37 Weeks & the Mythic Pelvis

So I had an OB appointment this week. On Wednesday, actually. Those of you on Twitter might have seen one or two or three or seven hundred GAR ANGRY POKING! PHONE! KEYBOARD! REALLY! HARD! messages about it, and yet only now, two days later, do I feel calm enough to talk about.

Not because of any news I received at the visit -- as expected, all that false labor did absolutely nothing and my cervix is settled in for a nice long snug winter -- but because the office was running over TWO HOURS behind schedule. Two hours! And of course, they were not calling patients to let them know about the delay, but instead chose to let our bodies pile up in the waiting room.

Naturally, my appointment time was already much later in the morning than usual, so I was already cutting it close with the preschool pick-up time. I'd arranged for Noah to eat lunch at school -- buying myself an extra half hour or so -- but eventually the receptionist just told me to go ahead and pick him up at school. And then come back. You know, to WAIT SOME MORE.

This meant my first official late-stage prenatal visit -- the kind where you no longer wear pants -- involved trying to wrangle a cranky almost-three-year-old (without a diaper bag, without juice or snacks or toys and also AT NAPTIME) while holding a paper drape around my ass, begging him to please sit on that chair and not touch that super-expensive ultrasound machine, yes yes, I SEE THE BUTTONS. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH THE BUTTONS.

My 11:20 appointment was finally over sometime after 1:30, and I screamed the words to "Row Row Your Boat" at the top of my lungs the entire way home because as God is my witness, you will NOT nap until we are home and your ass is in bed; Mama has big plans to spend the rest of the day staring blankly at the ceiling.

In actual baby news, he's very high up. Still. Despite a noticeable downward slope to my belly, once again my bear trap of a pelvis is keeping my uterus from actually dropping like it's supposed to. After rooting around up in *there* for awhile, my doctor nodded and informed me that surprise, I appear to still own the exact same narrow pelvis as last time. (I really did mean to get around to a trade-in, but I was waiting for a more fuel-efficient hybrid model to come on the market.)

It was around this point in my last pregnancy that my doctor first mentioned that he saw a c-section as a definite possibility for me. Unless my pelvis did some amazing parting-of-the-Red-Sea action during labor, he was concerned that I was simply not built for a vaginal birth. I, of course, proceeded to pitch a total hissy fit about it, and then pitched ANOTHER hissy fit when a small minority of people told me that a narrow pelvis was a MYTH and a LIE and that women's bodies never grow babies too big for them to deliver (FACT!) and that any doctor who suggests a c-section before you've gone into labor is a lying liar who should be disbarred or whatever they do to doctors who shouldn't be allowed to practice medicine anymore. Taken out back and shot, maybe.

(Not that Stupid & Annoying is confined to the Internet, or anything, as I once had someone ask me about Noah's birth, and after I provided the cursory details -- 10 pound baby, narrow pelvis, the laws of physics and basic geometry, emergency c-section -- they suspiciously looked me up and down and said that was interesting, since I certainly didn't look all that small or narrow, stopping just short of accusing my doctor of childbirth-related vanity sizing.)

Anyway, not like it's a big surprise or anything, but the recommendation of a c-section still stands, and stands very strongly. Even if I were to go into labor tomorrow, it's unlikely I'd be able to deliver this baby without risking injury and complications for both of us. My doctor will support any decision I make, will not pressure me one way or another, but hi! I think I'd like to assume most of the risk in this birth scenario and get my little one out with minimal danger and damage to his presumably lovely little shoulders.

19 more days to go. I keep reminding myself that 19 days really isn't very long at all, and that every day he stays put is still wholly for the best right now, and that his birth will likely usher in a bona fide shitstorm of clusterfuckery and bleeding nipples and the urge to send Noah off to boarding preschool, and that I should enjoy and savor these final days of rolly roundness and fetal elbow pokes and yet OH MY GOD GET OOOOOUUUUUUUTTTTTTTT.

(For further evidence of the weird way my body carries its young, one can look right at those there jeans, which are regular old non-maternity pre-pregnancy jeans. Meanwhile, it takes the combined layering force of one extra-large mens' wifebeater and one large stretched-to-the-max maternity sweater to SORT OF cover the belly.)

(Don't forget the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see this jelly and cop a feel IN PERSON at the Sleep is for the Weak signing thingie tomorrow night.)

False Start

So...around 8:30 last night I had a contraction. I was standing on our bed, describing this great new color scheme and fancy painting technique I'm imagining for the bedroom, when I involuntarily yelped and clutched my ballooning belly. Jason raised his eyebrow and I clapped my hands together and sarcastically exclaimed, "Honey, it's time!" like pregnant women do in the movies.

Then I rolled my eyes and got back to the serious business of spending nonexistent money on hypothetical furniture.

Then five minutes later, I had another contraction.

And then another.

And this went on for awhile. Every five minutes. I drank some water. I sat down and put my feet up. I paced up and down the hallway.

After about an hour, they were still coming every five minutes or so, but didn't seem to be getting any worse. I decided to pack up my hospital bag anyway, panicking because I hadn't washed the baby's coming-home outfit yet. And the cameras weren't charged, and neither was my phone, and holy shit, MY TOENAILS.

I'd just put the finishing coat on my nails when the contractions stopped. Jason (who had been chugging caffeine and eating a variety of high-protein snacks downstairs while I occasionally reported on the state of my clenching uterus) looked pretty disappointed at the news.

And then everything started up again 20 minutes later.

By this point I was 99% sure we were dealing with false labor -- even though the contractions were coming at fairly regular intervals, they weren't consistent in intensity and weren't getting any worse, even though they'd been happening for hours. I kept trying to remember exactly how I felt in the hours before I knew I was "officially" in labor with Noah and was drawing a blank. Which is probably why I say stupid shit to pregnant women now about how "great" my labor was and how "empowering" it felt and whatever, it barely hurt at all! Menstrual cramps are worse! 'Tis a flesh wound!

In short, I was driving myself crazy, which is how I found myself on a dusty, never-used elliptical machine in our basement at 11:45 pm, hoping that if this was indeed IT and TIME, the exercise would get things progressing in a convincing manner.

Aaaaaaaand guess what! I'm still so totally fucking pregnant.

My bag is packed, at least. And I have every intention of finally starting to THINK about washing some baby clothes today. And oh, thank heavens, my toenails are painted. I mean, whew. Dodged quite a bullet there, Amy. How did you even sleep at night before?

AND NOW, A HOUSEKEEPING INTERLUDE...

The book signing thing! Is this Saturday. And unfortunately, there was some kind of snafu with the location and it's been moved from Vinoteca to the more child-friendly Caribou Coffee at 1400 14th St. NW. Time is the same, 5 - 7 pm. I know, I KNOW. I can't even drink and yet I am mourning the loss of the wine bar. FOR YOU. Sympathy alcohol pangs. But! It should still be pretty fun and casual and not scary and now Noah will be free to run around and charm you with his dimples and pirate talk. Or maybe he'll be a cranky standoffish jerk. You just never know how these popular blog offspring are gonna be. God, they think they're so awesome or whatever.

(Please come! Oh God.)

Also, I try not to barrage y'all with constant links to my paid ventures and all, but there's a giveaway on Mamapop right now for an entire year's supply of free Dove Beauty Products. Which I am like, really mad that I'm not allowed to enter, being that it's like, my job to pick a winner and all sorts of crap about "cheating" and "fairness." And all you have to do is leave a comment! That's it! (We get no money from the Dove people for this, by the way, it's just a really cool prize and if anyone deserves a year's supply of deodorant, it's YOU.)

Famous Last Words

FRIDAY:

"I don't think I've got the nesting thing as bad this time, you know?"

"Oh yeah, you're much calmer. You haven't even said a single word about replacing the kitchen cabinets."

SATURDAY:

I made us drive two states and like, four counties south to look at houses, because I thought we could cut our mortgage in half and get a single family home with a garage and a whirlpool tub in the master bath and you know what we could do with all that extra money every month? We could replace the kitchen cabinets! I am brilliant! This is a brilliant plan! I've got a stack of realtor.com printouts and a good feeling about this one zip code, which is ridiculously extra cheap and I'm guessing it's just because other people have never HEARD of this zip code and not for like, a real valid reason like you need to keep a cattle prod handy to keep your neighbor's herd out of your tomato garden.

SUNDAY:

Okay, so that didn't go super well. I'm not ready to give up. I have a NEW stack of realtor.com printouts and a few different neighborhoods triangulated on the GPS. We won't drive QUITE so far out this time, and I have a really good feeling about THIS zip code, which is also strangely cheap even though it's really close to an area we totally can't afford, and again I'm just going to assume that this neighborhood simply hasn't crossed anyone else's mind as an option and not because of like, rapes and shootings and gangs and drive-bys. Or tractor-bys. Look at this little yellow house! It's precious! It's adorable! I know there aren't any photos of the inside and we've heard crazy stories about people pooping in the appliances and pouring cement down the pipes when the bank repossesses their house but NO ONE would do something like that to such a precious little house like this one, right?

SUNDAY NIGHT, AFTER WE GOT HOME AND INSTALLED A NEW LIGHT FIXTURE IN THE DINING ROOM WHICH MEANT WE HAD TO REARRANGE THE DINING ROOM FURNITURE AND HANG NEW PICTURE FRAMES, AND NOW WE NEED TO CALL AN ELECTRICIAN BECAUSE I WANT THE LIGHT FIXTURE CENTERED OVER THE DINING ROOM TABLE'S NEW POSITION AND OH MY GOD WE ARE SOOOO REPLACING THAT UGLY RUG AND AFTER WE RELOCATED THE LIQUOR CABINET AND REARRANGED THE LIVING ROOM FURNITURE TO ACCOMMODATE OUR NEW COFFEE TABLE THAT WE GOT AT THE POTTERY BARN OUTLET AND PULLED EVERYTHING OFF THE BOOKSHELVES TO MAKE THE ROOM SEEM LESS CLUTTERED AND I MADE JASON ORGANIZE OUR DVD COLLECTION WHILE I IRONED THE DRAPES:

"So what if we just REFACE the kitchen cabinets?"

36 Weeks, Oh My God

(There was no sign of any fingerpainted masterpiece in Noah's cubby today -- only some crayoned and googly-eyed-pasted projects from last week. I assume this means Noah's fingerpainting has been deemed Bulletin Board Worthy. Or else it got thrown out, which...um. No, I'm sure it's probably the bulletin board thing.)

(STRANGLED GURGLING OF BRAINS SEEPING OUT EARS)

Anyway! Holy crap on construction paper, I'm 36 weeks pregnant.

I know I usually crop my head out of these, but I feel like you kind of need it now for scaling purposes. Belly: officially bigger than my skull. Noted!

It's pretty much bigger than everything now, and firmly in charge.

Here's what I looked like last time. The only difference being that I used to have about 15 extra pounds of ass, thanks to the six or so glorious months of daily puking this time. The next person who inquires about my weight gain and then tells me I'm "lucky" to have only gained 16 pounds so far is going to get kicked in whatever body part is convenient to be kicked because OH YEAH, I hit the motherfucking jackpot this pregnancy. Why, it was like a built-in case of bulimia, and I didn't even have to mess up my manicure.

(Oh, man. Food. The ability to just sit down and eat some food, any goddamn food at all! Without gagging at the mention of fish or ravenously reading a menu only to lose my appetite completely after seeing that the roast chicken is served with rapini -- oh, God, not RAPINI! I am ready for those days again. Also: chocolate. I really hate chocolate right now, and that hurts my heart, because that just ain't right.)

I've been having a lot of contractions -- sometimes even managing to string a few together in a semi-regular pattern, but I had them all through my final month last time too. So...that probably means absolutely nothing, and I shouldn't have even brought it up. Except that they hurt, and...and...I'm a big lame whiner.

Okay, bitching and sarcasm aside...we're ready. We're excited. We watch him move and wiggle under my skin, already laughing at what a feisty, active little guy he is. And already so different from his big brother, without even being born yet. Jason still calls him "the baby;" I bite my tongue to keep from saying his name aloud since I technically promised to wait until he's here to decide for sure, but...well. Between you and me and a few thousand other people, I'm doing a lousy job of keeping that promise.

Three and a half weeks. Alternatively thrilling and terrifying. And heartburny.

Last Hurrah

Oh, right. We went away for a few days right there.

It was great. Until everybody got sick. Noah threw up purple Tylenol on Jason's aunt and uncle's guest bed, and then on his uncle.

(For any rookie parent who might see "Children's Tylenol Meltaways" on the shelf at CVS and think, "Oh! I bet those are easier than the liquids," let me just tell you that "MELTAWAY" does not necessarily mean the same thing to Tylenol as it does to you and me. For example, that it melts. Away. In a reasonable amount of time before your child can work himself up into a royal state over OMG THERE IS SOMETHING PURPLE IN MY MOUTH THAT TASTES LIKE SUGAR BUT I AM SICK AND PISSED OFF AND I SPIT OUT YOUR PURPLE SUGAR TABLET REPEATEDLY UNTIL THERE IS PURPLE SUGAR SLIME EVERYWHERE AND THEN I SHALL VOMIT ON PURPOSE JUST IN CASE I MANAGED TO ABSORB A SINGLE ATOM OF MEDICINE.)

(Oh, and then you'll look at the bottle and realize that the dosage is TWO TABLETS, and even if you wise up enough to mash and/or dissolve the second tablet in a sippy cup, your child is SO ON TO YOU NOW, so...have some paper towels nearby, is all I'm saying.)

He's fine now, more or less. He woke up the next morning fever-free and clamoring for da beach! da BEACH! GO TO DA BEACH RIGHT NOW! But still, our last vacation as a family of three was a little less than the magical special time we'd planned for.

At least I didn't go into labor, other than the six or seven body-shatteringly painful contractions I had late on Saturday night while Jason slept obliviously nearby, dead to the world from Theraflu. I think my uterus was tired of being overshadowed by other people's head colds and got a little uppity about it.   

HOWEVER, I did learn that I do still, in fact, have it going ON, as I got catcalled at from some drunkish dude who said, and I quote, "HEY BABY, I KNOW LAMAZE" as I waddled by.

I opted to ignore him with grace and dignity and extra chins.

35 Weeks, 35 Days To Go

So...moving on.

How's October 15th sound for having a baby?

Thanks to some big new initiative to bring down c-section rates, my hospital refused to let my doctor schedule the surgery/birth/gutting/whatever on the date we'd originally planned for (October 10th). All scheduled sections must be LESS than a week before your due date, and apparently they'll even fight you on anything more than a couple DAYS ahead of time. This means I've been scheduled a mere three days before a due date that I do not even agree with (October 18th). (My wildly wonky cycle and wildly inconsistent early ultrasounds gave us dates spanning over a week apart, my doctor picked one from somewhere in the middle.)

My math puts my due date somewhere around the 13th or the 14th. Which means...

I may very well end up going into labor anyway.

*tosses up hands and laughs, panics at the realization that oh fuck, I have not done nearly enough kegels*

I don't think this baby is as big as Noah. I really don't. I have no real reason to think this, other than a vague sort of smallish vibe-feeling. I think he's head down. I THINK he's face down, or close to it. But I know second babies are more likely to be bigger, not smaller, and that my problems at Noah's birth had a lot to do with my pelvic shape (you know, IN ADDITION to the macrosomic and posterior baby who pooped in utero and had the cord wrapped around his neck), so it could all just be wishful thinking on my part.

The next few weeks will include a lot of monitoring of the baby's size and position, which is of course wildly inaccurate, but I'm hoping it will tell us enough to know whether I could safely roll with labor for a little while or if I should proceed immediately to surgery. My doctor's only concern is the physical limitations of our hospital, which gets insanely crowded (I know, since I had to labor in the triage area for HOURS last time before an actual room opened up), and there's no guarantee that an operating room will even be available if I were to run into trouble. Which, yeah, could technically be pretty bloody well likely, given my previous history of BIRTHING CLUSTERFUCK!!!1!!1

But regardless, he's up for the checking and letting me see what happens, particularly if I go into labor early, when there's a better chance for a reasonably sized baby. I doubt that will happen -- my guess is I'll start having contractions the morning of the 15th, leading to a big whole hassle as my surgery time approaches as we go back and forth and eh? Should we try? Yes, no? Maybe? Eh?

Jason seems a little wigged out all of a sudden, since he's always been in favor of keeping things as calm and controlled as possible, and now wants me to indulge in every old wives' tale out there for inducing labor to get this kid out before he qualifies for the next NFL draft.

I'm feeling very DONE, either way. My skin is stretched beyond insanity, my ribs feel bruised, the heartburn is unbearable (I get it from EVERYTHING, including WATER THAT IS TOO COLD), and I've started throwing up again. My clothes don't fit, I've graduated to the uber-sexy nursing bras, and I'm already not sleeping. Bring it, baby. Let's get the real party started.

I'll provide the footwear.

NOM.

NOM NOM.

NOM NOM NOM GET OUT HERE BABY SO I CAN EAT YOU.

And the Village Burned to the Ground

I talked to my mom yesterday. My dad is not doing well. He's unsteady, dizzy, forgetful. A heart monitor found an arrhythmia. Everything keeps getting worse instead of better. The doctors think his symptoms are the results of his fall this past June and not the reason for his fall. They don't actually have any real clue why he fell but the fact remains that he might very well fall again. My mom stands helplessly by, knowing that she can't leave him, even though she can't catch him, either.

My head spun off in a million directions -- a million questions for the doctors, potential solutions to their living situation that would grant them the luxury of being able to leave the house, lamenting the lack of family near them, rehashing the conversation Jason and I had over the weekend wondering whether we should confront the inevitable and move back to Pennsylvania because clearly no one else will -- even though I could really only stammer my sympathies and a suggestion that Peapod might be have cheaper delivery fees for groceries than Acme. Mostly I just tried to dismissively wave off the real reason my mom had called.

I understand.

Well, obviously.

Of course he can't travel.

Of course you can't leave him.

Of course.

I understand.

I'm fine! I'll be fine. We'll figure something out. Totally fiiiiine.

...

And then today it really hit me. Like the snooze button kicked in, 12 hours later.

I'm having a baby and my mom won't be there. My dad won't be there. They won't be there at the hospital. They won't be there at my house, making the coffee or folding the laundry or picking Noah up from school or reminding me to shower.

I'm suddenly very scared. Very alone. Very heartbroken for all of us, and this loss of time and firsts that you never get back. I know they're heartbroken too -- I heard it in my mother's voice, how much this hurts her, and I'm still debating whether to publish this when I'm done because I'm afraid it will upset her -- and yet I just want to slam doors and stomp my feet and dramatically throw myself down on the furniture because I'm having a baby and my mom won't be there and I need her and it's not fair.

34 Weeks

Yes, yes, I know, I know. I'm getting dangerously close to the point where I simply cannot go a day without at least posting that yes, there is no baby yet and all is well with my womb. I'm sorry. It's just that the baby's sock drawer is not going to repeatedly arrange and rearrange itself, y'all.

I've also been blowing my writerly load via dozens of long emails to my husband, since we've learned that we are only allowed to argue about politics via electronic methods. Otherwise we get a tad...shrill with each other, as during major election years our usually happy existence as independents ends, and we retreat to our separate party corners and hiss and spit and furiously send each other links that SO TOTALLY prove that the other person is a complete fucking idiot.

And while I usually just end up defaulting to the surefire "I am never sleeping with you again unless you pull your head at least PARTWAY out of your ass," I'm thinking that's not going to be particularly effective this time.

I mean, check OUT this slammin' physique. Wouldn't YOU be okay with letting the Bush tax cuts expire as planned in 2010 for a chance at that ass?

That's what I thought, suckahs. (And that IS a maternity tank. Those extra four inches of visible fishbelly are so fierce.)

If current "plans" hold -- and oh, I do so love using the word "plans" in regard to ANYTHING birth-related, since it makes me think of "birth plans" and how all the pregnancy books list that as something one should pack for the hospital ("darling, can you please fetch me my chapstick, Yanni CD and seven-page birth plan from the suitcase? It's in the front pocket. No, that's the back-up copy, I mean the one I had laminated.") --  I'll be having this baby in about five weeks.

And...we feel ready, more or less. Oh sure, we still haven't gotten all the various baby gear down from the attic yet and I'm still only assuming that the car seat is where I think I left it, and a full inventory of Noah's infant hand-me-downs reveals a horrifying shortage of 3-6 month sized feetie jammies but...eh. We're ready. We've been gripped with crazy baby fever over the past few weeks, which is convenient! What timing!

Whenever we see someone out and about with an infant, our conversations go something like this:

NOM, I say. SMUSHY BABY THERE MMMM.

GOOD, Jason says, SQUAWKY NEWBORN CHOMP.

Then we nod and go back to gnawing on bones and bitching about Geico ads. (And short- vs. long-term solutions to the energy crisis and Iraq timetables and OH MY GOD SARAH PALIN.)

I'm not sure when it happened -- the 3D ultrasound, the crazy visible kicks and rolls and undulations of mah belleh, the discovery of baby socks that look like shoes, the temporary threat that things might in fact NOT be as perfect and surefire as we thought? I don't know. But here we are, at 34 weeks, and we are finally able to have a conversation about The Baby that doesn't involve a heaping hot dose of TERROR and WHAT HAVE WE DONE? Undo! Ctrl-Z!

My only frustration is that we don't have a name. (Jason changed his mind. Don't even get me started. He changed his mind but has not offered a single usable alternative and WOW, YOU MIGHT EVEN SAY HE FLIP-FLOPPED, MUCH LIKE A CERTAIN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE.) (Okay, I'll stop now.) Jason wants to name the baby after he's here, in the hospital. Which is fine, except that I secretly continue to use "the name" in my head and I seriously doubt I'll be able to think of him as anything else, but I have decided to exert my energy elsewhere. The aforementioned sock drawer. The search for the perfect coming-home outfit, which is driving Jason crazy because I think I have rejected every pair of blue feetie jammies in the tri-state area as being either 1) Not special enough, 2) Too frou-frou, 3) Not boyish enough, 4) Too boyish, oh my God, my newborn is not coming home clad in MONSTER TRUCKS, and 5) I dunno, I just don't think raccoons are the statement I'd like to make on the birth announcements. Don't you have something in a teddy bear motif?

And...Jesus, I should stop before I make our household sound ANY MORE INSANE.

Quick! Look! Pet photos!

Way to keep it classy there, everybody.

33 Weeks, Stuff & Nonsense

At this week's OB appointment, my doctor announced that the baby is starting to measure...and hold the fuck on to your fucking hats..."a tad big." While I've always known that another big baby was likely, I was a little surprised to hear this. (Although really, with my half-assed approach to nutrition, my European approach to a glass of wine with dinner, and the many many voicemails from Target Pharmacy's auto-fill program reminding me AGAIN to come pick up my damn prenatal vitamins, I'm not sure what else I could do recklessly wrong to keep the baby at a manageable size. Smoking, maybe. Some hardcore drugs. Cutting back on the 1,500-calorie burritos. You know, INSANE AWFUL THINGS.)

I just remembered being much BIGGER last time, so I went through my archives in search of a 33-week belly photo.

33 weeks then:

33 weeks now:

So...not so much of a difference as I thought. Bring on the 3-6 month onesies!

While I was poking around those entries, three things occurred to me. 1) I was really very annoying back then and you should not ever read back that far, 2) in spite of that, I'd still say this blog has gone downhill in a big way, so you should probably not be reading now either, and 3) OH MY GOD I'VE NEVER FORCED YOU TO LOOK AT NURSERY PHOTOS YET.

I probably devoted three freaking months' worth of entries to Noah's nursery. The nursery we ended up leaving behind, the nursery that is now a plain white room that appears to be a very cluttered office of some kind, and what? Like it's MY FAULT that the new owners of our condo never pull the blinds down?

So. Uh. Look! We have room here that is slowly starting to look like something a baby might live in one day!

I waited until a nice dark rainy day to take pictures, lest you start thinking that I'm not still half-assing everything around here.

The theme is "The Green Paint That Was Here When We Moved In, A Bunch Of Yellow Stuff Leftover From Noah's Nursery, Plus Black & White Butterflies That My Mother-In-Law Painted, Because Black Makes It Like, Manly And Stuff."

There will eventually be dozens and dozens of butterflies, but my mother-in-law wanted to do more RESEARCH about different SPECIES first.

This is a rough mock-up of what the room would look like if I attempted to decorate it myself.

I'm hoping Noah gets his eye for detail and design from his father's side of the family.

(By the way, since so many people have asked about sending preemptive-strike sibling-rivalry gifts to Noah, rest assured that we're on it. That six-pack of FLOR carpet samples may very well be the GREATEST TOY WE HAVE EVER PURCHASED.)

The Bumbo chair (courtesy of the truly awesome Redneck Mommy) is also just a bottomless pit of entertainment options.

The sense of humor he clearly gets from me. God help us all.

(Also please note uncovered open electrical socket in the background. We're going for kind of an industrial look this time.)

Now please direct your attention to the HIGH-TECH DIAPER PAIL OF AWESOME from reader Sarah. It's fucking INFRARED, people. It opens and closes with a MOTION SENSOR. Is that not the most ridiculous, over-the-top thing you have ever heard of?

Needless to say, I'm so enchanted with it that I've been making a special trip from Noah's room into the nursery just to dispose of his mostly inoffensive night time Pull-Ups, and Jason rushes in to witness the process and then we stand there oohing and aahing for a good 10 minutes. And I wish I were exaggerating that in the slightest.

That concludes today's installment of Dr. Horrible's Snooze-Along Blog. Have a lovely long weekend, everybody. I will try to go out and injure myself in a not-harmful-to-baby but relatively-amusing way to make up for this crap.

With Friends Like These

Let me tell you something about Sweetney. Okay, a few things. You know how I am.

Internet friendships get a bad rap sometimes. They burn fast and bright, but are ultimately, kind of disposable, if you want them to be. Someone can be your bestest friend that you've ever bested one day -- and then suddenly it's been six months since you emailed them and Jesus, you can't just email them NOW because what are you going to say you've been DOING for the past six months? They read your blog. They know your email has probably been working at least 50% of that time and YOU SPECIFICALLY TWITTERED THAT YOU WERE DOING EXACTLY DIDDLY SQUAT ON MULTIPLE OCCASIONS so you can't even be like, "Oh, GEE, I've just been so busy! What with the...blog! And the...thing. With the place."

And it's not like you're mad at them or stopped caring or reading their blog or anything...it's just flat-out easier to neglect friendships based around the Verdana typeface. Particularly if you have the attention span of a gnat.

...look! I bought a new fruit basket at Target. It's just like the other fruit basket we have, except oval instead of round which will be better for bananas and...

Right. I may mostly only be talking about myself here, and my horrific flame-out track record with keeping in touch with Internet friends.

And then there's Sweetney. You know...we FIGHT. We've actually gotten FUCKING PISSED OFF AS ALL HELL at each other. We've both looked at the other person and informed her that dude, you are being a ridiculous jackass here, knock it off. And then the other person is like, yeah, you're right, I know.  And we never, ever fail to make up, hug it out, lay down some sappy sentences over email to thank the other person for both 100%  having our back and 100% not putting up with our shit.

And that's what makes it, honestly, one of the healthiest and most normal friendships I've made out here on the ol' series of tubes.

All this is to say, of course, that Sweetney scares the crap out of me and after trying to ignore her subtle and not-so-subtle hints about a baby shower ("A shower for a second baby?" I'd say, clutching my pearls and smoothing my gingham apron, "That's just NOT DONE, you know." And then she'd be all, "Fuck that! Fuck the rules! Let's have a baby shower and worship SATAN!"), she finally threatened to come to my house and yell at me in person if I didn't comply and offer up a registry.

And I don't want her to come to my house. The last time she was here we drank three bottles of wine and I fell off the couch.

So fine, she's throwing me a baby shower. For both Internet friends AND real-life friends AND really, anyone in the MD/DC/VA area who would like to come to the Sleep is for the Weak book signing on September 27th at Vinoteca in Washington, DC. She's hijacked the event for her own purpose. Which is: WITTLE ITTY BITTY CUTIE PRESHUS BAYBEEEE THINGS. She's got all the details on her site -- I'm posting about it here because she ordered me to, and again. The yelling. I fear it.

>>The Amalah Baby Shower Extravaganza 2008<<

(That would be the link, since I know my stylesheet doesn't underline links and make them super-prominent or anything. You don't have to click if you don't want to. I'm just like, you know, whatever, baby gifts, no baby gifts, totally not expecting anything from anyone, oh God, this is embarassing, I bet Tracey did this JUST TO WITNESS THE DELICIOUS AWKWARD on my part. That whore.)

(Also, because Miss Manners is indeed one of those Imaginary Authority Figures whose rebuke I also fear mightily, let me say that the "registry" is really an Amazon wish list that Jason and I were mostly using as a shopping list for our own purposes, and up until a week ago it contained exactly four items. Then Tracey was all, dude, come ON, so that's how it went from containing the Ergo carrier and a box of diaper sacks to "Well, GEE, if you're buying lunch, I'll have a double turkey sandwich on rye, a large knockwurt, three bags of potato chips, a chocolate milk and two beers. You want one? Three beers.")

(Are you getting the sense that I do pretty much whatever Tracey tells me to do? Hmm. Perhaps "healthiest" is not the word for this friendship. However, I really do want some extra-cute socks for the baby.)

(Anyway, if you are local and will be around on September 27th, we would totally love and appreciate it if you came to the little book event thing. [Click here for the eVite.] You SO. DO. NOT. need to bring a baby gift -- just your lovely, fabulous-smelling presence will be enough, since I have this image of Tracey, Rita and I sitting there with the books and sad little Sharpie pens all by ourselves, and THEY can at least drink wine to cope with the mortification.)

(I will also be as big as a motherfucking brick house by then. You should come see, just for the freak SPECTACLE of the thing. Behold! The world's rolliest pregnant woman! Who continues to walk upright! The human Jenga tower! Smelling salts will be provided for our sensitive patrons!)