff so that my student loans aren’t a nagging thought in the back of my in-labor mind when the time comes.

We have a perfectly positioned baby with a strong heartbeat and a soft, slightly dilated exit route. We have a generous and amazing friend staying at our house to care for Rodney while we’re at the hospital. We have parents on alert, ready to drive over the Sierras and meet us at the hospital. The doula is on call; the carseat is installed.

We’re as ready as we’ll ever be.

(Next post: Baby pictures/birth story.)

(Eventual post: House pictures.)

Filed under: Family, Little G | 2 Comments »

The trimester of tears

Posted on March 15, 2013 by 8junebugs

You guys? I’m…

I’m pretty pregnant right now.

The app that keeps me from having to stay on top of just how pregnant I am (35.5 weeks) informs me that I have gained a little too much weight (but not how much my fibroids weigh…ahem), that I may experience heartburn (not anymore — thanks, Protonix!), and that our baby is the size of a honeydew melon right now. It does not say how easily I can be overcome with emotion, much more so than during any other month of this pregnancy.

Over President’s Day weekend, one of my aunts flew out from Mass. for a few days. When you’re the one who moves away, this doesn’t happen a lot. You’re the one who’s expected to come back and visit, even if the place to which you move is a glorious tourist destination and a wine-tasting wonder that everyone should visit at least once in their lives. That’s what you sign up for when you move farther than 10 miles from Ye Olde Homestead, and that’s something this particular aunt and I have in common.

We had a lovely time walking the Golden Gate and trekking up to Napa (I have been woefully lax about getting up to Napa on my own), but the last full day was probably the one that nearly did my temporarily tender heart in. We took my aunt to see our house, and then she spent half the day helping me pick out colors and putting some samples on the walls. After that, she and Graham conspired to let me nap longer than the 30 minutes I requested…but I’d made it that long without needing a nap, which was a little impressive.

This stuff, this “Come see my new house!” stuff and wall-color-picking stuff, is the kind of thing I would’ve done with Ma. This is the part of the visit that was more “family” than “fun,” even though it was still fun…for me, anyway. And this was after all the conversations in transit to other things, the birth stories I needed to hear (it turns out I come by my epic heartburn honestly), and the family reminiscences going back long before my birth. It was fun the same way it was fun to show my mom the first apartment I lived in on my own in Alexandria. I miss that.

This aunt, in particular, understands where I’m at in a lot of ways, and she got on a plane to lend some support. That I didn’t burst into tears once during her visit is a goddamned miracle.

***

Puppy videos posted to Facebook are killing me. I just watched a yellow lab make friends with a toddler born with Down Syndrome, and I pretty much lost my shit and got down on the floor to hug Rodney. No more doggie videos until after this baby is born. It’s distracting for me and makes my dog wonder what’s wrong. You know, what’s wrong in addition to all the moving, all the new smells, all the contractors going in and out of the house, all the schedule changes, and all the pillows now preventing him from sleeping between us at night.

***

So, we’re taking childbirth prep classes, and every single birth story leaves me in tears. We’re 75% done with these classes, and every week, I’m the cliche wiping my eyes when the lights come back up. I don’t know how much of it is hormones and how much of it is coming through the universal umbilical cord tying all birth experiences together in some way, but I can guarantee that I will be a giant snotty mess when they lay this kid on my chest. (I have never been a pretty crier.) I want pictures of these coming moments…and I also kind of don’t. I’ll take them anyway.

***

It’s not all funny-pregnant-lady crying. I cry out of frustration a lot, too. Although I’m fortunate to be in good health and have had a relatively simple time of it, this is wreaking bloody havoc on my 35-year-old body. I am not accustomed to being limited in ways that cannot be overcome with practice or pharmaceuticals. I cry when I can’t sleep. I cry when commuting leaves me wiped out for most of the next day (the position of the baby and the fibroids has seriously compromised my lung capacity). I cry when I can’t lift things or climb stairs without one or both sides of my back screaming at me. Exercise, oddly, is okay. I had no trouble walking the Golden Gate with my aunt…until the baby got lodged in the position that leaves me most breathless, and then I needed to stop for a few minutes.

I cry when I realize I have absolutely no choice but to accept this diminished state for the duration. This is not something I would normally accept. And what’s stupid about that is that I’m the first person to tell someone else to take it easy and be gentle on themselves, particularly if their bodies are growing a whole new person…as well as a whole new temporary organ.

I know. “Asshole, rest thyself,” right?

I cried when I took my first shower in the new house. The door to the upstairs shower opens inward instead of outward (which is not normal, but none of the handyman work done on this place meets any kind of standard), and the only way I can get in is to let the shower head hang down so I can open the door all the way, stand in the opposite corner, then close the door behind me. I can’t close the shower door around this belly any other way, and we haven’t put up the curtain and better shower head in the downstairs bathroom yet. Graham had to talk me down from trying to demolish and re-do the upstairs bathroom TOMORROW DAMN IT I CAN’T USE THAT SHOWER EVER AGAIN AND I’M SURE HOME DEPOT’S HAVING A SALE ON SOMETHING.

(It turns out I could shower in it again, and have every day since.)

I cry because there’s a LOT going on right now, and I am feeling more than a little useless.

***

I also cry out of sheer gratitude and wonder for this life. (This usually happens in the car, inconveniently.) Years ago — at ages 18, 22, or 29, for instance — I couldn’t see this day ahead of me. For all the first-world, privilege-laced difficulties I complain about on Facebook, I have it pretty damn good. I get to build a family and a home and decades of memories with the love of my life (who basically packed/lifted/shifted every box for this move and every subsequent repair or installation). This kid, this little honeydew-melon-sized, boy-child blend of the two of us, has been a long time coming.

“Hi! It’s getting a little crowded in here…”

When you get right down to it, what else matters? And who wouldn’t cry, hormones or no hormones?

Filed under: Happily ever after, Little G | 7 Comments »

Countdowns

Posted on January 25, 2013 by 8junebugs

House: 14 days until close of escrow

We are go for home purchase. The loan is approved. The title is clear. We’ve switched from HGTV’s “House Hunters” and “Property Virgins” to “Flea Market Flip” and “I Brake for Yard Sales.” All the inspectors have been through, as well as the appraiser, and…everything is damn near just fine.

Which sort of terrifies me. I don’t know why. I’m well adapted for crisis management and can’t manage to switch to an “Everything’s going to work out” setting because WHAT IF IT DOESN’T? I don’t think I’m alone here.

  • There are no termites or beetles. There is a smidge of dry rot in fewer than half a dozen spots.
  • The foundation is sound and looks like it may even have been partially retrofitted.
  • The roof is less than 10 years old and in great shape.

(These top three were my dealbreakers. Bug, basement, or roof issues? Sell it to someone else.)

  • The electrical clusterfuck is actually terribly simple to fix and will not bankrupt us as a Parental Figure predicted (…and still believes). We could actually wait to fix it, but we won’t, because we are overcomputered geeks who work out of the home. (Note to self: Remember to listen to experts in their fields and take with a grain of salt the advice of well-meaning family members who have only ever bought new construction.)
  • The furnace is super old, but is also functioning perfectly well. We’ll shoot to replace it before next winter, just to be on the safe side. (I know. All you New Englanders just snorted when I used the word “winter,” didn’t you? It gets pretty chilly here, okay? Come visit. You’ll see. :P )
  • The sewer lateral isn’t bad and the estimate to get us up to compliance is on the very low end of the range we’d been told to expect.
  • The natural hazard report came back clean. Well, as clean as you can get in a city built on a fault line, anyway. We are in potential danger of ZOMG LIQUEFACTION in the event of an earthquake…which basically means mud. Potentially flammable earthquake mud.
  • The upper level measures at 234 more square feet than in the public records (to say nothing of the finished basement).
  • Our 102-year-old house doesn’t appraise for a day over 40.

Not the flashiest girl on the block, but definitely one hell of a dame.

3128_Nicol_front

(Yeah. I totally just said that.)

Every time we go over there, I notice some little thing I’d missed or forgotten. The first time, it was a sewing machine in its own table like my mom used to have, which will convey with the house at my request. (It seems a good omen, as Mom’s was left behind in California on the last move back east.)

Then, it was the floor-to-ceiling mirror in the small hallway off the dining room. It’s just a plain old mirror and I’d like to frame it up a bit, but it makes the space look bigger and reflects light in a place where reflecting light is really helpful.

After that, it was the detailed plaster medallion thingies around the light fixtures in the kitchen, dining room, and hallway. They’re not original to the house, but they’re apparently the real deal. I think I’ll keep them.

The night we were there just before sunset, I realized there’s a lovely view of the Mormon temple from the kitchen window. I’m not Mormon — not even close — but they do make pretty, pretty temples.

We keep an eye out for people walking their dogs every time we’re there. There’s always someone. Last time, it was two little girls on scooters who waved to Rodney as he looked out of the car (we were just leaving). I hope our little dog will like their little dog…although I also hope they leash theirs before it gets run over. :/

Moving: 46 > x > 14 days

Our lease is up on March 12. We’ll have plenty of time to take care of a few things before we move everything over.

WE ARE SO READY TO LEAVE. Now that this house deal is almost done, every hot tub party and every shrill whistle blast from the train tracks causes much gnashing of teeth.

Okay, it’s not that bad. This place has been great and I will miss the easy walk to the ferry very, very much. We expected that we would miss the amenities when our lease was up, though, and the pros just never outweighed the cons. We are ready to pack and load. (Well, have someone else load. I am seven months pregnant and only getting pregnanter.)

Baby: 81 days to due date

My third trimester results are in and everything’s fine. The baby is growing well (which is to say he’s measuring about two weeks ahead of average for this point in the pregnancy) and very, very active. I am taking Ranitidine religiously to manage my (OH HOLY HELL OWWW) heartburn and I am taking naps when I can.

I passed the glucose tolerance test and I don’t have anemia…or, as it turns out, a urinary tract infection. I didn’t even know they were looking for one, but yay! The thing about being pregnant is that you just get used to giving blood and urine samples and exposing your belly to whatever goo they’ve got ready. After a while, unless the staff seems incompetent, you kind of stop asking questions.

(Which is unlike me, but after all these months I’ve come to trust most of the people telling me to pee in a cup.)

It feels weird to have come away from the last visit with my OB/GYN without some homework to do or test to schedule, actually. Everything’s on track and in place. We’re already scheduled to start Teh Baby Classes — birthing and baby care — in February. There’s no ultrasound before the next OB appointment on Valentine’s Day. I don’t owe anyone any blood. There’s nothing to do but sit here and gestate.

We could work on finding a pediatrician, I guess. And a doula.

Things have been a little busy lately.

Weirdly, even as I can feel him bouncing around more and more, I’ve been feeling a little disconnected lately. I’ve got a lot going on outside the womb, a lot of things on the Before Baby checklist. I’ve been meaning to do so many things: exercise, prenatal yoga, local mommy-to-be outings… But I am also very, very tired. Tuesday night was the first decent night of sleep I’ve gotten in weeks, and that was with the assistance of an extra Benadryl. I’ve had two colds, and the hip pain is back. I’ve gained 19 pounds, which is totally fine (considering the fibroids), except that it’s aggravating an old lower back problem from my Trader Joe’s days.

I think, too, that the timing of everything has been messing with my ability to look ahead and picture this baby in our lives. We knew when I got pregnant that we’d be moving before I gave birth, but we didn’t know where. I couldn’t imagine him in this apartment and I couldn’t foresee the place where he would live with us. Now, I know where we’ll all live, but there’s still so much to do between now and then. And at the same time that I’m trying to picture our son in his childhood home, I’m also redecorating it in my head and trying to internalize the idea that I will even own a home. I’m getting there, though.

So here we are. Counting down.

Weekend: 4 hours

Filed under: Family, Little G, No place like home | 1 Comment »

The karmic tendencies of real estate

Posted on January 11, 2013 by 8junebugs

Oh Em Gee, y’all, I’m pretty sure I just bought a house.

Escrow began yesterday. Pending inspections and the appraisal, we could get the keys as early as February 8.

The house is in Oakland, in a neighborhood that doesn’t seem to have a name of its own, poor thing. It’s nominally in Fruitvale, but it’s not, really. That’s just the nearest BART station. It’s near Fruitvale Ave., sort of midway between that and Coolidge Ave., a few blocks below 580, a block or so outside Upper Peralta Creek…and a few blocks below both Laurel and Lower Dimond (I know, but that’s really how it’s spelled), two of the more desirable Oakland districts.

Shorter version: Half a mile to the northeast, this house would’ve been about $100K higher and off the market in 30 days or less. Instead, we got it for under asking after it sat for five months. The neighborhood is a little patchy, but well within our safety threshold.

Yes, we have a safety threshold. We like Oakland a lot, but we’re not that naive. Some neighborhoods were off-limits, but we’ve learned a lot in the last two years, and this experience just added to that. We also chose an agent who lives in and loves Oakland; he steered us away from at least one listing and was able to sort of micro-target our search and give us more info on the trajectories of certain areas. This house is beautifully protected — ADT is already installed, the fence and gate are in excellent condition, and there are bars (with internal safety releases) on the lower windows…which can’t be seen from the street anyway.

My dad texted me the other day, suggesting that I might also consider looking at the crime reports for the area, too. (I sent him the listing and he was feeling all…parental.) Consider it? This is fucking Oakland. I looked up the last year’s worth of incidents within a five-block radius of every property we viewed…before we viewed it. I learned two things:

  1. Our realtor was spot on about crime/safety really being a block-by-block thing.
  2. July is a bad time to be here, no matter which ‘hood you’re in. Everywhere else, that would be correlated to heat waves, but we don’t get those until almost September. Theories welcome.

So why the title, you ask? This house is part of an estate. The previous owner lived in it for 30 years and loved it well; in August, she died there, peacefully, of natural causes. The sellers are her kids.

I KNOW, RIGHT? But for probably a half-generation age difference, the sellers are me from 2009.

So I wrote a letter. I remember, viscerally, how much their situation sucks. It wasn’t that long ago that I was in it, and even if it were, it left an indelible impression that soured me on real estate for years. Trying to balance market value with sentimental value is the worst. There’s no offer high enough, ever, to cover all the memories that make a house someone’s home.

And yet. You’ve got to move the damn house.

I told them I’d been there. I told them about how my folks built their house, about how I learned to walk on plywood before they laid down the floors, about how we built a pool and closed off the garage and had half a lifetime of Christmases and birthdays there. I told them how hard it was to know — and manage to understand — that Mom had put her money into big repairs like the roof and the furnace instead of the granite countertops and stainless steel appliances buyers seem to expect these days.

(I didn’t tell them, although I was thinking about it, that Mom had somehow managed to keep the original 1977 orange congoleum floors in the kitchen, paint the walls teal on the bottom, then find a border that used both goddamn colors in harmony. Who DOES that? Someone who loves their house as a home rather than an investment, that’s who.)

I told them all that, and I told them that we’re just starting to build our family. I told them we liked how there were two bedrooms across from each other on the main floor, even though we know our son will want to move to one of the rooms in the basement when he’s older. I told them that their basement build-out gives us the space to continue working from home, which makes it easier to be there for our son when he’s small (even though only one of us will be on baby duty during business hours). And I told them how safe we would feel bringing him home in April, knowing how well their mother had kept and maintained her home.

They accepted our offer with a couple of minor conditions, the biggest of which being the sewer lateral inspection/replacement. Oakland has an ordinance in effect, and they don’t want to be on the hook for that cost, should a replacement be needed (it will probably be needed). It’s annoying, but expected. Thing is? I also sold Mom’s house as-is…I completely understand not wanting or being able to do any work on the house, regardless of what comes up in the inspection reports. You just need it to be done…and that’s what additional price negotiations are for.

We’re hopeful about the inspections, based on what we’ve already seen. Almost everything checked out in their August inspection report; there was a problem with the water heater, so they replaced it with a tankless (which I’ve never had and think is BRILLIANT).

More about the house itself below…

Read more »

Filed under: Uncategorized | 7 Comments »

Preview of coming attractions

Posted on January 4, 2013 by 8junebugs

I’m a bit behind this year. I woke up on January 1 with the realization that I HAD NO WORD. You know. The Word for 2013.

By the time we’d walked the dog, I realized I had a few front-runners: Adult. Responsibility. Family.

Mom.

“Mom” is going to mean something new for me in 2013. (I know some people feel like parents from the moment the lines turn pink. I don’t. I feel pregnant — full of baby and anticipation.) But I suspect the Year of Being Mom is still ahead of me somehow, somewhere down the line, sometime after our son can manage voiced bilabial nasals.

This is not that year.

“Adult” and “Responsibility” are conjoined, really:

  1. We’re becoming parents in April.
  2. We’re looking for a house and just put in the very first offer (yes, we’re staying in Oakland, or trying to). I have not been through this process before and I AM NOT A FAN. More on that later.
  3. If, by some miracle, we get this house (That buyer’s market you’ve heard tell of? We don’t live in it.), we’re on the fast track to becoming landlords by way of a cottage on the back of the lot. The square footage of my overall responsibility could go from zero to A LOT in the next six months.
  4. Our parents seem — and, of course, are — older this year. My dad will turn 60 in September. We come from long-lived stock (for the most part) and he is mostly in excellent health, but 60 is a milestone. Graham’s parents are…older. They’ve faced many more health problems in recent years than I think Dad’s faced in 60. This is something we talk about a lot.
  5. My “baby” brother will meet his first kid any day now — his girlfriend is due on January 9.
  6. I actually care about — and am grateful for — the life insurance my employer provides.
  7. While Graham’s parents were here for Christmas, the words “My house, my rules” actually escaped my lips (regarding whether we would budge on making them take our room).
  8. WE ARE BECOMING PARENTS. Jesus.

But…I tend to want my word for each year to be aspirational, rather than tied to thing-doing, so “Adult” and “Responsibility” feel a little cumbersome.

“Family.”

Family fits. We’re expanding ours, and we’re not the only ones — there are several knee-high cousins in the Bay Area whom we’d really like to be part of our son’s life, not least because we like their parents. I’ve written before about how my first cousins were also my first friends, which was ever so easy with so many of us living close by, and about the “pride of family” that my great-uncle talks about in his book of Gingras Family Marriages. Graham’s experience was different — every family is different. But we’re all grown-ups now, we live within easy driving distance of each other, and the idea of our kids playing together just makes us happy.

It makes me happy. I’m uncomfortable with the idea of not knowing one’s own family, at least within one’s own generation and the one before it. I get that it happens and I get that my kid’s experience will be different from my own, but there’s a grounding in knowing where you come from. I learned a lot about my Grand from my uncle, a lot about my mom from her sister, and a lot about myself from every last one of my cousins — good, bad, and ugly, it all paints a picture that’s better than a gaping hole.

Family.

In about six weeks, my eldest aunt is visiting us for a couple of days. This is important to me for a bunch of reasons, but here’s the big one: I don’t get a lot of family visits, for a lot of very understandable reasons: I live far away. I’m the one who moved away. Travel is expensive. People have families and other responsibilities. I totally get it.

But this year I’m having my first baby, my mom is gone, and my dad…well, if he’s planning to come out and meet his grandson this year, he hasn’t shared that with me yet. Although this isn’t unusual for him/our relationship and I will probably be okay with it (but only if he gets his webcam hooked up and shows some interest in seeing the kid), it does make his big sister’s visit even more meaningful. This is also the year KidBrother and I expected to try to spend Christmas together — it’ll be the five-year mark since Mom died, and we said we’d try for every five years – but we’ll both have newborns in a minute, so all bets are off.

Family.

Good year for it.

Happy 2013, y’all.

Card2_bw

You can’t tell from this filter, but that is my beloved orange corduroy short trench coat. LL Bean is the BEST.

2012: Home

2011: Courage

2010: Whole

Filed under: A life less ordinary, Family, Happily ever after | Leave a Comment »

In review: 2012

Posted on January 3, 2013 by 8junebugs

This was a much more exciting list for 2011, I think. I made Big Moves in 2011. In 2012, I think I was staging the Big Moves of 2013. Even so…onward:

1. What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before? Bought and wore maternity clothes. AND I LIKED IT.

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? The word for this year was Home. Given that we’re on the path to real estate and we’re bringing a child into the world, I think I got there.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Yes — welcome, Ryder! But really, almost all the babies I know about – and they are LEGION — are due within the next five months.

4. Did anyone close to you die? No, but a very young woman, a friend of a friend, died at the very end of 2012 after kicking lung cancer’s ass for two years. I didn’t know you could miss someone you’ve never met.

5. What places did you visit? Oh, dear. We didn’t venture much off the beaten path this year. We visited family and went to Santa Monica for a couple of days, but that’s pretty much it.

6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012? A place to live for longer than a year at a time. (Yes. This again.)

7. What dates from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? September 24, because the start date of a new job is sort of critical to accessing benefits.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Nailing down a full-time job that I love and that supports my weird little family in all the right ways.

9. What was your biggest failure? I signed up for a half-marathon that I didn’t get to run.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? I strained the hell out of my hip training (badly) for the half-marathon that I didn’t get to run.

11. What was the best thing you bought? Tie: Kindle Paperwhite and two hours of housecleaning at the holidays.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Rodney. He’s a GOOD BOY! Good boy, puppy!!! Who’s a good boy?!?!

Wait, what?

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? John Boehner, et al. Also Mitt Romney and just about everyone who voted for him.

14. Where did most of your money go? Rent. Good god, I am so done with renting.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Making a whole new person.

16. What song will always remind you of 2012? ”Some Nights” by Fun.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? Even happier.

b) thinner or fatter?  Pregnant.

c) richer or poorer? About the same, although on more solid financial footing.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Beach time. I’m pretty sure we didn’t get out there once in 2012, which is just dumb.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Worrying.

20. How did you spend Christmas in 2012? Cooking dinner for four (see also: “Home”). Graham’s parents came here this year to prevent me from getting stranded in the snowy Sierras with a pregnant bladder. We also had a bunch of family over on Boxing Day, which I think I could love as a new tradition.

21. Did you fall in love in 2012? Yes. There’s something about knowing that your kid will be half you and half the person you love the most that shines a spotlight on that love.

22. What was your favorite TV program? Downton Abbey…at least up through the 2012 Christmas special. Oy. HAVE YOU NO SHAME, WRITERS?

23. What did you do for your birthday in 2012? Took a walk in the city. Ate some cupcakes.

24. What was the best book you read? Ugh. I read a lot, but not much that I’d keep on the shelves, were I still keeping books on the shelves. The Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs was entertaining. I also read Natural Hospital Birth: The Best of Both Worlds, which was nice and validating.

25. What did you want and get? A second term for the president. Also a new shredder.

26. What did you want and not get? Not much. I want for little and am very, very lucky most of the time.

27. What was your favorite film of this year? Les Mis pretty much blew me away, although I thought they did an excellent job adapting Hunger Games.

28. Did you make some new friends this year? Yes! Yay!

29.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? More respect for certain rules and property rights — I now hate middle-of-the-night hot tub parties, especially the ones thrown by non-residents. I am also not fond of dog owners who do not pick up after their pets. You don’t have to get off my lawn, but you damn sure better not leave poop on it.

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012? If it’s not stretchy and soft, I want no part of it.

31. What kept you sane? Nothing. I’ve spent the last six months ruled by hormones run amok.

32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? I’ve got a soft spot for Cory Booker, but Elizabeth Warren is my homegirl. There aren’t many politicians who make you think, “Damn, I wish I lived there so I could vote for her, too.”

33. What political issue stirred you the most? My own right to my own damn body. Attention legislators: This pregnant woman would like you to know that there’s no way in hell I would go through this against my will.

34. Who did you miss? Mom, Grand, and Memere — all the women whose experiences of childbirth would most relevant and useful right now. Given the way I would like to birth this child, I suspect Memere would be the most valuable resource…also the least likely to think it was an appropriate topic of conversation.

35. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012. I can do this.

Filed under: Book of Me, Home, Old Enough to Know Better | Leave a Comment »

Pupdate: I smellz change

Posted on December 4, 2012 by 8junebugs

Rodey_112912 something iz going on, you guyz.

i don’t know what it iz yet, but…mommy iz different.

she seemz sleeeeepy.

sometimez she smellz funny.

also, when we go on car ridez, and the car stops, and i climb onto mommy’z lap to look out that window?

there iz not enough room now. i get squished.

people keep saying “baby” to me. “rodney? blah blahblah blah baby?”

what iz a baby?

i think it iz maybe a two-legz puppy? there iz one here sometimez. he smellz yummy; plus, he haz toyz and food. (mom and dad say, “no humping the baby, rodney!” but how will he know this iz MY HOUSE?)

puppiez are okay, i guess. for a little while. then they need to go away so i can haz naptime.

grandma and grandpa haz a puppy named maggie. she iz annoying.

i hope the new two-legz puppy iz not annoying.

~r

P.S. know what else iz new around here? YARN.

I LIKE IT.

Read more »

Filed under: Little G, puppypuppypuppypuppypuppy | Leave a Comment »

Next Page »
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.