Wednesday Advice Smackdown

But first, a few questions that cropped up from Friday's post about the Big Fancy Photo Shoot:

Q) Come on! Post the Polaroid!

A) No. Am not allowed. It technically belongs to the magazine and they've told me not to post it, so I won't, for I am Obedient and Good.

Q) Will you scan or link to the article when it comes out?

A) I will be allowed to scan the article, but not until the magazine is off newstands (late October). The Washingtonian's website doesn't offer the current issue's contents online, and I'm not sure if they even archive fluffy little articles like this one after the next issue comes out. So basically -- I will let everyone know when the issue is available, but non-locals will have to wait a few weeks before I can scan it or (possibly) link to it. In other words: chill out, I'll do the best I can.

Q) Fuck this photo shoot noise. WHAT DID YOU BUY AT SEPHORA?

A) My apologies for leaving out this scintillating piece of information.

 

This is everything I used. From the top: Marc Jacobs perfume (because smelling good totally makes you more photogenic), Sephora volumizing mascara, Nars Creme Blush in Turkish Red, Nars Duo Eye Shadow in All About Eve, Tony & Tina herbal eye base (apparently discontinued, wah), Sephora slim eye pencil in Chocolate Brown, LORAC eye shadow in Garnet, Nars Lip Lacquer in Eros, and my old reliable standby, Sue Devitt Triple Seaweed Gel Foundation in Tanami.

And this is me, trying to figure out which side of my face should not ever face the camera.

I look kind of holy.

Dear Amalah,

I have the same love/hate relationship with Ikea that you do.  Yet I can't say away!  And their big catalogs are like porn!

Anyway, I have been coveting the Hemnes bed for many years but was never sure if it could be used with both a mattress and a box spring.  The display model always just uses the mattress and I honestly don't trust the word of the Ikea employees (because they clearly never warned me that those curtain rods and curtain rod holders I bought that one time WOULD NEVER EVER WORK AND WILL MAKE ME CRY.)

But I do trust you, Amalah.  Will the Hemnes bed hold both the mattress and box spring?

See you in the Ikea returns line!

Keepergirl

(By the way, the number one sign that I am indeed trapped in an abusive relationship with IKEA: while dozens and dozens of you chimed in yesterday to bash IKEA, all I wanted to do was jump in and DEFEND THAT DAMN STORE. Sure, we're going through a rough patch right now! But I have dozens of wonderful things from IKEA that I love with all my heart! The expensive pre-assembled actual-wood baby furniture was fucked up too! Besides, it's all totally my fault for not checking the boxes before we left the store! I brought it on myself! I deserve crappy furniture!)

(And on Monday I bought a hot dog there for 50 CENTS, PEOPLE, AND IT WAS DELICIOUS.)

Anyway. The HEMNES bed. No, it won't really work with a boxspring, unless you don't mind having your mattress tower over the footboard. The footboard is very low and a boxspring will practically come to the top of it, and then the mattress will be completely uncontained by the bedframe and will look really weird.

But here's the thing: You don't NEED a boxspring with the HEMNES bed. It's kind of hard to explain, but the bedframe kind of is a boxspring. You buy these wooden slat-things along with the bed (in your choice of "firm" or "springy") and a metal midbeam thing, and they support the mattress beautifully.

We've been using a boxspring we inherited from Jason's GRANDMOTHER every since we've been married (that's how maniacally cheap we are when it comes to furniture), and for years have complained about our crappy mattress. Five minutes after ditching the boxspring and collapsing on our newly-assembled bed, we looked at each other in confusion. Did the bed feel...firmer? What?

Honestly, our mattress feels SO MUCH BETTER now that it's supported by those beam things instead of the boxspring. I can roll my huge pregnant self over without grunting and moaning in agony. Jason swears the last two nights of sleep have been the best he's had in years.

So there you go. IKEA can be mean and spiteful, but DAMN, he's good in bed.

Dear Amalah,

Eeeek.  I've never in my life written to an advice columnist, but after lurking around your blog for a long time and reading many of your Wednesday Advice Smackdowns, I finally felt compelled to take the plunge--mostly because you're the first advice columnist I actually felt could help--or, at the very least--entertain me.  Anyway, I think your blog is one of the very few worth reading.  You're an intelligent, entertaining, and regularly delightful writer, and I truly enjoy salivating over and admiring the pictures of your adorable pets and equally adorable and enviable products, as well as the descriptions,picture, and links of  your various gorgeous handbags, clothes, and make-up products.  And I think your advice is bizarrely pithy and intelligent.

Best of all, your writing regularly makes me laugh out loud (on a side-note: Yah for Snarkywood!).  So, thank you for sharing a part of your life--I think it's a life worth sharing.  And of course, congratulations on your pregnancy! I'm hoping to have a baby some time in the near future, and your blog has been a constant source of encouragement and, yes, education--light years better than any self-help book I've had the  misfortune to come across.

Okay, enough already with the ass-kissing.  Now comes my plea for advice: As much as I love your whip-smart writing, I must admit to feeling a bit (ummm... bitterly) fixated and--well, to be even more blunt--blinded by jealousy regarding Jason's sweet propensity to shower you with flowers for no apparent reason (well, besides his obvious love for you).

So here's the question: How does a woman encourage her otherwise dear, loving, and considerate partner of two years to give her the occasional bouquet of flowers? I mean, short of stomping into his office, hands on hips, and demanding that he give me the occasional damn bouquet of bright, lovely, sweet-smelling flowers--hell, at this point I'd even settle for those sad, wilty  arrangements they sell at the grocery store. 

In fact, at this point even the occasional bouquet of wildflowers would suffice. I've tried everything short of the most obvious solution: making a reasonable and straightforward request that he occasionally hand over the flowers. Maybe it's silly of me, but I resist that scenario because it seems to detract from the romance of the experience.  I've bought flowers for myself and made a big production about how much they delight me (part of a desperate attempt to send him a much needed--and ill-headed-- message).  I ruminated on this subject with my mother, grandmother, and aunts, who sweetly, regularly, and pointedly compensate by  sending me lovely arrangements--and again, I always make an extravagantly effusive and dramatic production of conveying my delight for these thoughtful gestures, futilely hoping that my unbridled enthusiasm will send him a message. Recently my mother suggested that perhaps I'd just have to buy my own flowers.  But buying flowers for oneself just isn't the same as being surprised by receiving thoughtful and unnecessary gestures from one's significant other.

I've even resorted to buying flowers for myself and then oohing and awing over my purchases, as well as pointedly informing my partner that the only other time I received flowers from a man was when my psycho ex bombarded me with six dozen roses--a deeply depressing experience, as my tiny apartment reeked with the sickly sweet smell of desperation (and the next day I eagerly donated these flowers to a nursing home).  This rather depressing experience, I think, reasonably calls for some kind of nice, compensating flower experience from a man I truly love and cherish, and to whom I am whole-hearted committed. But alas, I've made no headway.  Apparently, from what I've been able to drag out of him diplomatically, he would rather give gifts that last for longer periods of time: necklaces, rings, clothes.  He thinks that flowers are wasteful because they have such a short shelf-life.  I don't mean to suggest that this is a one-way street; I really enjoy giving him little tokens of my love.

So what should I do?  Personally, I would like to receive a pretty bouquet when it's not the requisite holiday time: just a little something every now and then, particularly when I'm having a rough week.  Here's the rather silly quandary: a good part of the allure of receiving flowers is that, at least according to my own perhaps misguided thinking, they should come as a sweet surprise, and not as a grudging acquiescence to an emphatic demand. I would really appreciate your advice on this matter.  Bottom line: I want flowers! Not all the time, not huge expensive bouquets, not the the obligatory dozen roses on V-day or my birthday.  Maybe you or your readers could give me some advice.  In the big scheme of things, I grudgingly acknowledge that my complaint is embarrassingly bourgeois and maybe just a little petty.

Nevertheless, I want flowers! Thank you so much for any advice you or your readers might offer, and I hope you have a joyous pregnancy and a delightful experience with the new-born babe.

Best,
Kelly

I'm of two minds about this. One, you acknowledge that you want flowers because, to you, they represent a "thoughtful and unnecessary gesture." This means something you HAVEN'T demanded or nagged about or done any sort of clever trickery to "get him" to send you flowers. If you have to resort to subterfuge (i.e. signing him up for email coupons from ProFlowers, inventing a coworker who's flirting with you) or flat-out demands, then the flowers you'd receive would actually not mean anything and thus be besides the point entirely. Right?

Right?

The best thing to do is to simply TELL HIM that if he's ever thinking of doing something nice for you, he should know that you would really, really love to get some flowers. And then DROP IT. If he doesn't send you flowers, you need to accept that he is just not a flower-sending-kinda guy. And then move on and don't read into this as him not listening to you and withholding affection and blah blah blah but HER boyfriend sends HER flowers pout pout pout.

But of course, I do have a secondary opinion. And it's that guys should send girls flowers if they want them and shut the hell up about it. That whole "I want to give you gifts that LAST" thing is a fucking cop-out, especially since 90% of you aren't actually out there buying those elusive gifts-that-last on a regular basis.

(It's like people who refuse to celebrate Valentine's Day or Mother's Day because they're "Hallmark Holidays" and "we should be expressing our love and gratitude every day," which, FINE, BUT ARE YOU? NO? THEN BUY A BOX OF CHOCOLATES AND A CARD ALREADY.)

Face it, girls like flowers. We know they don't last and they seem silly to you but we like them. They're pretty. They smell nice. They make other girls jealous and we feel special and spoiled. So get on ProFlowers' email list and buy your significant other some damn flowers when they send you coupons.

However, are flowers essential? Is a guy who won't send flowers deeply damaged and insensitive? Should you chuck him to the curb like an extra LACK side table? No. You should probably just get over it.

(Says the girl who gets flowers all the damn time, for no damn reason. Shut up, Amy.)

Dear Q of E,

I just read that entry where you told us all an amusing story about lying to your parents at Christmas time. I know you would NEVER do that, good daughter that you are, but it made me feel very guilty because I remembered the worst lie I ever told.

I was sharing a flat and fell in love with a Catalan guy who lived with me. I didn't tell my mother, of course. I left the flat in July because I was going on holidays and my heart was breaking at leaving this guy (we actually live together in Barcelona now so happy ending). So my Mum brings me into town. She goes shopping and I go to pick up my deposit. She leaves me the keys to the car cos I say I'll be back first and promise to be back at the car in an hour. I go to pick up my deposit. Get it in like five minutes. Go up to my old flat to spend time with boyfriend. Make out and cry and promise to love forever etc. for way too long. Realise time is passing but say Fuck it, I CANNOT LEAVE THIS MAN. Finally Mum calls, says she's back and where am I? I lie, say that the landlady delayed giving me money, say I'm on my way. Kiss some more. I get back to the car and my dear mother who gave birth to me and fed me and loves me is standing outside the car soaked wet because? We were in Ireland, it rained a lot, she was waiting in a big carpark with no shelter and her stupid ungrateful bitch of a daughter was late because she just HAD to kiss this guy 1500 times.

On our drive home I stuck to my story about the landlady causing a delay and not giving me the money right away. My mother got all defensive on my behalf and promised to go see that lady and teach her a lesson in manners. I felt shame. Deep shame. But I could not tell her the truth and I still don't dare to.

So my question to you, pretty mother-to-be (enough sucking-up or should I continue?) who is wise and caring (enough yet?) and knows all, is this: Should I tell my mother why I was late that day?  This question was really lame. I am very sorry. Feel free to ignore. And send me sweets :-)

Love,
Guilty daughter

No. What good would it do?

It would ease your guilty conscience, of course, but seriously, that's a selfish reason to confess a sin. (We'll completely ignore the cosmic/spiritual ramifications of unconfessed sins, because I'm really tired and don't feel like getting into it.)

Basically, you know you did a shitty thing and you feel badly about it. You won't do it again. Your mom will probably be hurt by the truth (unless she completely LOVES your significant other and has a sense of humor about young-things-in-love-and-the-stupid-shit-they-do). And even if she DOES have a sense of humor about things like that, no mother wants to hear about her daughter's make-out sessions. I would just leave it alone.

Dearest Amalah,

My husband and I were recently in DC, as he was interviewing with several graphic design firms in the area.  We totally fell in love with the city, and swore we would live in one of those cute apartments near the zoo.  And then we found out that living in a run-down 1 bedroom shack near the zoo can put someone behind $1900 smakaroos a month.  That might not be a lot of money for some people, but  A.) My husband is an entry level designer and won't be making enough to cover that kind of rent, B.) I'm 4 months pregnant, and seriously doubt someone is going to hire me when I'll be out on maternity leave in 5 months, and C.) Did I mention we won't have a lot of money?  One of the firms my husband interviewed with is flying him up there to interview him again, and it is looking more and more like we'll be moving to the area. Here is where I throw myself to your mercy, Amalah, Queen of all things, and ask of you, is there ANYWHERE in DC proper, that's cute, safe (relatively at least), and... affordable?  Bear in mind, we'll need 2 bedrooms (child on the way).   I'm quickly realizing that there may be no way that we can live in the cute and wonderful town of DC, and may have to *gasp* commute!  Please, PLEASE help!!

-Corinne

Oh man. Renting in DC. It's a fucking nightmare.

We haven't tried to rent in this area for about four years now, but DC real estate in general is absolutely insane. Everybody wants to live in the same tiny, overcrowded neighborhoods and somehow, everybody seems to have millions and millions of dollars. I am not sure if these people actually HAVE millions of millions of dollars or if the entire population is mortgaged up to their eyeballs. We bought our tiny condo (technically one bedroom, one bathroom + loft, which means legally speaking, we can't even list as a two-bedroom unit) several years ago for a price that seemed horrifically high to us -- and the damn place has still  practically doubled in value. Our next-door neighbors sold their near-identical unit for a fucking half million dollars.

A HALF MILLION DOLLARS. FOR A CONDO. WITH NO PARKING AND NO ELEVATOR AND THE POSSIBILITY OF ROACHES. JESUS GOD IN HEAVEN.

And while we're tempted to sell at these prices, there's kind of the little question of where we'd move TO, since anything slightly bigger than our unit in the neighborhoods we like seems to have extraneous zeroes in the price. So we're staying put and just trying not to elbow each other in the head too much in the bathroom every morning.

Anyway. While I'm no expert on the DC rental market, I'll do my best to suggest neighborhoods based on what I know about housing prices. Everybody wants to live in the same cool neighborhoods in Northwest. Dupont, G'town, Adams Morgan, Cleveland Park. So you need to find the uncool, up-and-coming neighborhoods. They might be slightly sketchy right now, but GODDAMN, we almost bought a place on U St. NW but thought the neighborhood was kind of ehhhh, and now U St. is totally awesome and that tiny place is probably worth a hundred billion dollars or something.

(For non-locals who may be trying to follow this nonsense for some reason: DC has four quadrants. NW, NE, SW, SE. At one time, anything other than NW basically meant Drive-by Murderville, USA, but that's rapidly changing. SE is still pretty fucking terrible, but everybody hopes the new baseball stadium and waterfront attractions will change that. But still. I wouldn't live there with a baby. Yet. I mean, some people still want Marion Barry to be mayor again, and I'm sure he's just itching to bankrupt the city and destroy the Anacostia waterfront a second time.)

Northeast is really getting nice, but a lot of people can't shake the prejudice of having "NE" in their mailing address. We've considered moving there, but have yet to find a neighborhood we really like.

So I was going to suggest a few neighborhoods (Mount Pleasant, Takoma Park, Columbia Heights, Logan Circle) that are considered up-and-coming, but then I just did a quick search for two-bedroom apartments at The City Paper and Craigslist and holy shit, you're lucky if you can stay below $2,400 a month for anything that's not Southeast.

This isn't very encouraging, but we were never able to rent in the city before we bought our place. We rented in far-out 'burbs like Germantown and Gaithersburg to save money. Our commutes were terrible and the neighborhoods were your typical chain-restaurant-strip-mall suburban nightmare, but after going to rental after rental in the city to be the seventh couple to turn in an application for a run-down one bedroom that cost $1700 a month, we gave up and decided to stay in Maryland and focus on saving for a downpayment.

Then we moved into the city and proceeded to procreate. We're backwards like that.

I'm not sure what you're actually looking to spend in rent, but it does sound like the super-cute and super-safe neighborhoods in DC are out of your price range. I'm hoping some local readers can chime in and suggest a neighborhood that's slipped my mind for some reason or offer additional guidance, but for now? Get on Craigslist, get searching, drive through as many neighborhoods as you can and see as many places as you can. Oh, and use that pregnant belly to get preferential treatment.

(Let me say one more thing: Just like I will love and defend IKEA to the death, so will I defend living in DC. I love this city. Irrationally so. The suburbs make me nervous and twitchy and I have a reverse commute with no traffic and I can walk to everything on the planet. So there.)

(We also have to keep up our city cred for the other blog in our household.)

Questions for future Smackdowns can be sent to advice@amalah.com. Questions for past Smackdowns can no longer be sent due to technical difficulties with the space/time continuum.

IKEA Jones and the Dresser of Doom

Three IKEA trips in three days = A very bad three days.

Now let me just state for the record that I love IKEA. So much. I love the Swedish designs and the low prices and the product names like BJÖRKENTOPES and the big flat boxes. I love how adorable everything looks in the catalog and I love the promise that if I just buy that set of baskets and that particle-board cubby-thing my organization problems will be solved forever. And I love the meatballs.

Yet I'm beginning to realize that IKEA is not very good to me. The store is far away, crazy and crowded. By the time you get to the lighting section you realize that every couple in the store is having a nervous breakdown and/or screaming match and suddening you are yelling at your significant other too because IKEA doesn't have the lamp you wanted but BY GOD WE ARE LEAVING THIS STORE WITH A LAMP SO JUST PICK OUT A LAMP THEY DO HAVE FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST.

And by the time you get to the self-service warehouse to find the four boxes that comprise the ZRÅDALEKTOP shelving unit and find that they are sold out of three, one of you is usually crying and/or drawing up divorce papers.

Basically, IKEA is an abusive boyfriend who twists your arm too hard and then buys your forgiveness with an ingenious media storage solution that he will then not help assemble because he wants to go drinking with his friends and after you assemble it yourself you realize that it doesn't actually fit your TV after all and it kind of wobbles but you use it anyway because you don't want to make him mad because he hits you sometimes.

But still. I love IKEA. IKEA can change! IKEA is so good to me when he's sober!

Although this past weekend, IKEA pretty much beat the living shit out of me.

We went to IKEA on Saturday to buy a dresser. And possibly some little matchy-match bedside tables. Now that our bedroom has the pretty new floors and Jason's closet and wire hanger collection has been moved upstairs, we decided it was time get ourselves some furniture.

We chose the HEMNES 8-drawer dresser. Because it matched the HEMNES 6-drawer dresser we already had, and because we completely forgot what a fucking fiasco that damn dresser was because we bought the brown one and half the stuff in the box was white, and when we showed up to return it there was another couple returning the OTHER half of our HEMNES because they wanted white and ended up with a bunch of brown pieces and the cheerful IKEA worker was all, "Well! Didn't this work out nicely!" and we all glared at her with looks of glarey death.

Anyway. We bought the 8-drawer version on Saturday, along with two bedside tables, two rugs, some lamps and these cute little stacking baskets that I don't KNOW what I need them for, I just know that I NEED THEM. STOP ASKING.

We almost bought the NORESUND bed, but Jason decided it was too big and heavy and I pouted because COME ON, the box is so thin and flat! How bad can it be? Even I could carry that box! I will so help you carry that box!

In the end, I carried the stacking baskets upstairs. Jason carried the rest and kept looking at me like, "I cannot believe you almost talked me into buying a bed. You don't care if I live or die, just as long as you and your goddamn nesting syndrome are happy."

I set to work assembling the bedside tables while Jason ripped open HEMNES Box One of Two. And found that pretty much everything in the box was completely broken. The top of the dresser was cracked in two, like somebody had smashed it with a big Swedish karate chop.

"It's okay!" I chirped. "We can take it back tomorrow! And then we can get the bed!"

We took the broken pieces back on Sunday, marching them past the staggering masses at the registers who eyed us warily, and we looked back at them and nodded wisely. "THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU. THERE IS A REASON THAT TABLE ONLY COSTS $29."

We also went back to the NORESUND bed and I again tried to convince Jason that it wasn't that heavy.

(It really was that heavy. I am an optimist but mostly a liar.)

So we didn't buy the bed. We went to Home Depot instead and bought 400 pounds worth of bathroom-related things because our insanity knows no bounds.

(We also bought a sink, a medicine cabinet and a towel rack, because four weeks before my due date is TOTALLY THE PERFECT TIME FOR MORE HOME IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS.)

We came home and started assembling the dresser. Again. And we realized that huh, we seem to have a lot of pieces left over.

And huh again, we seem to be missing some pieces. Like, all the drawers.

We were missing all the drawer bottoms and two drawer fronts. I was not so chirpy this time when we realized we had to go back to IKEA. Again.

We went last night, after work. The same cheerful IKEA worker whom we spoke with on Sunday helped us, although she was not so cheerful this time and admitted that she hated the HEMNES line with a passion because they are always, ALWAYS boxed wrong. Good to know! Bastards.

I took the drawer bottoms and drawer fronts back to the car and then ordered Jason back into the store, because we were buying that damn bed.

They were sold out of the bed. OF COURSE THEY WERE SOLD OUT OF THE BED. We'd only stared at the stack of 20-odd beds on Saturday and again on Sunday, why in the world would we expect them to have the bed on Monday?

So we bought a different bed instead. Because it was there and it was cheap and yes, it was the HEMNES bed. Because we have learned NOTHING.

Actually, while the bed was an experiment in hex key horror in terms of assembly, it was at least intact and contained all the necessary pieces. We're pretty happy with it.

(And no, that's not our bedspread. That's a tarp we threw over it this morning because the contractors were coming to redo our stairs today since they did them wrong. Except now they are not coming today, they are coming tomorrow, and I am wondering if IKEA sent them to destroy me and if they are possibly from the HEMNES line and whether HEMNES is Swedish for "HA HA HA GO TO HELL YOU CHEAP SUCKER.")

Something still ain't right about that fucking dresser though.

I put all the damn drawers together last night and actually had it down to quite a science by the time I got to the last one. And then: disaster. Something was wrong. All the little pre-drilled holes didn't line up right, or something.

Jason: Holy shit, we have to go back to IKEA.

Amy: WE ARE NOT GOING BACK TO IKEA.

Jason: Amy, there is something wrong with that drawer.

Amy: I CAN FIX IT. I CAN FIGURE IT OUT. WE ARE NOT GOING BACK TO IKEA.

So after attempting several MacGyver-like solutions involving extra dowels, I made Jason drill new holes in the drawer to make it work. And indeed, it worked. It was a fine-looking drawer.  Until I tried to put it in the dresser.

It won't go it all the way. And I died. And then I came back to life to kill the dresser and to say many, many bad words at it.

After closely examining the delicate faux-woodgrain pattern of the oddball drawer, I've determined that the cheerful IKEA worker gave me a drawer front from a different dresser.

And that we have to go back to IKEA.

So Not Ready For My Close-Up

Once upon a time, when my belly was small and my belly button was not visible through my clothes, I was interviewed by an Actual Media Professional for an Actual Media Publication.

I know I said a lot of boring, stupid things, but apparently, they've decided to run the article anyway. (It's gotten bumped several times because, well, it's an article about some dumb girl and her blog. "Filler," as I believe the Actual Media Professionals would call it.)

Accompanying the article will be a full-page color photo. Of me.

THE VERY VERY PREGNANT ME.

The photo shoot was yesterday, which is why I didn't post anything. Because anything I posted would have been stuff like this:

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

ACK!

PANIC!

WHAT SHOULD I WEAR, INTERNET? WHAT SHOULD I WEAR?

I HATE MY HAIR. HAAAATE.

I HAVE NO NICE LIPGLOSS. WHY DO I HAVE SUCH CRAPPY LIPGLOSS?

GOD LORD IN HEAVEN, I AM SO HUGE AND NONE OF THE CUTE MATERNITY STUFF FITS YOU WHEN YOU ARE THIS HUGE EXCEPT FOR THINGS THAT SHOW OFF MY ARMS AND I WILL BE DAMNED IF I'M GOING TO SHOW MY PREGNANT ARMS IN THE PAGES OF THE WASHINGTONIAN BECAUSE PEOPLE I HATE ARE GOING TO SEE THIS AND FAT HOT HAM, I NEED TO LOOK FABULOUS.

So I spared you my freak out. You're welcome.

(Poor Miss Zoot, however, may never recover from my badgering her with whether or not I should go buy a new outfit despite 1) the fact that I will only be able to wear it for like, four more weeks, 2) the fact that NOTHING for the third trimester is attractive, no matter how many hundreds of dollars you spend, and 3) the fact that I tend to need to wear something a couple times before I decide if I like it so a photo shoot seems like a bad time to be messing with New Experimental Outfits.)

Anyway, I opted not to buy new clothes, but I did make an emergency trip to Sephora where I equally terrorized and thrilled a smiling young salesgirl with my hysterical tale of I HAVE TO DO MY OWN HAIR AND MAKEUP AND I HATE EVERYTHING PLEASE TAKE THIS BASKET AND FILL IT WITH EXPENSIVE THINGS YOU THINK I NEED.

She obliged and picked out all sorts of new shiny makeup for me and I did very little except nod and hand over my credit card.

Although I was temporarily stunned out of panic mode when she complimented my "beautiful skin tone." Y'all, I have been buying makeup since I was 13 years old, and never in my entire life have I ever been told I have a beautiful skin tone. "Uneven," "blotchy" and "pothole-sized pore-pocked," yes. "Beautiful," hell to the no. Thank you, pregnancy, (she says grudgingly).

So then I went home and tried on every article of clothing I own, including pre-pregnancy clothes that I thought might be low-waisted enough to avoid The Belly, but lo, I could not even get them past my thighs. This was very much JUST WHAT I NEEDED AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME, THIGH FAT ISSUES.

I ended up in jeans and a brown t-shirt. This is a look known as, "I have officially given up."

Then I spent ages on my hair and makeup and lamented not being together enough to get a haircut or a professional blow-out because my god, THE FRIZZ and the BLAHNESS.

Then I walked out to the living room to find Ceiba eating a roach trap.

I'm such a rockstar, y'all. I cannot believe I am not on the cover of Vogue this very minute.

So again, more panic, because SHE ATE A ROACH TRAP.

Is she dying? Foaming at the mouth? Should I feed her Ipecac? Stick my finger down her throat? Should I call the vet? Call the photographer? Or just call Jason and cry and ruin my pretty new eye makeup?

In the end, I just stared really hard at her for awhile and decided that she mostly ate the crunchy plastic shell of the trap and didn't seem to eat that much of the tempting, poisonous mush inside. Or maybe I just chose to believe this because I am a Bad Person who didn't want to cancel her photo shoot.

(What happens when my baby eats a roach trap? WHAT THEN, INTERNET?)

Blah blah photographer showed up, we trekked to a nearby park where I could pose with "attitude," which meant no smiling and lots of head tilts and hands placed defiantly on what used to be my hips.

He thought everything looked cool and awesome. I just begged him to tell me if my hair looked like crap.

Behind the photographer was a road, and of course, on this road, were cars. And every car stopped to stare at us and I could see the windows going down and the car occupants debating whether or not I was Somebody.

I only barely refrained from shouting, "I'm Britney Spears, y'all!" Mostly because that would have broken the spell of my intense attitude.

And then we were done. He gave me a Polaroid he'd snapped to check the lighting, and while I do look very well lit, my hair indeed looks like crap and my expression is kind of "Whaaa?"

I have a creeping feeling that the actual photos are going to be variations on that theme. And damn, I will never make fun of ugly pregnant photos of Britney Spears again, because this rockstar shit is HARD.

(That last sentence is a lie and we all know it.)

 

Reassure Me All You Want, There's No Denying That All This Nursery Talk Must End NOW

The Wednesday Advice Smackdown will not be seen today, so that we may continue our round-the-clock coverage of NurseryWatch 2005.

(What? You people DEMANDED photos! Who am I to deny the will of the people? Especially when the will of the people calls for a photo essay that's a million times easier to churn out than an advice column.)

First up, Hangergate!

It's not trash, it's ART, sweetie darlings. My husband is an avant-garde genius.

And now, the crib!

Hello! I am a crib. And...well, I don't do very much except sit here and look cribbish.

I would like to take a moment and defend the absolute boringness of the nursery walls. My mother-in-law will be doing all the actual decorating and fancy painting in a few weeks. Rumor has it there will be an oak tree that canopies across the ceiling and lots of woodland creatures like bunnies and turtles and things. In the meantime: blaaaaah.

The bedding set. So lovely, so soft, so coordinated.

I am currently sleeping on shrunken sheets that have multiple holes from the cat's claws and a big ink stain from that time I fell asleep while trying to write about a dream I'd just had and dropped the pen. When I woke up there was ink everywhere and the only thing I'd written legibly said FAT HOT HAM.

That was the first and last time I ever attempted to keep a dream journal.

Chifferobe. Closet door. Reflection of crib in closet door. Vacuum. Pile of junk that I just kept moving across the room in an attempt to make the room look cleaner and less cluttered for the Internet, because I want to impress you.

Then I gave up, because there's just no hiding all the junk and clutter and various baby-killing things still lurking in this corner. Including:

A. The blanket from Bethiclaus, which is neither junk nor baby-killing.

B. An exposed cable wire running upstairs, perfect for baby to learn rudimentary noose-making skills!

C. Lots more wires from our print server, wireless router and cable modem. Great for simulating boot camp obstacle courses!

D. A nursing stool from Miss Doxie. I did not know there were stools made expressly for nursing purposes, but I knew I had to have one. Now I do! Pretty!

E. IKEA drawer unit full of junk. Possibly some pens and envelopes.

F. Candles, wood putty, screws and sharp pointy sticks. I think these can stay right where they are.

G. Printer, which presents an even greater relocation challenge than the ironing board.

Also pictured: Ceiba, sitting on an antique rocker from my own infancy, where she is not supposed to sit, because I was totally intending on keeping my nursery pet hair free.

HA.

The changing table! Now with new-and-improved non-funky-hanging door!

Please note that the diaper stacker matches the bedding set. I would like everybody to note this because I have a feeling it's going to go COMPLETELY UNNOTICED by my son. Kids really have no appreciation for little touches like that.

The basket on top of the dresser was actually part of the packaging for the bedding set. I reused it because I'm clever. I'm sure no one else on the planet would have ever thought of that.

The closet! With wee little clothes, all with wee little tags still attached.

Also pictured: the infamous diaper bag, for which I have gotten more crap and hate mail than any other entry combined. (It's dry clean only! You're stupid! It's expensive! You're a brat! YOU DO REALIZE THAT BABIES POOP AND SPIT UP, DON'T YOU? DOOOON'T YOU? Your pretty bag will be RUINED AND I WILL BE GLAD, BECAUSE I TOLD YOU SO, YOU STUPID BRAT GIRL.)

(Dear Internet: you're just jelus, bitchez.)

Oh, and the iron. We hung the ironing board behind the door (we don't have any full-sized doors in the loft upstairs) using one of these thingies, but our iron is too narrow or something and keeps falling out. So there it stays, where it plots to singe that uppity bitch of a diaper bag.

And...that's kind of it. The most boring photo essay ever. It's hard to be snarky about furniture.

But lest you get too proud of us and all our glorious sort-of progress, I'll leave you with a shot from our living room.

If I go into labor and we need to get out the front door in a hurry? We're doomed.

P.S. One request, folks. Let's try to keep the comments assvice-free, k? Like, I know not to leave toys and blankets in the baby's crib when he's in there. I know that I need to get rid of the wires and the toxins and the whatnot in the corner. And I would rather NOT discuss my reasons for choosing a particular breast pump over another with the entire Internet. And I even know about Dreft! I have a mom who tells me things!  I know you mean well and all, but when the unsolicited advice just keeps pouring in I kind of feel like y'all must think I am a giant dumbass. Besides, if you don't let me have the occasional parental fuck-up, what in sam hill am I going to write about?

The Carousel of Progress!

Hello!

No, I have not gone into labor or run off to Vegas on a Greyhound bus. I'm just really tired of writing about my goddamn nursery. But that's all I have to talk about, because that's ALL I DO AND THINK ABOUT AND ALSO DO. Nurserynursery nestnestnest.

See? You're bored already. I can tell.

But boring or not, this is where we stand:

Crib: Assembled, despite missing instructions. We are smart and handy, although there are an awful lot of screws left over.

The crib is outfitted with a heartbreakingly pretty bedding set that my brother sent us -- a bedding set so extravagant that when Jason zapped it with the registry scanner thing at the store we both sort of laughed at the mere IDEA of anyone actually buying it for us because NO ONE loves us that much. But shockingly enough, my big brother does and I'm so glad, because we probably would have waited another three weeks to assemble the damn crib if we hadn't both been foaming at the mouth in anticipation of seeing the bedding set in action.

Thank-You Notes: Horrifically behind. Have not even acknowledged receipt of bedding set to brother via phone or email. Am hoping he reads this entry. Otherwise, am huge brat. But also hugely pregnant and therefore excused. Right?

Bouncy Seat: Assembled. Needs batteries. Went to Target yesterday for batteries and a laundry hamper; ended up spending $160 on baby-related items instead. I'm...still not really sure what happened. Money! Gone! Poof! Left with bags of tiny socks and burp pads and a very small bathrobe that I'm pretty sure isn't a necessary item for an infant to own but IT WAS ON CLEARANCE, PEOPLE. IT COST $6 AND HAS DUCKS ON IT.

Pack-N-Play: Assembled. Also needs batteries for the vibration/nature sounds/white noise features that I'm sure I will hate with the heat of many hot suns. Is strategically placed right next to the bed for easy baby feeding and middle-of-the-night collisions when I get up to pee.

Legs: Bruised.

Funky-Hanging Door on Dresser/Changing Table Combo Thing: Fixed. We went to Babies-R-Us this weekend to buy the boring shit off our registry that no one bought us. (I cannot believe no one bought the breast pump! Or the waterproof mattress pad! Or diaper rash cream!) While we were there, Jason sweet-talked a salesguy into giving us a non-bent hinge from a floor model. Score!

Nesting Instinct: Sated at last. I can now spend every waking hour in the nursery, folding tiny clothes and putting them in drawers to my heart's content. Then I get to change my mind and re-fold everything and put it in different drawers. It's ridiculously awesome.

And I won't even talk about my love for the closet organizer and the tiny, tiny hangers.

Or how much fun I have arranging various diaper-changing necessities. I want to hug my diaper stacker and good lord, even the vaseline has its very own place and I will KILL ANYONE who disturbs the delicate order of my changing table.

Yet I have only done one load of baby-type laundry. I cannot bring myself to rip tags off his clothes. That would imply that I am definitely having this baby and that nothing will go terribly, horribly wrong.

(Why everything else on this list fills me with peaceful joy while the thought of ripping tags off a $6 baby bathrobe fills me with neurotic terror, I'll never know.)

(Oh. Right. The Crazy. That's why.)

Photos: Um. Yeah. So while the nursery looks nice and mostly clutter-free right now, we've kind of let the rest of our house go to hell. Currently, the following things are creating a major fire hazard in our living room and foyer:

Nursery furniture boxes
Carseat box
Pack-N-Play box
Diaper Genie box
Bouncy seat box
14 assorted Amazon.com boxes
2 LACK coffee tables from IKEA
1 spare dining table that we haven't used in five years
1 barely-used high chair Jason retrieved from curb that will now be returned to curb since someone bought us a much nicer one
423 wire hangers

Oh. My God. The wire hangers. See, Jason used to keep his clothes in the nursery closet downstairs, leaving me with the entire walk-in closet upstairs. Glorious. But now sacrifices have to be made and his stuff needed to move upstairs. I decided this was something I could do. Two things I learned:

1. Jason has way too many shoes for a heterosexual male.
2. Jason is the wire hanger equivalent of a crazy cat lady.

Seriously. Every time he took something to get drycleaned, he tossed the extra wire hangers in the back of his closet. Where they took root and entangled themselves into a big, interconnected mess. I tried to pick up one hanger and a rat's nest of about 47 other hangers would follow.

Jason was embarrassed that I'd discovered his secret hanger stash and tried to explain how he MEANT to throw them away but they were all so tangled and it was just easier to ignore them and then the next thing he knew they were overtaking the entire closet, and at that point he just shut the door and decided to only wear clothes he could pull directly from the dryer.

See? Just like those crazy people who try to explain how they didn't MEAN to end up with 326 cats, Your Honor, it just HAPPENED.

Anyway. My point: I have temporarily lost the camera in all the clutter and have no photos of the nursery just yet.

But I'm guessing y'all will find a way to cope and move on with your lives. And you're probably only annoyed at the no-photo-ness of this post because oh my God, this means she'll do ANOTHER entry about the nursery once she finds the damn camera, and we're never, ever going to hear the end of it.

I'm sorry. This is what happens when you aren't allowed to drink anymore.

The Week in Pictures

Actually, just one picture sums it up nicely:

See? Crumbs? Of Cake? Because my week was...(wait for it)...CRUMMY?

GEDDIT?

(Oh my God, I'm so sorry for that.)

So let's see. Where to begin?

Mom update? Check.

She's doing good. Really, really good. Like buying baby clothes on the Internet good.

She's meeting with a breast cancer counselor next week who will help with a prothesis and she's found a little store where they actually sell NICE bras for masectomy patients. (The women in my family, we enjoy our lacy underthings, which is why I have yet to buy an actual nursing or maternity bra and will probably still be wearing some cleavage-enhancing lacy thing when I go into labor.)

Baby furniture? Check.

We chose some very nice solid oak furniture, which happened to be the heaviest furniture in the entire store. And possibly on the east coast.

We live on the third floor, and we are never moving again.

We haven't attempted to assemble the crib yet, but we did inspect the two pieces that came assembled (a crazy concept, as we are only recently learning that you can buy furniture from places other than IKEA and there are no hex keys required).

And of course, the biggest, heaviest piece of all -- a dresser/changing-table combo unit thing -- has a crooked hinge and a funky-hanging door. We both stared at it for awhile and then decided that the best plan of action is prop the ironing board in front of it and walk away.

Sigh. There is no progress. There is only chaos.

While our new floors were being installed on Wednesday, I was barricaded in all that craziness, trying to work and write advice columns from a rocking chair in the far corner while my terrified pets fought over precious lap real estate.

Max eventually gave up and found comfort elsehwere.

 

Oh! Would you like to see our new floors? Yes, of course you'd like to see our new floors! Or maybe not, but YE SHALL INDULGE ME AND FEIGN INTEREST.

They are very much in need of mopping, but ta-da! Floors.

(I wish I could tell you that the whole mattress-and-boxspring-propped-on-the-floor thing is just a temporary, post-construction phenomenon, but alas, this is how we actually live.)

(The bed-being-made thing actually IS a temporary, one-time phenomenon, as I made it simply so I could take this picture.)

And here is the other side of the room, which I'm sure is just as thrilling for everybody.

The stairs are not quite done, however. Because we're idiots.

Do you see? Do you see what we did there? WE PAID FOR HARDWOOD FLOORS TO BE INSTALLED ON TOP OF SOMETHING THAT ALREADY HAD HARDWOOD FLOORS.

We assumed the stairs were plywood, just like the floor upstairs. But noooo, the stairs were solid wood, and only needed to be refinished. But by the time I emerged from my hole in the nursery to realize this, they'd already destroyed the original treads and installed several new ones.

Our contractor was very peeved at the workers and is coming back to finish the thresholds himself, because GODDAMN, YOU TELL PEOPLE THEY ALREADY HAVE WOOD FLOORS BEFORE YOU START SAWING THEM DOWN TO ITTY BITS AND SLAPPING UNNECESSARY WOOD DOWN.

(Heh. "Unnecessary wood." Heh.)

And now for the crummiest part of the week.

Ceiba had her yearly examination on Wednesday -- rabies and distemper vaccines, eyeball checkup, yadda yadda, etc.

Her eyes have completely healed, and she charmed the pants off everyone in the office.

I mentioned that she limps sometimes. It's something she's done for months -- she'll temporarily lift up her hind leg and hop around on three legs for a few minutes. Then she's fine. We assumed it was leg cramps or her just being a little drama queen.

Nope. A luxating patella. Or, a kneecap that does not stay where it should, namely, on the damn knee. This was confirmed by the vet while I was waiting for the refills on her heartworm pills and she started limping around. I shrieked for the vet to come see and he dashed over and popped her tiny kneecap back into place.

So! Ceiba needs knee surgery. Like a tiny little football player, or something.

Honestly, I spent all day yesterday reading every damn article on luxation of the patella that Google could dig up and am moping more over this than I did my mom's masectomy because I'm really, really warped sometimes.

The condition is really common and isn't hurting her right now, but it will get worse and lead to early arthritis or possibly a torn ligament -- or worse, thanks to the lovely new hardwood floors she has to jump onto. So we've decided to have the surgery sooner rather than later, while she's young and can recover quickly.

And I'm not even going to talk about what it costs, because it gives me hives.

(Goddamn pet insurance with the goddamn "no coverage for congenital conditions" clause and goddamn again for good goddamn measure.)

Well! This post has rambled on for long enough, methinks. Let's close with the World's Worst Belly Picture, because Jason left for work early and I forgot to have him take one.

34 weeks. Note the slight downwards shift and the loss of my nice shelf to balance my cake plate on.

Wednesday Advice Smackdown

The Day Thus Far:

Baby furniture is here!

Remembered the $70 CASH at 6 am this morning, took Ceiba on a detour during her morning walk to ATM, reaffirming my love of city living despite small condo and lots of stairs because having an ATM a block from your house is just so beautiful.

Contractors are here!

And making a godawful racket. I'm so sorry, neighbors-who-smell-like-cats. And also sorry to your cats, who are probably freaking the righteous fuck out, like mine. If it makes you feel any better, my darling cat dug his claws into my belly while I was attempting to corral him into the baby's room when I left for my doctor's appointment. I didn't realize the damage he'd done until I got to the office and the nurse shrieked at the site of my bloodied t-shirt.

Or maybe it was the sweaty pit stains, because CHRIST, it's hot.

The baby has dropped!

But is measuring completely average and is not huge! But again! He's dropped! At 34 weeks! This seems early to me, as the whole "baby dropping into the pelvis" thing always seems to get mentioned in the same conversation as "and then I went into labor 10 minutes later."

But let's not talk about that right now. Let's focus on YOUR problems. Your many, many problems.

Dearest Amalah,

I need help.  Well, that’s an obvious one or I wouldn’t be e-mailing you! But first I want to tell you how lovely you are and that I love your site and read it every day and think you are hilarious!

My sister is getting married in November, so I have been instructed to grow my hair out so its past my shoulders.  My hair is finally at that point where it is right AT my shoulders, so I still have some growing to do.  But all of a sudden, it has become greasy and oily feeling, and it is kind of annoying.

I take that back, it is very annoying.  I wash it once a day and use conditioner only on the ends (I use Treseme) , and then I blow dry it.  I don’t ever put any products in my hair, frankly because I’m too lazy. It has been dyed before, but not since October, and is very fine, but I have lots of it, so it still looks like I don’t have any of it.

I am a college student, working only in the summers, so I can’t go all out on super expensive shampoo and conditioner, but I don’t know what to do!!  I like to wear my hair down, but when it feels greasy and oily, I am just pulling it up and this makes me sad. Can you help me Amalah?  Pretty please?

Erin

Ugh. First of all, BOOOO to any bride who "instructs" her bridal party as to what to do with their own hair. Grow it out, cut it off, dye it to match hers, anything. That's absolute bridezilla crap, plain and simple. BOO AND UGH I SAY.

If someone asked me to grow my hair longer or (gah forbid) cut it off for her wedding? I would refuse. I'm sorry, but "your special day" is just one day, and I have to live with my hair for many, many more days than that. Get over yourself.

And besides using baby powder or talc in your hair to control the oil, or carrying around a mini-blowdryer all the time, there's not much else you can do about greasy hair -- other than to buy a better shampoo. I've got an oily scalp myself, and trust me, I've tried every cheap brand out there and only saw results with good, salon-quality clarifying shampoos.

So I think your sister should buy you some shampoo. Tell her you'll have to cut your hair to your preferred length if you can't get the oil problem under control, and while you have product recommendations (Halo Clarifying, Pureology Purify, Redken Solve Purifying, Aveda Scalp Benefits), you can't afford them.

Seriously. Feel free to guilt her into it. She's DICTATING WHAT YOU SHOULD DO WITH YOUR OWN HEAD. She should already feel guilty. If she refuses or just doesn't get it? Cut your hair. Whatever.

Hi Amalah,

I'm from Canada and my local drugstore chain just started carrying Dior and Chanel perfumes and makeup.  Does this make these cheap ass drugstore products now?  Or are they still sorta fancy?

Curious in Ottawa

As far as I can tell, neither Dior nor Chanel has begun a low-end drugstore line, and their products are still primarily sold in ultra-fancy department stores. While expensive perfumes regularly show up at outlets and drugstores, I've never seen Dior or Chanel makeup sold at a CVS or Rite Aid or whatever. I think you've just gotten lucky.

And it happens sometimes -- one time Diana walked into her local Philadelphia drugstore to find an entire bin of Alterna Caviar Shampoo (retails around $24) on clearance for $1 a bottle. She immediately bought several bottles (while suspiciously quizzing a clueless salesclerk who clearly had no clue why this girl was so damn excited about a shampoo purchase and whether there was something wrong with these bottles), and then immediately rushed to the computer to IM me about it, and lo, I was so excited for her. (She forgot to buy me some, but you know, I acted pretty adult about it.)

So you know, if anyone happens to see Chanel lip gloss in Glaze on the cheap and wants to be my friend?

Am just saying.

Dear Queen of Everything:

What do you think is an appropriate age to have an eyelid lift?  I'm in my mid-thirties and wonder if having the surgery now means that in ten years I'll need it again, and by the time I'm in my sixties I'll have had three of them and my eyebrows will blend in with my hairline.  My droop level is about a 6 on the Asian-Looking Eye Scale (ALES) and I've wanted this since I was in my twenties. Thanks in advance.

Melanie

If it's simply a question of "when" you should get a procedure done and not "if" you should get a procedure done, I'd say go ahead and get the damn procedure done.

However, I hear you on the Michael Jackson aspect of it. Don't get the same procedure done over and over because hell yes, you'll look like a freak sooner or later. Realize that no matter what you do, at some point, you WILL AGE and your eyes WILL SHOW IT. And that's okay.

So fix the droop factor you've got now so you can stop obsessing in the mirror and start enjoying your youth. Just promise me that when the real aging and wrinkle process starts to happen, you'll try to embrace it.

Dear Amalah,

As you may already know, I am 7 months pregnant. My question for you is whether you are taking any classes such as lamaze and what are your reasons for choosing to take or not take them? My husband just brought up lamaze classes yesterday and my mind just froze because I had completely forgot about this customary part of a pregnancy. Way back in the early stages of my pregnancy, I had full intentions on going to a support group for pregnant women which may have given me all the information I would ever need right up to my ninth month, but my laziness got the better of me and I never signed up. I feel like this pregnancy is missing some important steps or information because I haven't even considered birthing classes and my monthly prenatal appointments consist of a weigh-in, a heart monitor on my belly and a pat on the ass out the door (military insurance, bleh).

So, lamaze-- yes or no? Also, is there anything else that I need to do in preparation for the labor/baby?

One last thing, do you plan on breastfeeding? I'm just curious because I do plan on it and I was wondering whether you have any resources or whether you planned on joining one of those groups or classes or whatever they are. Currently this is my only breastfeeding resource.

Any insight is appreciated,
Jomama

Hello Apathy! Meet Laziness! And say hello to Good Intentions. Now kill him.

Yeah, I really meant to sign up for a class or something. And it was going to be helpful and wonderful and Jason and I would be bonded forever and meet a million new best friends there. And then...I didn't. My doctor didn't really give them a big ringing endorsement so I kind of felt supported in my malaise. (Amy: So should we sign up for a childbirth class? Doctor: Eh. If you want.) Plus the only classes we both could have attended were on Saturday mornings for six weeks. Six weeks? Lord, according to my junk mail, I can get a Master's degree in less time than that.

So we didn't sign up for one. We've read a lot, if that means anything, which I doubt, and we adore scaring the crap out of each other with those When Childbirth Attacks! shows on TLC and the Discovery Channel.

Does this mean I think other people shouldn't sign up for classes? Hell no. Because in case you haven't noticed, I haven't actually given birth yet. So I have no idea how screwed we are. I'll let you know next month whether I survived the ordeal without classes or whether the nurses had to tell me which hole my vagina was, or something.

As for breastfeeding, yes, I do plan to breastfeed. And no, I have not attended a class for that either. However, I chose a pediatrician practice that has a full-time lactation consultant on staff, and made friends with a neighbor who makes and sells breastfeeding pillows and seems to know an awful lot about how to nourish your very own child with your very own boobs.

So basically, I feel like I have a pretty good support network in place and would rather not attend a class full of freaked-out alpha-yuppies who plan to breastfeed for the next 10 years or something.

Not that I would ever stereotype people who attend La Leche League meetings, EVER. That would  be catty and wrong. Me? Just lazy. Only slightly catty.

And probably doomed to months of thrush and bleeding nipples and latching problems.

(And of course, everyone is free to tell me how wrong and stupid I am re: childbirth and breastfeeding classes. And I am free to roll my eyes mightily at you, because meeeeehhhhhh.)

Amy,

My wife and I had our child a little bit earlier than expected; she was about 3 weeks ahead of you but delivered last Thurs.  Given how hot it has been down here (and, apparently where you are), she was more than happy to get her out.  We are now trying a little experiment with the blog and we would like to get mad shout outs and props for our little one.  What we would like to do is get as many comments as possible (cross our fingers) for the little one to read about how cute everyone thought she was.  Total experiment and we'll see what happens. 

Any suggestions?

-Brandon

Yes! I do have a suggestion! I suggest you submit your request to a popular online advice column and see if she'll ask her readers to stop by and leave you a comment.

Why, it's just so crazy it just might work!

(Translation: Everybody head over to Brandon's and ooh and aah over his delicious new baby girl. I command it! Go! Go!)

Real Life Non-Advice Update: OH MY GOD, IT IS SO LOUD HERE WITH THE BANGING AND THE SAWING AND EVERYTHING. And I currently have a laptop, a dog AND a cat on my lap, not to mention about 23 pounds of baby and baby-related bloating. So if this post is riddled with typos, it's because it's really hard to type with two terrified pets laying on your arms and blocking your view of the screen with their big fat pet asses. (Okay, just Max's ass. Ceiba is kind of balanced on my wrist like a fuzzy little bracelet and isn't really in the way at all.)

Got a question that you would like some half-assed advice for? Send it to advice@amalah.com.

Spazzentry

Momalah Update #1 (left as a comment yesterday, but HA, like anyone other than me was going to slog through all those comments and find it):

Thanks everybody -- I just got off the phone with my dad, and my mom is out of surgery. Very, very sick from the anesthesia, but is at least in a private room. I'm going to call her later tonight.

The doctor said the surgery went "okay." Over-analyze that as you see fit.

(And the cake is from Balducci's, and seriously, I have eaten four pieces today.)

Momalah Update #2:

I called her last night around 8 p.m., and she sounded, well, "okay." Very tired, very sore, very much still throwing up from the anesthesia and pain medication (a fairly normal reaction for her, but still draining and NOT HELPING THINGS).

She had it together enough to send my dad home so he wouldn't have to drive in the dark, and she wanted to know how the baby was doing and laughed when I complained that he'd been hiccupping for the past hour and taking out his frustration with the hiccups on my ribcage.

And then she asked if Diana (who'd encountered car problems on the way to my baby shower) was okay.

So in summary: Even after major surgery, my mom is still my mom and has enough mothering left over to be everybody else's mom too.

Cake Update #1:

I ate six pieces yesterday. Also some grits and then some chocolate pudding. It was just that kind of day, I think.

Confession: I've fallen terribly behind on my baby-gift shout-outs and thank-you notes. And I'm hoping that by including this fact in this particular entry everyone will feel too sorry for me to be mad.

Especially Pratt, Miss Doxie, Dazed and Kathy. And maybe anyone else that sent something and I sort of lost the packing slip but will totally find soon and seriously, feel free to email me and be all, "HEY BITCH, I SENT YOU SOMETHING AND YOU HAVE NOT ACKNOWLEDGED IT. YOU SUCK, BUT I UNDERSTAND WHY AND WILL THEREFORE BE GENTLE IN MY REBUKE."

I also need to take care of some parking tickets. My life is fun.

Speaking of fun, our new hardwood floors were delivered yesterday. Yes! After months and months of nothingness on the home improvement front, we have made progress.

We almost didn't, as they delivered the wrong-sized planks, or something, but luckily our contractor was there and promptly send those bad planks back from whence they came, and then the correct planks arrived a few hours later and indeed, they look like good planks. (Pre-finished, by the way, so everyone can just back off the assvice ledge regarding sanding and varnishing around the pregnant girl.)

The floors will be installed tomorrow. Which of course means that seven hundred million other things have to happen on the same day. This is what tomorrow will look like, I'm predicting:

6:00 am: Wake up so I can shower before work begins at 7 lest the hot contractor guys see me unshowered and rumpled.

6:05: Remember that I am pregnant and therefore, no longer a sexual being and nobody cares. Go back to sleep.

6:55: Wake up, panic. Jump in shower.

7:10: Cobble together some sort of clothing combination from the four things that still fit. Argue with self over refusal to buy more maternity clothes this late in the game even though self is on the verge of going around naked because NOTHING FITS AND/OR IS UGLY AND CAFTANISH.

7:20: Ready for contractors to arrive. Yes.

7:30: Waiting. Yes.

7:45: Dog needs to go out. Do not want to walk dog until contractors arrive lest they arrive the minute I get her to the end of the street, far away, because that's currently the only spot she's deemed acceptable for taking a dump.

7:55: Dog is frantic. Put leash on dog, get halfway down stairs, hear intercom buzz because ta-da! Contractors are here.

7:56: Debate. Walk back up the stairs and buzz them up, while thoroughly confusing poor dog who will probably pee in the foyer the minute she sees big scary contracting men? Or walk down the stairs and just let them in, while thoroughly freaking out dog who will barkbarkbark and then set off that goddamn poodle on the first floor and then Ceiba will refuse to pee outside because she knows big scary contracting men are inside her house, possibly stealing her toys?

8:00: Since this is in the future, I have not decided which option I will take. Suspense! Tune in tomorrow! Drink your Ovaltine!

8:05 - 10:55: Here we have two distinct possibilities. Our nursery furniture is also scheduled to get delivered tomorrow. I did not want it delivered tomorrow, but the delivery guy was kind of mean and insistent that my furniture is to be delivered tomorrow, whether I want it or not. YOU WILL TAKE THIS CRIB AND LOVE IT, LADY. 

So Option A: The nursery furniture will arrive at the EXACT SAME TIME as the floor contractor people, creating bedlam in the stairwell and much noise and my neighbors will open their doors a crack and give me Dirty Looks of Death and then Ceiba will barkbarkbark at them because they all smell like cats.

Option B: The nursery furniture will not arrive during the scheduled window at all, leaving me in a panic because guess what! I have a doctor's appointment and need to leave by 11, so if the furniture is not there I will have to cancel my appointment or ask one of the contractors to sign and pay for it. (The delivery fee is $70 CASH, and I have been reminded of this REPEATEDLY and it sounds sketchier each and every time I hear it.) This will all but GUARANTEE that one of the pieces will be missing or broken and I will spend the rest of the day trying to track the mean and insistent delivery guy down and have him return with my missing furniture and/or my $70 CASH.

And no matter what option actually happens, there is still the small matter that I HAVE NO ROOM FOR THIS FURNITURE YET AND HAVE NO IDEA WHERE MEAN AND INSISTENT DELIVERY GUY SHOULD PUT IT. HERE, LET ME JUST MOVE THE IRONING BOARD.

11:20: Doctor's appointment. Pee in cup, check weight and fundal height, doppler, see you in two weeks. May possibly bring up fears that everybody is right and I AM INDEED carrying a Godzilla Child who will not fit through my narrow, delicate little business down there.

Noon - 6 pm: Attempt to get actual work done, despite hardwood floors being installed and cut and pounded and God knows what else. Hysterical cat and dog and lots of people around to witness my cake intake. Also Advice Smackdown.

6:00: Need to leave to take Ceiba for her yearly exam and vaccines and whatever. Pray that contractors have already left or are ready to leave at the same time so I can lock the door and leave in peace without worrying that my neighbors will break in and steal my nursery furniture and/or cat.

6:15: Get dirty looks from vet re: the big cut on Ceiba's nose. Swear that we are not involved in some kind of underground Miniature Pinscher Fight Club. The cat bit her and seriously, she started it, because she's kind of a bully. Yes, a five-pound rat-dog bully. Shut up.

6:30: Pay vet bill, submit claim form for veterinary insurance that is an exercise in futility because they never pay for anything, give dog a dirty look and tell her how much the hardwood floors are costing us because she JUST HAD TO PEE ALL OVER THE PERFECTLY-FINE CARPET ALL THOSE TIMES, DIDN'T YOU?

6:40: Get home, eat cake, pass out on couch, wait for Jason to get home and discover that the contractors installed the floors upside-down, or something.

Catch ya on the flip side, peeps.

 

Of Cake and Coping

Today is my mom's surgery.

I'm working from home today and trying not to think about it too much.

I ate leftover cake from my baby shower for breakfast.

Which was wonderful, by the way, and the cake was nicer than my wedding cake, and looked like this:

Unbelievable, right? Way too pretty to eat.

Somehow, I have managed.

(Come and get it, flour beetles! You miserable little shits.)

I have completely amazing friends. Friends who went out of their way to make me feel spoiled and pampered and stuffed to the gills with mind-blowing chocolate cake.

(It takes three people to plan a shower for someone like me, apparently.)

(Also, hello and welcome to the Supersized Amalah! Good lord.)

We picked a really, really bad weekend for the shower, as about 75% of the guest list couldn't attend for various important and not-made-up reasons, I swear. But it didn't matter at all, because everybody who was there -- and even people who couldn't be there but took the time to make sure there was a gift or card or a message on my phone (one person called just to sing me a little "I'm so sad I'm not at your shower" song that she wrote especially for the occasion) -- made me feel very loved and fussed over and totally pretended to be interested in seeing my ultrasound pictures for the hundredth million time and tell me how gorgeous my baby is going to be.

(Yes, I have all of his ultrasound photos in an album, right down to the original tadpole blob one. And yes, I will make you look at EVERY DAMN ONE. Repeatedly.)

And my mom was there. And Jason's mom. And man, does this little baby have the world's greatest grandmas.

(My mom's in red, Jason's mom's in pink. And I look very shiny and bedraggled because it was, no lie, over 210 degrees Fahrenheit this weekend in D.C. Am not exaggerating in the slightest. We all nearly died but were saved by the healing power of chocolate cake.)

Our dads stayed home with Jason and painted the nursery. Yes! It's painted. A lovely, boring shade of off-white that took us hours and hours to decide on. Jason's mom will be back soon to do all sorts of artistic painty things and the furniture we ordered has arrived and will be delivered shortly. So the room is still in shambles, but at least it's moved on to "shambles with a purpose and goal" versus "shambles with which to drive the poor pregnant girl crazy."

Before:

After, sort of, and yes, the ironing board is still in there:

So all good things. All very good things.

I just really hope my mom's surgery goes well. That would be the best thing of all.

I'm going to go eat more cake.

The Belly: Bigger Than A Breadbox

BUT FIRST...

Behold! Furniture! Constructed using my own two hands! And a hex key! Also a cordless drill because WHO ARE THEY KIDDING WITH THAT HEX KEY SHIT?

I only assembled one side sort of upside down, which I discovered after putting everything else together, so meh, it's staying like that. And after looking at this picture I see that I didn't do such a great job snapping that one side together because there's a gap. A gap that will surely lure small fingers in and then mysteriously close itself up around them, like an evil, possessed toy box portal from hell, which would make a really cool horror movie now that I think about it, but instead I'm just going to give the left side a few swift kicks when I get home to properly close up that gap.

By the way, the box? Is already near overflowing with toys. I have no crib or changing table or even a decent supply of diapers, but Lord, this child has about four frillion toys. All of which are promising to thrill, delight and stimulate him and have him solving complex math problems by the age of six months.

AND NOW...

The belly at 33 weeks. Seven weeks to go.

Jason's official reaction, whenever he catches a glimpse of the naked belly: "Jesus Christ."

I am carrying exclusively and 100% all in the belly, which means I look like I've shoved a beach ball up my shirt.

Which means I look like this:

Not Pictured: The Krispy Kreme doughnuts I purchased this morning for my assistant and I, which I ended up eating all by myself because I forgot she had the morning off. They were delicious and plentiful.

People are starting to ask me if I think I'll be induced early "because he's so big." Which, what? 

Are you calling my child fat?

It's called eight months pregnant, people. It's not always gonna be pretty. Or petite. And yes, I'm aware that my belly button shows through my shirt. I'm delighted that you pointed that out.

Anyway, we're getting pretty excited, and have even expressed our excitement in refrigerator-magnet form.