Neverending High Drama & Nonstop Blog Excitement

Dear Ceiba,

STOP EATING CHOCOLATE THINGS YOU FIND IN THE GARBAGE.

Love,
Amy

***

Dear Self,

STOP THROWING PERFECTLY GOOD CHOCOLATE THINGS IN THE GARBAGE.

Love,
Amy

***

Dear Amy,

DON'T YOU TRY TO BLAME THIS ON ME, THAT WAS NOAH'S CHOCOLATE BUNNY AND YOU DIDN'T EVEN GIVE HIM ONE BITE.

Love,
Self

***

Dear Self,

I HOPE THE DOG IS SITTING ON YOUR LAP WHEN THE DIARRHEA HITS.

Love,
Amy

***

Dear Jason,

STOP LEAVING BAGS OF GARBAGE BY THE BACK DOOR. WHAT, YOU THOUGHT I WOULD TAKE IT OUTSIDE? DO YOU NOT REALIZE THAT IT IS VERY FAR ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE LAWN AND THE GRASS IS ALL WET AND I CAN'T FIND MY SHOES AND I THINK YOU SCOOPED SOME CAT POOP IN THERE WHICH MEANS IF I TOUCH THAT BAG THE BABY WILL DIE SO THAT'S WHY I DIDN'T TAKE THE GARBAGE OUT BEFORE THE DOG RIPPED THE BAG OPEN AND ATE THE LAST REMAINING BITES OF CHOCOLATE EASTER BUNNY THAT I THREW OUT THE OTHER NIGHT, BECAUSE I JUST LOVE OUR CHILDREN TOO MUCH.

Love,
Amy

PS I THREW OUT THE LAST REMAINING BITES OF CHOCOLATE EASTER BUNNY BECAUSE I WANT TO LOOK PRETTY FOR YOU.  *SNIFF!*

***

Dear Everybody,

I ARE FINE. EAT CHOCKOLATE ALL THE TIME. MAKES EARS GO A LITTLE HUMMINGBIRDIE BUT THATS IT. I HATE THAT DIET DOG FOOD, ARE COMFORTABLE WITH BODY IMAGE, THINK U CAN ALL BITE ME, BYE.

Love,
Ceiba!

PS ALSO ATE SEVERAL WRAPPERS FROM STICKS OF BUTTER.

Grateful

...for the first peanut-butter-and-jelly picnic of the season.

...for the little girls next door.

...for a warm deck and soft bellies.

...and for naptime. Especially naptime.

11 Weeks

So I have only thrown up twice this week.

Quick! Let me know you've read that sentence (use some hand signals, or just cough kind of pointedly) so I can delete it. My blog has become a passive aggressive ASSHOLE, and has somehow artificial-intelligenced itself into my digestive tract so anytime I mention feeling relatively okay it decides to punish me.

(Shit. I bet it's reading that paragraph right now. Quick! Pretend we're talking about something else.)

...and then I was like, OH MY GOD, there's a llama in the backyard! But it was only the hydrangea.

Dog butts: for when you cannot think of an appropriate segue.

So I'm somewhere in the vicinity of 11 weeks, and starting to feel like I might just make it out of this thing alive. Last week was definitely the worst -- I threw up pretty much every night, was unable to eat dinner, and then woke up every morning with crashing blood sugar and ravenous hunger, but was always faced with three smaller beings who insist on being fed first, even though SOME OF THEM eat food that smells like rancid-cold-cut-and-mackerel salad, I AM NOT SAYING WHO.

Whut? Can't I horf cat fud in peace over here?

(By the way, since I am a crumbly emotional mess these days, I feel the need to counter all my dogthing-mocking with a declaration of love for the hamsterdog. She may need a diet, probably a bath and definitely a less disproportionate headsize-to-body ratio, and my GOD, must she have an aneurysm EVERY time the mailman walks by, but she really DOES get plenty of love and affection and clearly, way too much ham.)

My next OB appointment isn't for another week and a half, which means the reassurance from my last visit is starting to wear off and I'm fighting the urge to call and invent a pressing reason why I need an ultrasound RIGHT NOW, since "I only threw up twice this week!" or "I dunno, I think I feel a little less gassy" won't really cut it.

I rented a doppler last time, and ended up accidentally keeping it (and paying monthly rent on it) for close to 18 months, and then stupidly sent it back when I was one damn payment away from owning the damn thing outright. (Every once in awhile, though, I get a $10 check from them, presumably from people who stumble upon the referral number I posted ages ago. So I'll probably break even in about 23 years, provided I keep my Google Page Rank up.)

Needless to say, I am not allowed to rent another doppler ever.

Oh, and about this. I still don't know. Your comments certainly got me jazzed for the idea of a big birthday reveal moment, but then a minute later I get distracted by something and change my mind. Jason is firmly in the find-out camp, but is willing to go along with whatever I ultimately decide, probably because he KNOWS I won't really be able to hold out and will eventually cave, so it's safe to indulge me for now. So...realistically, I'm guessing we'll find out, unless the baby is modest and keeps his legs crossed for the next few ultrasounds.

(Yeah, I said his. In a way, I think the whole issue is moot, because I'm fairly sure it's another boy.)

Still fairly sure it's a Wonderpet.

The belly at dawn, as compared to the belly at night, with a day's worth of bloat. Ah, dignity. I must have left it in my other pants. The ones I can't button, no matter what time of day it is. Stupid pants.

I Didn't Spare My Family Any Morning Sickness Details Either

Oh hi. I'm busy. Very busy. Very busy with various digestive quandaries, including: seriously, how hard is it to make a damn slice of toast in the morning, especially since you KNOW that's all it takes to stave off the vomiting, you frigging dumbass? and also: hmm, since I just threw up a still-eerily intact prenatal vitamin, does that mean I have to take another one?

That last question is actually rather complicated, since prenatal vitamins have gone ALL KINDS OF FANCY now, and I am now required to take TWO pills everyday. One being the run-of-the-mill multivitamin, and the other being a space-age omega-3 DHA capsule, and only the fishy-tasting DHA pill seemed to come up undigested but the two pills are sealed together in the little foil packets so I cant just take another DHA pill and aaaaahhhhhhh mah baby needs its brain pillz! Or could I maybe get away with a My First Flintstones? I do love the taste of purple.

I was describing the new generation of prenatal vitamins to my sister-in-law this weekend, and she was rather appalled. "So babies are already smarter than their parents by the time they're BORN?" she asked. "That's bullshit. I wouldn't stand for it. Mothers are entitled to being the smart ones for AT LEAST six extra months or so."

She's got a point. However, my family does have a lot of hopes and dreams riding on this next generation.

And how is that going, so far?

(You know, I still vaguely feel like I belong more on that couch than behind the camera. None of those kids even bother calling me "Aunt Amy" because I was always the young and cool one. I got free passes to Sesame Place and never knew what the going rate for birthday cash was so I always overestimated and I'd totally let you use my head as the center support beam for your Ultimate Fort. But now I am just another Old Person Barking High-Pitched Commands At Toddlers While Teenagers Silently Wish For Death.)

In less bershon-y moments, here's a sequence I call "And Suddenly, There Was Cake."

Oh, and PS:

Was not included in grandbaby photo. Was not given any cake. Hate this family. Going to poop in sumbody's luggage.

Metadog

My god, this blog. It is astoundingly boring.

So. Very. Very. Boring.

It is not updated often enough for my discriminating tastes, either.

And this kid is much too old to be very interesting.

Not that all this pregnancy puking and hot dog binge talk is all that appetizing.

In sum, I am in ur charming family portrait, expressing mah disdain. Pfft.

Love,
OG Homie aka Ceiba!

Jesus Wants You To Get Out Of My Flipping Sunbeam

Or, Turf Wars Among the Small Ones
Or, Geez, Amy, Maybe You Should Turn Up the Heat?

I SENSES WEAKNESS.

You think I care, dogthing? I HAS A TENT.

SHADOW DOG IS SHADOWY.

YET...OMFG IS THAT KIBBLE?

Mwa ha ha.

Mine. All mine.

There was a brief stand-off...and then...

Blue Steel FTW! aka I Will Fuck You Up And Good, Dogthing.

*sniff*

(Okay, so this was terribly non-dramatic in the retelling, and not nearly as amusing as actually watching the every-changing-custody of the sunbeam, and wow, I'm actually now kind of ashamed that this is the sort of thing that I regularly depend on to kill a good 45 minutes of the day, so I'm just gonna go ahead and post some pictures of my kid.)

Yes, I know he needs a haircut, but obviously we are just WAY TOO BUSY.

Updates On Things You Didn't Even Know You Cared About

(With more movie title format weirdness. I don't know why I'm having trouble letting it go. Possibly I think I am clever. Possibly tomorrow I will realize the  truth.)

Captain Corelli's Mandoline

Jason's thumb tip appears to be growing back. Or so he says, because I refuse to look at it. He keeps trying to make me look at it. I keep threatening to no longer help him with his shirt buttons.

By the way, this is what a mandoline looks like. This is also what a mandoline THAT IS BEING USED PROPERLY looks like. Take away the jolly little plastic vegetable hat and you'll see what went so very wrong for Jason. Laws of physics, people. Don't fuck with them.

Cujo and the Chocolate Factory

Our dinner party guests brought dessert on Saturday...a deliciously decadent chocolate cake. So decadent, in fact, that we accidentally left about half of it sitting on the kitchen counter overnight, after we all slumped off to bed in a food coma.

The next morning, after determining that it was indeed too stale to eat, even as a toaster-breakfast-cake thing, we threw it in the trash. Which somehow ended up sitting by the back door because SOMEBODY WHO POSSIBLY IS DEFICIENT IN THE THUMB DEPARTMENT didn't feel like taking the 15 steps or so to the garbage can in the back yard.

I walked into the kitchen a little later and saw the bag ripped open...and Ceiba literally up to her beady little eyeballs in chocolate cake.

"CEIBA!" I screamed. "NO! STOP! IT'LL GO RIGHT TO YOUR THIGHS!"

We called the vet in a panic and tried to figure out how to describe exactly how much cake she'd eaten ("Well, there were about three or four slices left -- small slices, you know, girl slices -- and she ate about half of them, plus all the icing, although a lot of it is still on her ears") and also what kind of chocolate she'd eaten since we didn't have the ingredient list. They basically told us to sit around and watch her for a few hours, and that even if she wasn't poisoned, she'd probably be puking and having diarrhea a fair amount.

We sat.

We watched.

We Googled the best way to check a dog's pulse.

We had Noah's plastic splash mat all ready in case we were too far away from the back door.

Damn dog is FINE. Not even a single runny poop. Cast-iron stomach, I swear.

This mean I can has chocolate chip waffles now?

Dork: The Movie

One really, really weird thing about parenthood that I was completely unprepared for is how your definition of "celebrity" changes. Anyone who makes your kid happy is totally your new rock star.

Suddenly you develop a little crush on your elderly pediatrician and you start trying to figure out which of the Wiggles is the cutest and honestly, I would drive two hours to take Noah to meet Joe from Blue's Clues because OMFG JOE FROM BLUE'S CLUES.

So with that said, I want you to just try to imagine the hysterical, Beatles-worthy scream that erupted from my mouth when I got the following attachment from an employee at Signing Time:

I cannot even explain the full effect this photo has on me. It makes me want to be a better person.

P.S. My next post is up over at the Fall Shopping Guide thingie. If you are thinking, "Hmm, perhaps this Amy girl is a little weird," please check it out to have all your worst fears confirmed.

P.P.S Contractually obligated to link to it. Sorry. But not, because = whore.

P.P.P.S Also sorry for the dearth of Noah photos this week...I am selfishly hoarding them all until I've finalized my choices for his little birthday video/photo montage thing.

P.P.P.P.S My music choice for this year's video is William Shatner. I am officially the biggest weirdo I know.

Lard Dog Responds

I are not fat.

I are victim of sensashunalistic tabloid society and unrealistic body image ideels.

Also bad camera angles. Feel v. exployted.

Gained two pounds mebbe. Small one says I can has waffles. Look at face and say I cannot has waffles.

Go on. I dare.

Snausage is teh new hourglass anyways. Read it n Vogue.

Would open VMAs next year and look wicked hott but are boycottin with my boy Kanye.

Love, but u cannot has be under my umbrella becuz u called me fat,

Ceiba!

Like Tears of a Clown: The Fat Rolls of a Pursedog

Since her last public appearance on this blog, Ceiba has porked up a little. A tad. A few pounds and ounces. A mere 25% of her body weight. Or so.

Where mah spangly bra and hotpants be at, bitches?

The scientific community is baffled, as her kibble -- her healthy, low-fat, high-protein, crazy-expensive for the preshus-shookie-ookie-kums kibble -- remains largely untouched. And yet there's something about the neck rolls and rotund torso that suggest WAFFLES. LOTS AND LOTS OF WAFFLES.

I can has chili cheez fries?

OMFG SMALL ONE HAS COOKIE COOKIE COOKIE

Eh. Fuckkit. zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Max is also overweight, but that's nothing new. He's been overeating to fill a nutsack-shaped void for YEARS now.

I eat kibble while Lard Dog sleep. Is win-win.

 

Multimedia

Okay, now that I think we've got everything working with the new design, and now that my designer is off to Ecuador, thus fleeing the country and my emails, let me see if I can completely blow it the fuck up by posting a video window that will probably be too wide for the margins. Come on, it'll be fun!

It seems like people are still questioning the proper pronunciation of "Amalah." AIM-a-la. Like how you pronounce Amy? AIM-ee? Oh, whatever, here's me having a conversation with my dog about it.

AIM-a-la from amalah and Vimeo.

I probably should have enunciated Ceiba's name a little better too, now that I think about it. Her name is SAY-bah. Again, whatever, I don't even correct our vet anymore.

Just be happy I didn't name my kid D'Artagnaienalyah or something. Because you know it was on our short list.

Speaking of Noah, hey! Remember that time we qualified for free speech therapy? Our first session is on Tuesday morning.

He's made some progress in the past few weeks, although nothing to suggest that a true language explosion is right around the corner -- he's still gaining language right in step with a five- or six-month delay, but progress is progress, and I'm extremely confident that he's going to respond really well to the therapy. Plus, it's like free babysitting. I plan to paint my toenails.

We scored a gigantic set of Signing Time DVDs this week. My expectations were...not very high, since I've been faithfully signing (More! Milk! Eat! All done! Cookie! Cracker! WTF!) with Noah for over a month now and he's shown the same level of interest as back when I tried the infant signing with him. Which to say, zero. Mom, you're so lame.

But we started watching them about two days ago, and Noah...well, he likes them, but he likes pretty much everything on the glowing teevee box, especially since we've drastically limited his intake of Dora and Blue.

Well, let's not get CRAZY here. We do need to be good playdate hosts, now.

He wanders in and out of the room, which is fine, since I prefer that to the enthralled, slack-jawed video stare (see, uh, above), but I doubted he was actually taking any of the signs in, especially since he continued to pointedly ignore my clumsy attempts to sign along.

This morning he finished his milk and cereal and then, without a moment's hesitation, he said "eat" for the very first time while making the sign for "more."

Uh. Holy crap.

Baby Einstein? You just got PWN3D.

Paranoid Android

JASON: So. Anything interesting happen today?

AMY: I spent the whole day dealing with shit.

JASON: Ooh, was there some kind of Internet drama?

AMY: No. Like actual, physical shit. I spent the whole day dealing with feces.

JASON. Ooh, Noah?

AMY: Well, yes. Noah kept saying he had to go apoopoo but wouldn't go on the potty and he wanted to watch the Potty Time With Elmo video 14 dozen times and then Max pooped in the office twice and Ceiba crapped on the stairs.

JASON: Uh.

AMY: Yeah. It was an enriching day. I do good work.

***

I've been in a bit of a cranky funk this week and feeling immensely sorry for myself for no reason at all.

Well, okay, unless you count this as a valid reason for funkitude:

Of course, after cursing the coffee maker out for RISING AGAINST ME, FOR MAKING EVERYTHING WORSE, I realized I'd forgotten to put the inner plastic basket thing in before the filter and thus this was all my own fault but COME ON, I was still totally ready to cry about it.

Or, you know, grab a straw and suck that shit up off the countertop.

Same thing with all the pet poop. Max, in a fit of old age and/or belated moving-related rebellion, has decided he will not use his litter box if it is not P-E-R-F-E-C-T-L-Y clean. Which means I must scoop it out after he goes EVERY TIME and sift it and add fresh litter EVERY TIME, or else he relieves himself six inches to the right of the box. As I am extremely lazy and forgetful and also trying to prove a point that he's being ridiculous, just CRAP IN THE BOX ALREADY, he's been having a lot of accidents.

So I clean it all up and always manage to spill litter on the floor, and then I grab the mini-handvac thing and of course, it's never fully charged because I am extremely lazy and never remember to charge it, but at the time I am all, WOE IS ME and *SHAKES FIST AT THE HEAVENS* and that's when I punch myself in the face because dude, it's some kitty litter on the carpet, get a damn grip and call the vet already.

(Seriously. Can you believe this is the most interesting story I've managed to come up with all week?)

(Does your brain itch as it atrophies? Or is it more of a stinging-type sensation?)

Several months ago I blamed a similar funk on the weather. Which is completely gorgeous right now. Except maybe it's a little too hot, plus there are mosquitoes, and I get a sinus headache from all the fucking grass and nature and shit.

Basically, hi. I'm a whiny little bitch who is never happy. Also probably on the rag.

But look! Here's some baby beefcake.

(Hey. Anybody want to join my little ray-of-sunshine ass for a Top Chef open thread tonight at the Mamapop forums? It'll be just like you're sitting in my living room, except you don't have to put up with me asking for foot rubs. Also sometimes I get a little gassy after dinner, so yeah. Forums are totally the way to watch TV with me.)

(Also, of COURSE it was reaction number 3. What kind of mature human being do you people take me for?)

Back from the Brink

Bleh.

So while no members of my family showed up at my house to kill me after that last post, my preshus son certainly gave it a sporting effort. I once again fell victim to that parenting phenomenon where your kid gets a single solitary ooky diaper and then BLAMMO, you are beyond violently ill for the next 24 hours, crouched on the bathroom floor and praying for the sweet release of death, or at least begging your stomach to GIVE IT UP ALREADY, YOU ARE COMPLETELY EMPTY YET CONTINUE TO PUNISH ME, WHY, WHYYYYY?

Ahem. What? Enough with the vomit talk? Okay!

(Shall I shake you down for some more money instead? We're at $5,430 [dudes! awesome!] -- 78% of our goal. I have a wine-and-cheese cocktail party this weekend with our community council and neighbors and really don't want to go with pink hair. Especially since I think they may already not like us because ours is the only recycling container with so many glass bottles instead of plastic, not that I would ever check and maybe dump a couple wine bottles into someone else's recycling container and then deliberately put our empty milk cartons on top or anything. No. I would never do that. Anyway, Stacy and Heather still need your donations. Thanks!)

Anyway, thanks for bearing with me as I attempt to claw my way back to health and sanity. I was going to reward your patience with a hilarious video of Noah throwing a terrifically pointless and snot-nosed little temper tantrum -- the kind of video that would generate a lot of tsk-tsks from people because HOW DARE I MOCK MY CHILD'S PAIN FOR SHINY INTERNET NICKELS -- but there's something wrong with the file and I can't get it to upload correctly.  Damn it.

So here, you get this instead.

Oh Right! I Also Have a Dog

Ceiba came home from the hospital last night. She's doing fine.

Yes, that's a little heart on her cast. My vet is apparently on a mission to destroy me with unbearable, heartbreaking cuteness.

She has a steel plate in her leg now, and will set off metal detectors at the airport. If we, you know, ever took her to the airport. Which I kind of want to do just so I can tell the security people that my dog has a steel plate in her leg. Which she got in 'Nam.

Max is doing fine too, and actually seemed to miss Ceiba quite a bit. You may want to call NASA and see if the planet has gone spinning off its axis or something.

(I've given Ceiba full custody of my Boppy pregnancy support pillow.)

And now, because it is illegal to have a Noah-less entry, here are more photos that I swear, completely fail to capture just how deliciously cute this baby is.

(He kept us up until 4:30 am last night, which I totally deserved after bragging about his sleeping habits yesterday. Oh well, at least we got to watch a really awesome episode of Quantum Leap  where Quantum was a gay Naval cadet or something and we all learned a Valuable Lesson about homophobia.)

(It's wrong, in case you were wondering.)

36 Weeks. And Also, Poop.

I was out walking Ceiba last night when I noticed a DC United van was pulled up in front of the building next door. And various soccer-player types were out and about, unloading furniture from this van and carrying it inside. In their soccer-player arms. Flexing their soccer-player legs.

Flat-screen TVs, stereo equipment and expensive modular furniture: the calling cards of a teenaged professional athlete blowing his signing bonus.

Even though I could not tell you the name of a single player on the DC United roster, I still stopped and stared and gaped like a damned fool. And those nice young men all smiled and waved at me, which is right when I realized that Ceiba was taking a huge dump.

And struggggggling with this dump. Straining. Wandering all over the place, dropping turds left and right.

Which I then had to squat down and pick up, one by one, lest the soccer players label me as the neighbor who lets her purse dog shit all over their new lawn, but really, that might be preferable to being the neighbor who huffed and puffed and finally managed to bend down to the poop's level only to have her ill-fitting hand-me-down maternity pants slide down off her ass.

Which is soooo not what actually happened. Oh no.

And that's the only story I have to tell today. Because there is nothing interesting going on, unless you count my new bathroom vanity and sink, and even I realize that posting photos of my new bathroom vanity and sink is really pushing it in terms of entry content.

So instead, some self-portraits taken in my bathroom.

Not Pictured: my new bathroom vanity and sink, which is so pretty, even if it did lead to an unfortunate nesting incident last night involving me mopping and scrubbing the bathroom floor at 11:30 pm. (SCRUB, Christina! SCRUB!)

Amalah: Stretching the limits of maternity wear beyond all good reason and dignity since August 2005.

Ceiba the Inconvenient Pooper and her little brother-to-be who, in fact, weighs at least two pounds more than she does already.

Run for your lives! It will destroy us all!

This is the Third Time I Have Attempted This Entry, And No, It is Not a Charm

(Continuing in the presents-for-shout-outs whoredom that is this site: thanks to Minarae, Ubik, Peyton, Warcrygirl, CityCat and Jessie for the lovely, lovey baby gifts. And I found some stamps! So thank-you cards are en route. Thank-you cards that will most likely sound weird and rambling, because I never know what to write besides, uh, thank you, and end up trying to be all funny and witty and just...no. It never works. Possibly because I have the handwriting of a serial killer.)

(Although does anyone know how much postage I need to send a card to Australia? Because seriously, Australia!)

And now: GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDAMMMMMMMN.

I wrote an entire post, people. AN ENTIRE POST. RIGHT HERE. And then I was stupid and clicked on something in the Google Toolbar for no good cotton-picking reason and I thought I was in a different Firefox tab and NO, I WAS NOT IN A DIFFERENT FIREFOX TAB, and POOF, I was carried away from my post which was immediately lost, except for those first two paragraphs because I'd saved THOSE as a draft and then never hit save again because that would have made sense.

And I am left with nothing, like if I wrote an entry in Microsoft Word and then Windows crashed and the stupid autorecover thing didn't work, only this is worse because I ENJOY BLAMING MICROSOFT FOR MY PROBLEMS. But I get no pleasure from yelling at Firefox or the Google Toolbar. I love Firefox and the Google Toolbar.

So I will blame myself, and my stupid clicking. And I will try to remember what the hell I wrote before.

(I wrote that second part, the tantrum part, yesterday, Thursday. And let me tell you, there is nothing more tedious than trying to re-write something you've lost. So I gave up. Now it is today, Friday, and I will try again. It still feels pretty tedious.)

The Post That Firefox Ate was about Wednesday morning and the Blood and the Scare and the Dehydration and blah blah blah. That's all like, SO two days ago. We can all move on now.

Except not too much, because I'm still feeling sorry for myself.

Although for those of you who (amongst the much-appreciated head patting and offers of cake) railed against my boss for making me work on Wednesday, I must issue a clarification. My boss did not "make" me come into work. My presence at work was 100% Pure Amalah-Brand Crazy.

See, there was this Big Huge Interwebnet Project that was going live on Wednesday, and Big Huge Interwebnet Project was MY Big Huge Interwebnet Idea. MINE. So while I totally COULD have supervised the project from home, I was imagining scenarios that involved something going Terribly Wrong, and mobs of panicked people running to my office where I would calmly and brilliantly Fix Everything and then everybody would be all, "Oh my God, Amy is so awesome, let's give her a raise and a promotion and throw her a party with cake."

Nothing went Terribly Wrong. I sent out some emails and tested some links and ate some donuts from the vending machine and then went home.

I still maintain that I am awesome.

I went to work yesterday because we were throwing a bridal shower for someone and there was cake.

I went to work today because...well, I'm not sure. Partly because I need every precious, precious hour of sick leave for after the baby is born. And partly because I again grossly overestimated how important I am at work and again assumed that unless I was actually physically present at the office, everything would go to hell in a handbasket and people would be running around screaming "WHERE IS AMY? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WE NEED AMY!" and possibly on fire.

By 1 pm I realized that actually, I'm barely needed at all and can do my entire job at home from my couch. Which is MUCH closer to a bathroom, which is good, because this "staying properly hydrated" shit is killing me. And people at work are starting to comment on my very pronouced waddle-walk, which becomes even more hilarious when I'm clearly trying to waddle to the bathroom in a desperate, desperate hurry.

And trying to ensure that I empty my bladder completely? Requires me to spread my legs far, far apart and then bend over as far as I can, which is hard for a rolly-polly pregnant woman and more than once I have plum near toppled right off the toilet. And at work I swear the person in the next stall can tell what I'm doing and is all, "WTF?" At least at home my only problem is that sometimes my dog or my cat think I'm bending over to play with them and do gross things, like climb into my pulled-down underwear.

(Let me know anytime if I'm oversharing, by the way.)

Oh, I also came home today because of the contractions. Oh yes! Forgot to mention those. 300 bottles of water a day and I'm still getting Braxton-Hicks contractions that alternate between completely painless and ones that knock me out of my chair and onto the floor where I suddenly understand why so many women poop during labor, because OH MY GOD, MY PELVIS IS MELTING.

They're all erratic and weird and they stop once I drink yet another bottle of water. So while barely registering on the Official Time to Get Concerned Scale, I decided that hey, perhaps my body is telling me to take it the fuck easy for once and maybe for once I should listen.

So I did, and here I am, alternating between work and typing this brainfart of an entry (IN SEPARATE FIREFOX WINDOWS, LEST I GET CONFUSED ABOUT THE TABS AGAIN), eating ice cream and taking photos of my dog everytime she does something cute.

Hint: she does a lot of cute things.

 

A Dog, a Lump & Tampons (In That Order)

GASP...WHEEZE...HUFF...ETC.

The D.C. area was hit with a helluva thunderstorm last night, which good news! It's only going to be 90 degrees today! And there's almost no humidity!

Bad news! It knocked out the power at my office, and while everything essential for actually working has been restored, the elevators are still on the fritz. Which means I...just...climbed...up...stairs...so...many...(gasp)...stairs ...(dies).

Granted, I live on the third floor of a walk-up building, but usually Jason is with me and is willing to put his hands on my ass and give me a boost up each flight. My coworkers were surprisingly unwilling to offer me such assistance.

(HA! ASSistance. GEDDIT?)

(Oh, shut up, I just climbed up four flights of stairs.)

(Here, look at some random pictures. Am all busy today and stuff.)

This is Ceiba, playing our favorite game of "Wave Hands Wildly In Front Of Dog And Watch Her Respond In An Amusingly Manic Fashion." I'd explain the rules of this game to you, but they're really, really complicated.

We always let her win. I mean, wouldn't you?

And this is me, last Sunday, when I excitedly made Jason take a full-frontal photo, because "you totally cannot tell I'm pregnant from the front in this dress!"

I was mistaken. I can see that now.

I also see that I really have no business wearing this dress in the first place.

I was all dressed up and such for a night out with a whole slew of delightful folks from this message board, which is all about food and restaurants and I am way too intimidated by everyone to ever post anything. But Jason does, so I tagged along with him and all the other Internet nerds who are now our people. (They all know who I am, if only because Jason uses this photo as his avatar.)

(T-shirt by bmh, in a much-belated shout-out.)

These people eat weird things, like veal sweetbreads and eyeballs and such. They know about wine and cheese and exactly which street vendor sells the best half-smokes and which restaurant currently serves the best prosciutto. They get very het up about the myth of the unpasteurized cheese. ("It's bullshit! BULLLLSHIT!") And they all wanted to know what foods I've been craving.

I briefly thought of lying and saying something like, "I simply cannot get enough of the cauliflower panna cotta with caviar and black truffle that they serve as the amuse course at Komi, which honestly, serves up SUCH a refreshing take on New American cuisine, don't you agree?"

Just to, you know, not sound like an idiot. Which is exactly what I sounded like when I answered truthfully and said I wanted pudding and Slim Jims.

Of course, I did meet one Amalah.com fan. That's her hand, and that's the kind of animated and intelligent-looking reaction you'll get from me should you ever bump into me on the street. Or in a restaurant. Where I will sit like a fat, pregnant lump.

Amalah.com Reader's Hand: I read your site! It's great!

Amalah's Fat, Lumpy Self: I apologize for subjecting you to the cleavage. I was not aware of the cleavage factor when I left the house.

Amalah.com Reader's Hand: I'm going back to my end of the table now, I think.

(Can I tell you, while I was in Photoshop blurrifying faces, just how tempted I was to give myself a nice, non-flabby arm?)

In other news, I was really excited when the following mysteriously appeared in my office restroom.

Free tampons! In multipack sizes! There for the taking! Impudently placed directly under the tampon dispenser, as if to say, "Fuck you, Tampon Dispenser! Your quarter-eating days are OVER! Free tampons for everyone! Up with the proletariat!"

But then I remembered that I have no use for free tampons right now, and I'm wondering: Is this box a one-time event? Can I take its presence as a promise of more free tampons to come? Or will the Reign of the Non-Dispensing Tampon Dispenser one day return?

I'm thinking, either way, of taking a couple tampons now and saving them for later. Just for the sake of fairness.

Everything Is Ocular

Last weekend was the weekend we thought we might lose the baby. This weekend was the weekend we thought we might lose Ceiba's eyeballs.

Seriously, y'all, can we get a break over here?

When I came home on Friday I had Big Plans of Doing Nothing. We were going to order Indian food. We were going to sit on the couch. We were going to watch Band of Brothers for the hundredth time and I was possibly going to treat myself to a small glass of red wine, because SERIOUSLY.

But then I opened my front door and got beaned in the leg by my dog, who could not see a BLESSED THING, because both of her eyes were completely sealed shut by goop and pus and eyeball-crust nastiness.

And yet I was determined to save my Evening of Nothing. So I sacrificed one of our guest towels and washed her eyes out with some warm water. Within five minutes the pus reappeared, so I called the vet and tried to convince them to prescribe some antibiotic ointment to me OVER THE PHONE, because apparently I know ALL ABOUT THIS STUFF.

She just has a little eye infection! She had one as a puppy! You gave us medicine that came in a tube! We just need a refill on that tube! Don't question me, AM EXPERT ABOUT THE MEDICINE IN A TUBE.

When the vet refused to prescribe medicine over the phone, I went searching for the eye ointment we used before, because maybe we still had some and it could get her through the weekend yadda yadda Indian food couch sleep.

Finally, my cold dark heart melted and I called Jason and told him to meet me at the vet -- our little tiny girl needed medicine and I was taking her right over. (Our vet is also a 24-hour animal hospital that takes walk-ins on an emergency basis, but I hate doing the ER visits because they cost three times as much and you wait five times as long and there's always violent nature documentaries about cheetahs eating rabbits and baby seals or whatever on the lobby televisions.)

I was so confident in my diagnosis of a blocked tear duct or some other minor eye irritation that I completely missed it when the vet first started talking about ocular ulcers and puncture wounds and surface scratches and you negligent monster you.

"What?"

"Your dog. Her eyes. Are injured. Badly."

"What?"

"There's a deep cut on her right eye that's infected and her left eye shows evidence of an old corneal injury that didn't heal properly."

"What?"

The vet was very matter-of-fact and totally not judgemental but OH MY GOD, I COULD FEEL THE JUDGING, as if I had taken my child to the doctor for a sore throat and was told that he actually had a broken leg. From six months ago, and were you ever going to notice this child has LEPROSY?

"It's a good thing you brought her in when you did, because if this had gone untreated much longer her eyeball would have ruptured."

Oh, EW. And also: BAD OWNERS, BAD!

So we were sent home with a tube of ointment (I KNEW IT), eye drops and a very small lampshade collar. We have to take her back today or tomorrow for another check-up.

ADRIAN! ADDDRIANNN!

I totally think I injured her eyes while cleaning them earlier this week. Jason worries he did it while bathing her last weekend. And man, do we both feel shitty about it.

The most likely suspect, however, appears to be completely guilt-free.

You look stupid, little lampshade dog! Share your kibble or I will bite your eyeballs out a second time!

She's doing much better now, and we got home in time for Indian food and one episode of Band of Brothers.

Wah.

Pussy (Cat)

We got back from Aruba on Saturday night. It's been a blur ever since. I still have not uploaded any photos, nor can I find my good hairbrush.

I slept for many, many hours Saturday night, Sunday morning and straight on into Sunday afternoon, when it was time to pick up the pets from the Yuppie Pet Palace Hotel That Ended Up Costing As Much As Our Plane Tickets, Even Though We Supplied All Our Own Damn Food.

Ceiba was...confused, as usual, like she sort of remembered who we were and that occasionally we fed her turkey bacon and oh! look! floor lint!

She's a bit constipated and is having periodic yet dainty sneezing fits, but otherwise is doing just fine.

Max surprised us by not being a royal bitch about everything. He's never been boarded before...usually our neighbors would just come over and feed him but they moved away and our new neighbor is absolutely terrified of Ceiba so I'm not even going to introduce her to our 15-pound Gigundocat. Anyway, every time we come home from vacation he gets a prissy funk about it and ignores us for days.

I don't think Max enjoyed the Yuppie Pet Palace Experience, despite residing in a luxury four-level kitty condo with fresh lambswool bedding (changed daily) and the fact that I provided food from home AND suffered the embarrassment of presenting "Puppy" to the kennel staff, which they all totally laughed at, because Puppy is, without a doubt, the most pathetic-looking stuffed toy you have ever seen in your life.

(Puppy once resembled a knock-off of the Taco Bell chihuahua, back when he had eyes and a nose and the ever-loving shit hadn't been kicked out of him on a daily basis. He has also been re-stuffed and re-sewn about a dozen times, and each time I ended up using whatever extra thread had come with my most-recent clothing purchase, which means Puppy has several oddly-colored seams that resemble gangrenous wounds.)

Max was very, very glad to see us. Max was glad to see CEIBA, and even curled up with her on my newly-diminished lap during the car ride home. But every once in awhile he'd stand up on his hind legs, put his front paws on my chest and stare frantically into my face, like, "IS IT REALLY YOU? CAN IT BE TRUE? OH, DAY OF GLORIOUS JOY!"

And he's been all cuddly and loving and clingy ever since. I'm thinking we need to dump his ass in the kennel more often. Perhaps we can board the baby at Yuppie Pet Palace Hotel too, since I'm still no closer to finding a damn daycare center than I was a few weeks ago.

Hell, they give them fresh lambswool bedding every day, how bad could it be?

Down the Toilet Bowl

(Housekeeping note: Do I owe you an email? Damn straight I do. I owe the entire world an email at this point. I'm sorry. I'm very slow and I also very much suck.)

(But wait, there's more: I also owe the world a well-written and totally-not-disgusting entry. This is not that entry.)

My dog fell in the toilet last night.

More accurately, my dog took a flying swan-dive leap into the toilet last night.

Twice.

A toilet that was, ahem, unflushed.

Dirty. Befouled. Full of pee.

I will not go to the bathroom in front of Jason, but I have no shame in front of my pets, who frequently follow me in because they know they'll have my undivided attention for 30 seconds or so. (Or longer, which then, you know, jackpot!)

Max likes to sit on my lap and Ceiba likes to hop around and play some sort of game that involves me trying to touch her and her trying anything to not get touched. Unless I stop trying to touch her. Then she gets mad and attacks the toilet paper.

(Hello Internet! Welcome to my bathroom! Would you like a magazine? Some quilted two-ply?)

Last night Ceiba got a little too worked up while dashing around the bathroom. She started doing this thing that I cannot ever seem to capture on film or adquately describe. She puts her ears straight back and puts her butt on the ground...and runs around in a circle until she gets dizzy and smacks into a wall. I know. She's insane. And we need a video camera.

It was about at this point that I was finished peeing, and I stood up. And Ceiba jumped right into the toilet.

*splash!*

At first, we were both too surprised to do anything. Ceiba stood there, completely in the toilet, while I just stood there, debating which was more important: pulling the dog out of my urine or pulling up my pants.

I ended up kind of doing both, which wasn't the best move. I held Ceiba in one hand while yanking up my waistband with the other, only to realize that she was DRIPPING WET and SHIIIIT, THAT AIN'T WATER.

So I did the next stupidest thing: I put her in the sink. Where she did not want to stay. And after leaving pee-tainted footprints all over the sink and counter and coming far too close to my toothbrush than I'd really like to think about, she lept off the sink and...

...back into the toilet, which I had not closed. Or FLUSHED.

At this point, the story get s fairly boring(er). Ceiba: bathed. Bathroom: scrubbed. Amy: squicked.

But then, in a subtle act of retaliation, Ceiba peed on the kitchen floor sometime after her bath.

Guess who stepped in it.

Twice.

The Post-Christmas Pre-Birthday Drunkening

Merry Day After.

I can't give details on our Christmas Day right now, mostly because I'm a littloe bit drnuk. But tomorrow is my birthday! Like, in an hour! Happy birthday meeeeee. I will be 27. Which means I am still young and youthful, so suck it, older people. And younger people? Well, I probably make more money than you, so you can suck it too.

(druuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnke.)

OKay, enough typing about me rationalizing my birthday as being not that old even though, ogh my God, I am so in my late 20s and not totally world-famous yet, which blows.

HERE ARE (wHOOPs) some Christmas-y-ish photos to fill up some space. I am going to get more wine now. Or maybe some like, extra dry sherry, because I'm FUCKING OLD.

Amy's Mom + Craftiness - Real and Actual Grandchildren = Stockings For Pets

Cat + Catnip + Wee Stocking = We could help him get his head unstuck, but we'd rather just laugh and take pictures.

Christmas Tree + Wine + Tripod = The last time I'll do this damn mathematical-type photo caption, I promise

I got a My Little Pony for Christmas. Did you? I was going to keep it in the box for display purposes, but was overcome with desire to comb its hair within five minutes.

(I got lots more than this, though. Like Coach bags! Many things Coach! And Tiffany's! Because I am loved and spoiled.)

Good God, I fucking hate you. So very, very much.

I would hate you, but I'm too stupid to grasp the concept. Instead? I will just poop on the upstairs carpet.

 

Ceiba: I will save you!

Max: Hey HamsterDog, I hate this hat, but I hate you more, so fuck the fuck off, mm'kay?

Christmas is hard work. And I totally cashed Max's bag of catnip. Sweeet.

(I started this post at 11 p.m. on December 26th. It is now 12:38 a.m. on December 27th. So Happy Birthday to me, and also, photo essays are hell damn time consuming. Am too old to be wasting my life like this.)

There Are Pet Photos at the End, Promise

SMALL TRAGEDY OF THE DAY #1: My hosiery had an unfortunate encounter with my car door, so I had to take them off. I'm wearing knee-high boots, but you can still see my knees, which is asbsolutely SCANDALOUS at my office. Bare knees! With no nude nylons to preserve my modesty! Can pasties and g-strings be far behind?

This tragedy is further tragidized, however, because I did not shave my legs. Thank the lord for blond hair and all, but eesh. I feel yicky.

SMALL TRAGEDY OF THE DAY #2: Red pen. Explosion. Carnage. Permanently stained skin. Bah.

And now, a bonus Wednesday(ish) Advice Smackdown question, as it is of the utmost urgency:

Dearest Q to the E-

Tonight I am making Jell-O shots for a bachelorette party this weekend.  While they may be an immature and trashy shot, they are liked by many participants on the bachelorette bus.  My question is, how do I make these and still make them tasty and not taste like you just drank a liter of vodka?

Your follower-
Tonya

An impromptu Recipedown! Awesome!

Okay, Jello shooters are easy peasy. One small package of Jello (I prefer lime), one cup boiling water and one cup vodka. Mix the Jello and the water, stir, add vodka, stir again, pour into wee souffle cups and chill. Or freeze.

The seekrit is DO NOT USE SHITTY ASS VODKA. This strips the shooters of all camp value and demotes them right down to trailer trash nastiness and visions of frat boys passing around the Mad Dog 20/20. So buy nothing that comes in a big plastic jug with the name of your local liquor store on it in a medieval-looking font.

You buy Grey Goose. Or Belvedere. Expensive, but for real, the rest of your party essentials are freaking gelatin and paper cups. You can splurge here. Also, put the vodka in the freezer for a few hours BEFORE making the shots. Vodka kept anywhere other than the freezer is Vodka Cruelty and I believe we can end this horror in our lifetimes. We just need to work together.

Next weeK? A Very Special Thanksgiving Recipedown, as I show you how to make the World's Very Best Thanksgiving Everything, or at least how to make your husband do it.

And for now? Some random photos from my camera because I can't think of anything else to write about, and oh my God, did I honestly start off this entry by talking about LEG HAIR?

Jesus. This entry was doomed from the start. Gimme a Diarist award! Send money and book deals! I am the next Bridget Jones! Only skinnier! And hairer!

Only Max is aware that the evil Vacuum Cleaner lurks behind them, creeping ever closer, waiting for the perfect chance to devour them all. Your only hope is to blend into the couch.

Jason: The fear is his eyes amuses me. Mwa ha ha.

Ceiba: I wonder if I left the iron on.

(Well, yeah. She's pretty in sepia. Shut up.)

Ceiba: *dreams of shoes, maple syrup and becoming the Ultimate Fighting Champion*

Ceiba: Look! I'm a mummy! Look! Kitty! Look at me!

Max: *will not look*

Amy: *will kill camera operator*

Care Bear PJs: *are adorable*

Amy: HA! Let's put my "I Voted" sticker on the dog's butt. I bet that has NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE.

Jason: Yeah! And let's put my Livestrong bracelet around her neck, because we are SO FUCKING TRENDY.

Ceiba: *chomp*