I'm a donkey on the edge...

Which, if you are Trevor, might make me an a$$...

This morning I had a cup of coffee with a little mocha mixed in.

And, you know what? It was fantastic. I had forgotten how much love (and miss) a good ole cup of joe in the morning.

When I mentioned this to Trevor, however, he thought I was kidding.

Like I would ever joke about something so wonderful. It was, literally, the highlight of my day. Heart flutters and residual dizziness be d@mned!

(To be fair, I woke up this morning with a killer headache and figured a little coffee was better than popping a pill. And, no. I won't be having another cup tomorrow morning. But I just might be counting down the days until I can.)

And suddenly it all makes sense...

So, I've been having to count Thor's movements for almost a month now, and it hasn't gotten any easier. Mainly because I am supposed to count ten kicks, nudges, etc. in a two hour period after dinner. And food seems to put my kid to sleep.

It didn't seem right to have to stimulate fetal movement by induing a sugar high, so I mentioned it to my doctor at my appointment on the 9th of November. Honestly, I thought he'd agree with me, and maybe we could come up with a different time of day to count kicks.

Instead we we ended up having this conversation:

Doctor: "You know what really, really works well to get the baby moving?"

Me: "No. What?"

Doctor: "Dr Pepper."

In other words, my doctor is kind of okay with me going on a sugar bender to completely freak out my unborn child. He is even fine with me having a little caffeine. All in the name of obtaining 10 movements in two hours.

So another couple of weeks passed and I started to notice something very interesting:

After Trevor eats, Trevor sleeps:

Obviously, Thor is just taking after his daddy.

No amount of sugar or caffeine in the world is going to counteract genetics, people.

And suddenly I am much less concerned about counting kicks after a meal. I figure I'll get them in during another two hour span during the day when the kiddo is actually awake and active. Without having to induce a sugar high for baby and sugar coma for mama.

I believe they call this a win-win.

Happy Thanksgiving...

Trevor walked in while I was getting dressed for Thanksgiving lunch, looked at me, paused, reached for my belly and said, "Wow! You are really starting to get BIG!"

He seemed shocked when I responded by punching him in the chest.

He tried to make up for it later by bringing me a slice of chocolate cake.

Obviously, the man is mocking me.

Congratulations Halley!

He is beautiful!

I'm thinking chocolate is the least of my problems...

My doctor just told me that I should start avoiding chocolate.

On the day before Thanksgiving.

Obviously, he is living in a fantasy land where smoking crack is legal.

Seriously. What kind of person tells a woman at the tail end of her pregnancy NOT to eat chocolate?

The man is insane.

Plus, I doubt that avoiding what little chocolate I do consume is going to have any effect on my heart flutters at this point. I think the only remedy for that is giving birth.

My new motto...

...Since I still don't (apparently) look as pregnant as I actually am:

"All the suffering. None of the sympathy."

If I was going to be pregnant for longer (and if we weren't expecting a major cold front this weekend) I would totally make t-shirts.

They weren't kidding when they said the end of this whole pregnancy thing is a little miserable...

Adding to the fact that I can't breathe, my back is killing me and my heart is still freaking out, Thor has now decided that I shouldn't be able to sleep soundly through the night, either.

Seriously. Pregnancy isn't for wimps.

I've seen 4 AM more times in the last week than I have since college. Except I remember those college nights being a lot of fun. 4 AM when you are essentially nine months pregnant is just plain uncomfortable.

Last night, it was all about Thor getting the hiccups. Apparently, the kiddo is NOT a big fan of the hiccups and had to make sure I was just miserable as he was. As if the rhythmic belly twitching wasn't enough, I also got to experience Thor's rage as he tried to fight off the hiccups by kicking the sh*t out of my ribs and basically throwing an intrauterine tantrum.

This epic battle went on for over TWO HOURS.

The inability to get comfortable has also caused me to start snoring. Something that Trevor just LOVES to point out every morning. Which is fascinating since I've been dealing with his snoring EVERY NIGHT for YEARS now.

Normally, I would be horrified if Trevor told me I had been snoring the night before. But, this time, I'm considering it a kind of poetic justice. Because I'm snoring because I am in the late stages of pregnancy. And Trevor? Yeah, he doesn't have an excuse. Somehow this makes the whole situation much more agreeable.

Muhahahahaha!

Why I love my friends...

Questions like this:

From: Susie
Sent: Monday, November 21, 2011 10:19 AM
To: Deals
Subject: Gretchen's b-day

Deals,

How many inflated balloons do you think you can get into your suv?

Thanks.

Susie

And moments like this:

Trevor's "Crackles" are back...

This is across the street from where THESE pictures were taken in the spring.

Okay. Maybe empire waisted clothing makes me look pregnant...

The following are the latest batch of belly pictures from over the weekend.

The first group are from last night at Idlewild. That's right: I wore a summer maxi dress to a white tie ball. To be fair, though, I just couldn't justify buying a maternity ball gown that I'd wear once for a matter of hours.

But, to dress it up, my Aunt Mimi lent me Moo's fur stole. Which nearly made my father faint when he saw me. Guess he never figured he catch me dead in fur anything. Normally, this is the case, but I was desperate to dress up my black, cotton dress. Plus, the stole itself is AT LEAST 60 years old. Wearing heirloom fur seems somehow more acceptable than "new fur". But maybe that is just me making excuses because I actually thought it looked pretty.

In either event, I got lots of compliments on it, and it made me happy to be wearing something that was once my grandmother's. Apparently, I got my broad shoulders from her.

Anyway, these pictures are post event, so I am looking a little worse for wear. I can't remember the last time I was out until nearly midnight:






The second group is from this morning after Sunday School. We had an intergenerational event for all of the kiddos instead of regular Sunday School by grade. There had been discussion of Trevor and I having to dress up like Joseph and Mary (since our church decided to kick off the advent season a week early), but somehow we got out of it and only had to help the kids with their craft projects instead.

My sister thinks it is because I didn't look pregnant enough.

You be the judge:





Depending on which due date you are using, I am somewhere between 34.5 and 36.5 weeks. I've decided to average the two together and just go with 35.5. Soon I'll be considered "full term" regardless, and I'll be happy as long as I start 2012 with a baby.

Father Husband of the year...

Me: "Your child is hurting me. It feels like he is attempting to rip me apart from the inside."

Trevor: "Good boy."

It has been an odd week...

I am at that stage in my pregnancy where time seems to be going by at warp speed. Part of this is good, because I am starting to feel pretty miserable. The child seems to be living IN my lungs at the moment, which makes it hard to breathe. Today, I got winded sitting in my office chair. And, no. I am not kidding.

The other part about time speeding by is bad because...well, the nursery is nowhere near ready and we still have yet to purchase a car seat. Nesting: FAIL!

I also need to figure out what I am going to do about Christmas, because nothing sounds more miserable to me than having to go to the mall to shop for gifts at nine months pregnant. I obviously need to come up with some sort of strategy. It is times like these where I wish I was crafty or had baking skills. Or, you know, a personal shopper.

In other news, Trevor's grandmother is still haunting me. Apparently she wasn't making enough of an impact with the scalp itch, so her spirit hacked into my PayPal account. I made an Annual Fund gift to a local nonprofit via PayPal and it showed up on both my receipt AND in the paperwork the nonprofit received that I had made said contribution in her name. Which, by the way, I hadn't. The paperwork also directed the nonprofit to send notification of the donation to her previous worldly address, and not me.

Seriously, Gran?

All this is very odd seeing as though I rarely use PayPal except for iTunes, and have never done anything remotely connected to Trevor's grandmother using PayPal or her former address.

So the obvious conclusion is that the woman is still haunting me and has now decided to take credit for my end of the year charitable donations.

Speaking of the bizarre and irrational, the City of Dallas called me on Thursday to ask how they could obtain a permit to sell things in Dealey Plaza. I've decided this is the City's way of letting me know that they've bequeathed ownership of the plaza to me personally, and I can now start charging people to use it. I am thinking about setting up a toll booth around the grassy knoll and fining vendors who pronounce Dealey "Daily". Any funds generated from these pilot programs can help offset the cost of Thor's daycare.

Sounds good, right?

Except I really just called the city back, reminded them that the plaza was...ahem...theirs and that they - not me - were in charge of handing out permits to vendors.

And that is when I was informed that the city had been referred to me.

OMG! By WHOM?!?!

All this is made even more fabulous by the fact that I have absolutely nothing to do with the plaza and work in a museum on the other side of town (which also has nothing to do with the plaza).

Had I been thinking clearly (i.e. not concentrating all my efforts on not laughing in this woman's face) I clearly should have told her to call 3-1-1. Wouldn't that have been poetic justice!

So, how's that for a weekly update?! Can't breathe, my PayPal account is haunted by my recently deceased grandmother-in-law and the City of Dallas thinks a museum educator knows more about vendor permits for their own city plaza than they do.

It has been a banner week for the mildly uncomfortable and utterly ridiculous.

Yet another unattractive side of pregnancy...

Yes, that is my leg. Actually, no. It is my giant thigh.

As if the weight gain, cankles and the belly aren't enough, the pregnancy induced varicose veins are just icing on the bleeping cake. It looks like I have a series of bruises all up and down my leg, and one of those areas (which is the size of a silver dollar, by the flipping way) appeared some time between bathing the dogs this morning and taking a shower tonight.

What is it the teenagers say on Facebook? FML?

Yeah, exactly.

Granted, my genetics and history of bad veins pretty much guaranteed that all the treatments, surgeries and therapies I've endured over the years to fix my incompetent values would be undone by pregnancy. Still, it is hard (and a little depressing) to watch.

I keep trying to remind myself how bad it WOULD HAVE been had I not had all of said treatments, surgeries and therapies. I would be in agony right now. But the idea of starting over after Thor's arrival kind of makes me want to cry. Support hose are not my friend.

I guess I shouldn't complain. Thor is healthy. I am healthy. And at least my vein issue was caught early and is treatable. I guess my real concern is for the baby. I just hope he inherits Trevor's circulatory system!

Oh, and his hair. Definitely hope Thor gets his daddy's hair...

An afternoon hike in Cedar Hill State Park and the Penn Farmstead...

I asked for proof that Haskell was still alive...

And, well, I got this:

(Poor Haskell)

Grammy Pammy and Amy discover Photo Booth for Mac...

It started out innocently enough...






And then we got into the effects...


I call this the "finger series"...






And then someone thought it was a good idea to add a magnifying glass as a prop...








Add a little drama...






Then Zeus got into the action...




There was a brief moment of sanity while we all posed for a picture for the boys at the ranch...


And then it got just plain weird...






























Finally, it fun was concluded with the "Grammy Pammy is a siamese twin" series...

The End