chance encounter

I ran up to J.C. Penney yesterday afternoon to pick up a few things. When I got to the checkout counter I was momentarily surprised because the cashier woman strongly reminded me of my mother.

She certainly didn’t look exactly like her but just very specific things cried out to me: the shape of her mouth, her hands and how she had her fingernails done up in the exact same nail color my mom used, she even smelled slightly of my mother. Must have been a perfume.

Ohh, do you know how hard it was to keep myself from going around that counter and just melting into that woman’s arms? So hard.

Sputnik is . . . aptly named?

This past Friday I had an appointment for a screening test. It’s basically an ultrasound and bloodwork to check for chromosomal abnormalities. No biggie, we did the same thing with Lydia mainly because, hey!, another ultrasound. Why not.

With Lydia we went downtown but now they’re offering the test at our hospital so the drive’s a bit easier. So in the ultrasound room we go, the tech gooks up the wand and asks, “If we’re able to tell the sex of the baby, do you want to know?”

Uh, okay, sure. But at 12 weeks? Good luck with that, lady.

So off she goes to get her pictures and measurements. Sputnik is just as cooperative as Lydia was in utero. Then she says, “Okay, based on the angle of this here and yada yada yada, it’s a boy. Welcome to the world of Star Wars.”

A what? For real?

No fooling?

See, Steven and I have been living in the Land of Pink for about two years now, and we’ve just gotten used to that. So we’re kinda floored, actually.

The doctor came in a few minutes later and said that was his guess as well. I asked him how sure he was and without missing a beat he replied, “95% sure.” Then Sputnik proceeded to curl up in a ball like a cat while the doctor unsuccessfully tried to get a profile shot of his face for the actual screening test.

So, there you have it. I’m not about to paint the nursery yet or anything, but . . . Star Wars and Pokemon and whatever else it is boys like. God knows I have no clue right now. We have baby dolls and tea sets over here.

christmastime for tacos

At Christmas last year Lydia was not yet mobile so I had no far for all my Christmas trimmings and trappings. This year, however, I had a great anxiety about how the now-running Lydia would behave with the tree. After all, it’s practically a toy-laden conifer in the eyes of a toddler.

When the tree went up this year I was very particular about which ornaments went where — the few non-breakable ornaments went towards the bottom and everything else went higher-up, out of reach. Last year I had even labeled a box of extra-breakable ornaments “Nervous Ornaments 2008” — they didn’t even go on the tree this year.

Surprisingly, except for one backflipping-of-the-couch-into-the-tree incident, Lydia has done very well with the tree. She knows not to mess with it and she mainly gets a kick out of pointing out all the ornaments and naming them to us: ‘birr,’ ‘durr,’ ‘dada,’ ‘ca-T,’ ‘FFFF,’ ‘OOOH!’ (Translation: bird, door, Santa, cat, tree, ‘It’s all so pretty!’)

the tree, 2009

I give you The Tree, 2009:

Lights: 2600 total, tied for last year

Lydia: surprisingly has shown a healthy respect for the tree thus far; she knows not to touch it — she just gets a kick out of naming what all the ornaments are

Cats: had been at their BEST behavior until the first presents went under the tree; I caught Renton in the act of chewing ribbon not ten minutes after I finished wrapping

room full of stuff

Ever since my laptop had a brief stint in an exercise class, it has been tethered to an old CRT screen (and, more recently, a sweet flatscreen monitor Steven scored from work) in the third bedroom that has always been dubbed ‘the office.’ Thus, I have also been relegated to the office whenever I have been on the computer. Ahh, to remember the glory days of cruising the web or blogging from the dining room, couch or the comfy bed. C’est la vie.

So here I am in the office. It’s cold in here right now, pretty boring, and CHOCK FULL OF STUFF. We filled it with Stuff when we first moved in, then when we had to make a bedroom for the impending Lydia we filled it with more Stuff from her room.

It’s amazing what we have in here. I see a laptop bag I can’t use right now since my computer is essentially grounded, a small filing cabinet we definitely use, a larger filing cabinet we’d love to use but can’t find the damn key to unlock the thing, a box of pictures, a huge shelf of books, Lydia’s excersaucer, the old CRT screen that should really be in the basement, Lydia’s infant carrier, a buttload of books . . . and that’s just a sample of what I see in the room itself. The closet is much more fascinating — it’s where we keep our DVD collection, games, and my My Little Ponies, among other things.

What in the world will we do with all this Stuff? It’s all important Stuff that I don’t want to be banished to the basement, but it can’t stay here anymore. We need room at the Inn, so to speak, and I don’t think Lydia will be willing to share her crib come next June.

Another kid? Yeah.

But what shall we do with the Stuff?

sputnik likes oreos

I’m eating little mini Oreos this morning because Sputnik apparently likes them. I usually don’t, or I at least scrape out the cream filling for disposal. If I gain 80 pounds, it’s all Sputnik’s fault.

I had a quick little checkup yesterday and everything’s peachy. Slowly but surely I think the nausea horribilus is ebbing — I went all the way from Monday to yesterday afternoon without taking a Pill of Awesome. Twelve pills left.

Looking forward to January and the beginning of the boring second trimester. I like the part where I’m hungry and can stomach water again.

and I thought the taco made me feel queasy

Hey . . . meet Sputnik!

This is actually from a couple of weeks ago. Been a while since I’ve mentioned the new one, huh? I have a very good excuse; even a doctor’s note.

Right around the six-week mark, I started feeling sick, sick, SICK. It was horrendous. I never full-on barfed, but I was always at that last step right before one does. That feeling stayed with me from waking up in the morning to going to bed at night. Unconsciousness was my only defense. I even started to lose weight; I never lost a pound with Lydia.

This came up at my last doctor’s appointment and, glory of glories, she prescribed me some happy happy anti-nausea medicine that has been a wonder. Dance! Unfortunately, due to an insurance prescription cap I didn’t know I had, I am officially maxed out on drugs until January 1st, so what I have is what I get. Fourteen pills left. I hope I don’t get really truly sick between now and January, actually.

Waiting ’till Thanksgiving to tell everybody didn’t exactly pan out. The Husband talked me into telling immediate family the same weekend he found out, and so we did. After the last appointment where we got to see the heartbeat and all that jazz, we’re pretty much telling everybody. I decided on Sputnik because I’ve decided it’s a boy since it’s kicking my butt so much more this time.

So here we are, two days after Thanksgiving, and I cannot wait for it to be January. Or Spring, for that matter. I’m cold.

the sign of the taco

Over the past week or so, I would notice Lydia do this seemingly random gesture where she would point into her palm. I didn’t think too much of it. She’s usually doing random things. I chalked it up to toddlerism and moved on.

Yesterday evening I finally caught on to when she was doing it, and it definitely is an intended gesture. I was feeding her dinner and she had finished her plate, so I asked her, “Do you want some more?” She immediately did her finger-pointing gesture — left hand extended flat, right index finger repeatedly pointing into her left palm.

“Hmmm,” I thought. They don’t teach baby sign language at Lydia’s daycare, but I wonder if someone there knows some and have passed it along anyway.

I told The Husband about it when he got home from work. I’m not sure he believed me until later when he was handing Lydia little pieces of pineapple for a snack. He asked her, “Lydia, do you want some more pineapple?” She pointed into her palm then opened her mouth with an “Ahh ahh ahh!” Every time he asked her, she would make that hand gesture.

It’s pretty neat, I just wish I new what it meant. Does it mean ‘more,’ ‘please,’ ‘yes,’ ‘give me that pineapple you crazy people!’ — I’d just like to know what’s being communicated.

We looked up what is the official Baby Sign Language for ‘more’ and it’s not that, so I’m clueless. Maybe she made it up herself.

mourning the loss of the incredible, edible egg

You know what would be really tasty right now? Potato salad! Or lemon meringue pie. Maybe some cake. But alas! It is not meant to be, for I have been bestowed with the horrible scourge known as the egg allergy.

I’m no stranger to food allergies — a cashew hasn’t passed through my lips since age six — but I’m almost 30 and having new allergies just pop up is a bit weird, but here we are. I was just peachy until a couple of weeks ago when I scarfed down a scrambled egg Steven cooked up for me and I immediately felt the closing in of the throat and itchiness of the ears that usually has me checking the ingredient list for nuts. I have to pop a couple of Benadryl and end up sleeping it off for five hours. The next day, I take two bites of cake and the whole thing starts over again — what is this rubbish?

At the doctor’s office, they hem and haw a bit about if and when they’re going to do a skin test on me. They couldn’t do it that day since the Benadryl is still in my system, but, by golly, they can take blood from me! Great, I’m an excellent giver of blood, just don’t swab my throat. Deal? Deal.

So in walks the nurse to perform the vampiric service and she is the picture of nervousness. She meekly asks, “Do you have good veins?”

“I have great veins,” I reply. I have never had anyone miss on the first try with me, and I have had COPIOUS amounts of blood taken from me in my lifetime, with between being pregnant with Lydia and Auburn University Medical Center’s bloodthirsty ways. I bet I could take blood from myself. Lisa, if you’re still reading, you should stop now and continue after the Line of Happiness.

Meek Nurse scoots up to me and checks out my right arm, slightly bruised from a (successful) blood draw the previous day (strep throat issue). She goes to the (equally as good) left arm. “I think I’ll go get the pro,” she muses, and leaves the room.

In walks Pro Nurse, who had been fetched from her lunch. She also avoids the right arm and goes towards the left, pokes around for what seems a very long time, then starts thumping me, like she can’t find the veins that I can clearly see on my arm. As I watch in horror, she moves toward the left side of my arm, thumps there, and I can tell my her actions she seems to think she has found a vein that I know isn’t there. She swabs the area with alcohol.

Oh God.

She strikes, but all she finds is pain. She wiggles around the needle a bit (so THAT’s what people talk about) but no luck. She finally retreats, defeated, and I convince her to go for the exact same area that the strep throat people struck yesterday. She has success on the second round. Amazing.

A week later and I am still sporting the bruise from that unsuccessful little stunt.

AND, they lost that blood draw and had to do it again today. Successfully. The first time.

________________________________________

Today I finally got the skin testing for the eggs, which told me what my throat and ears already did two weeks ago. Why is another matter. Like I said, it’s odd to suddenly strike up a food allergy as an adult. I seem to remember being told as a kid that I tested as a slight positive for egg once, so a decidedly temporary condition could be enhancing the allergy.

Since eggs are in vaccines, they did a test to see if I could tolerate the flu and H1N1 vaccines, but it’s a no-go for those, either. They were nice enough to give me a bottle Tamiflu and a “good luck!” 🙂

Here’s hoping my weird old body rights itself. Until then, I will definitely miss cookies, nougat, and chicken salad.