Handle with Care

This is a picture of Amy, me, and Megan taking a shot of Mama Juana, a liquor from the Dominican Republic rumored to boost fertility. A year after this was taken, Amy and Megan were pregnant and I had just given birth. Just sayin...

Yep, still here

I promise I didn't have the baby weeks ago and am just keeping it a secret from you all. I was apparently misinformed about my plans of having the baby on Thursday.

It doesn't take much to impress people these days. At least 4 people have commented on how they are surprised I can still wear my rings. I got yelled at yesterday by my CEO for attempting to change into my (rather low) heals. I obliged and put my tennis shoes back on. I keep getting called into meetings that I wasn't originally invited to because people assumed I would be out by now. It's like when you say bye to somebody at a party or something and then awkwardly see them again. That's every day at work right now.

I have tried many a natural labor inducing remedy. Have consumed an entire bottle of evening primrose oil. Kenny made me eggplant parmigiana last night. I'm eating pineapple as I write this. I've been taking the long way to work so that I have to walk more. I've eaten spicy food. Am going to give up and sit on the couch this weekend.

Due

So today is my fabled due date. Mardi Gras. I am fairly certain there is to be no birthing for me today. I feel better about Thursday. The puppies don't think baby is coming today either. This is what they do while Kenny takes my weekly picture and they are waiting for their morning walk.

I think Leroy knows something is up. He's taken up being creepy and sleeping in his own bed at night. Either he knows something up, or he doesn't like sharing the bed with the whale who disrupts every creature in bed when she shifts positions.

Belly at 40 weeks. Also known as the time when pregnancy calendars stop. People are now disappointed to hear from me by phone or see me at work.

We had a lovely Valentine's Day. Baby cooperated in not coming on Valentine's Day as I had previously requested. We went to Outback. It was an outing we had planned for the day for several weeks. Sure we could have gone to some romantic-ish spot--perhaps a local restaurant we'd never been to--but we wanted to journey to the suburbs and go to Outback. Kenny consumed 2000 calories and 150 grams of fat.

For my Valentine's present, Kenny gave me a pedicure.

Apparently, much like learning to braid hair, learning to paint nails is something often overlooked for boys. Luckily, I can't get close enough to really see them and I think they look just spectacular from afar. For Kenny's Valentine's present I made him some waffles with berries and fresh whipped cream. Also I carried around his child for another day.

39 weeks..not for the faint of heart

So I've figured out why the baby hasn't come out yet. It's too busy eating.

I'm sparing you the pictures from the other side featuring angry red lines.

We went to the midwife today. I'm bigger (clearly). Baby is bigger. Baby will be born no later than March 2nd. I have a March 1st 8:00 pm room reservation at the hospital in case we haven't seen any action by then. I'm hoping very much for a February baby.

Kenny made me Jell-o last night. He added the hot water and then said, "and this is when you would add the alcohol." Pretty sure it's the first time he's made Jell-o that wasn't in shot form.

A brief tour

There is much evidence of approaching babyness around our bedroom. Note the elephant humidifier purchased for baby's room that may never actually end up in baby's room.

And here's a picture of the headboard we finally finished. This is a project that had been on our to do list for months and really ought to have triggered labor upon its completion. Our bed looks kind of gaudy here, but I don't think the colors look this way in person. I hope not at least.

This is where baby will sleep (courtesy of Kenny's cousin) in the beginning.

This is Kenny testing the new glider with our usual stand-in baby.

And these are our bags packed for the hospital. Items range from pillows to electronics, powdered gatorade and tennis balls. It's kind of a hard trip to pack for, you know?

And this was the belly at 38 weeks. See? Plenty big enough for a fully grown baby to come out of it right NOW.

Workplace hyjinx

So, last Friday I was a bit bummed. I had to wear a suit (or what I classify as close-enough-to-a-suit-I’m-too-big-for-real-clothes) instead of the usual jeans casual. I had a client meeting scheduled for 4:00 and client meetings=you have to dress up. My boss told me that our receptionist would call when the client got there and asked me to print off a bunch of stuff for the meeting in the meantime. I walked down to the meeting with her, past what I did not realize at the time were all empty desks. When we got to the room I thought it odd that the door was shut.Seemed kind of rude to have our client all shut up in the room by himself. I opened the door and was greeted by my entire office shouting “surprise,” a clothesline full of onesies, and a table full of cupcakes and falafel (from my favorite falafel place). Oh, and a Kenny. The Kenny part really threw me off much as Megan’s appearance at my birthday last year threw me off. I have a hard time with people being in the wrong context. I said, “you’re not supposed to be here” and kept asking him why/how he was. There was a flipchart full of boy names since my coworkers all know that yes, we have girl names figured out but can’t agree on a single boy name. They came up with many winners including Moonshine and “The Situation.” We had sparkling cider (or champagne if you happened to not be pregnant). I thought the onesies on the clothesline were my present and was surprised when they handed me a big gift bag full of baby bathing paraphernalia and a Babies R Us gift card. I introduced Kenny to each and every one of my coworkers. I think it’s good for him to have a face to go with the names he hears about all the time. Overall, I would describe the experience as awesome.

In related news, I am now over 37 weeks pregnant. That means the baby is full term (though the due date is not until Mardi Gras) and is basically just freeloading and trying to get fatter right now. At my midwife appointment last night I found out I had gained a centimeter and lost and pound in the last week. My scientific explanation for this is that the baby is eating my fat. To be on the safe side, I have been eating pretty much non-stop today. I’ve had a bagel, bowl of oatmeal, protein bar, manicotti, and a Hershey kiss so far today—and we’re really just 6 or 7 hours into the day. None of the pictures this week were good, so you get this one:

We finished most of our household projects this last weekend. It’s as if we’re finally ready for that housewarming party we were going to have. Also, you just really can’t have a baby when there are pictures that need to be hung. I mean, I’m sure you can try. I just know it’s a bad idea. We are officially allowed to have the baby after we make and hang our headboard this weekend and get onsite recycling set up. Below is a picture of Kenny’s masterpiece. I talked him out of making himself crazy and trying to hang them in straight lines. The idea is that we try to have at least one picture of all of our family members and friends. This is how baby will remember who each of you are.

T-27 days, give or take

So, here we are. 36 weeks. I’ve been busy at work trying to wrap up projects or find them new owners. At home, we’ve been busy finishing up projects as well. Last night at dinner, Kenny said, in all seriousness, “We need to restock the spice drawer before the baby comes.” Apparently we will no longer be able to go to the grocery store after the baby is born. I think we’re going to need a bigger pantry. Also, the baby is going to be very disappointed if he or she shows up and we have no thyme or ground mustard.

Sleeping, dressing, and eating have all become great challenges. Earlier this week I lost the ability to sleep on my right side. Sleeping on my back is supposed to be bad for circulation or something. Thus, I am left with sleeping on my left side. That’s really not enough to work with.As far as dressing goes, I’m either sick of, have spilled on, or no longer fit into the grand majority of my maternity clothes. And I’m certainly not going to do anything about it at this point. Today’s picture will actually be from 36 weeks and 1 day because the pictures that resulted from yesterday’s photo session are just too frightening. I was wearing a dress which made it appear that the belly had no end and those pictures will never again see the light of day. And eating?Well eating is just a constant experiment. If I eat the wrong thing or too much of it or not soon enough or too late I suffer.

I toured my first daycare yesterday. It seemed like a decent place and they have a spot available, so it’s nice to know that hopefully baby will not have to come hide in my cube when I go back to work—though I think that might be fun for all involved. We have a couple of other options to look at as well, so I am feeling much better about all of that. I am feeling dangerously close to..."ready."

For some reason, it appears I was wearing a zombie mask this morning. I'm fresh out of cute. Oh, and I get my hair cut tomorrow. Do any of you have any fabulous ideas for that?

Belly, belly, and more belly.

This is last week's picture--34 weeks. Notice the bump's position in relation to my lungs, stomach, and other vital organs.

And this is from today, 35 weeks. I'm so over trying to get dressed in the morning. The clothing options? They have dwindled.

And this is the ridiculous way I look when I get on the train every day--and sometimes I still don't get a seat.

The end is near

I think I have to stop waiting to write posts until I have pictures. I’ll catch up on pictures soon. But for now, there are updates to be had.

Kenny did something extraordinary and exciting last week. He went to work! Yay! He got a contracting position last week and we all breathed a big sigh of relief. He’ll be there for at least 3 and half more weeks—maybe forever. We shall see. The two most interesting things about the job, from my perspective, are that they made him take his tragus piercing out and he has to wear a tie Tuesday through Thursday.

In other news, I’ve had “take infant CPR class” on our to do list for several months. We totally cheated and crossed that item off of our list last night by watching a variety of online video demonstrations. While we were at it, we learned how to give CPR to dogs and got a refresher on CPR for adults. We also finally picked out a pediatrician. According to all books and movies, I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to interview a bunch of them first. We instead started from a list of four that have been recommended to us, looked at their office hours and Yelp.com reviews and chose one. Find daycare remains on the list. I wonder how we’ll manage to shortchange that process J. Actually, I think that’s why it remains on the list—we haven’t found a shortcut yet. I think I’m going to have to actually start calling places and scheduling visits.

About a week ago I was having lunch with coworkers and talking about how great I am at sleeping. I of course have not had a good night of sleep since. I’ve apparently decided to start worrying about everything we need to get done before IT happens, and my stomach and joints are all broken. I look forward to sleeping a year or so from now.

People at work keep asking me when my leave starts. My leave starts when this baby shows up. Statistically speaking, I have about 2 to 7 weeks left. I’ve been spending some time staring at this chart. I think it’s a bit early for this, but I’m starting to feel a bit like a ticking time bomb. Who knows when she’ll go?

All kinds of busy

I would have posted earlier, but I've been busy spending lots of time sitting on couches. We went to Kansas City for Christmas. There were showers, there were Christmases and there was lots and lots of snow. There was a blizzard that kept us locked up in my mom's house for about 3 days.

Since we've been back the dogs have been doing an extraordinary amount of sleeping and cuddling. I think they miss Grandma's thermostat setting.

We had a pretty low key New Year's. We did toy with the idea of opening the is-the-baby-a-boy-or-girl envelope at midnight. Leroy is apparently all about surprises though because he came and stole it away from us.


While just now trying to find a position where baby's feet weren't directly kicking me in the ribs, I had the uncomfortable realization that baby will possibly double in size before this is all over. Kenny was feeling my tummy last night and finally moved his hand away because he said it was freaking him out how much it was kicking.

This is me at 32 weeks, snowed in at mama's house over Christmas.


And this is me the day after we got back at 33 weeks. Between weeks 27 and 31 I hadn't gained any weight. Luckily 4 Christmases of eating and about a week of sitting on my tush got me all caught up.

The state of Kenny, the sequel

As of late, everybody asks me how Kenny is doing. I think he should get some weekly pictures too perhaps. This is Kenny two weeks after having been let go:

He has a tendency to do this when he's unemployed. And by this, I mean grow facial hair and cut back on showering. See exhibit A. I am not a fan of facial hair on him. It hurts to kiss him and he's just so pretty clean shaven. Luckily, a day or two after this picture was taken he got an interview with a design temp agency.

Couldn't you just eat him up? He looks just like Darren from Bewitched only cuter. He's been very busy networking and applying and signing up with agencies and working on his self-promotion campaign--not to mention all of the work involved in taking care of me. I am a handful.

Speaking of me, this is 31 weeks--I call it the bumblebee picture.

We're in the single-digit-week countdown now. The baby has shut down all normal operation of my stomach. I can now eat bland food in small quantities dispersed throughout the day. It's like the first trimester is back only with less vomitting and more pain and difficulty sleeping.

This whole birth thing is coming so soon and there is still so much reading and preparing yet to do. I have entire books on infant sleep and breastfeeding to read not to mention another one on birth. Oh, and we need to start weening affection from the dogs. We'll start that any day now I'm sure. At least we have a place for the baby to sleep and way to bring the baby home. I'm sure we'll work the other details out.

The theme is..Swedish

In other words, the nursery is about 75% from Ikea. We finished putting together the nursery last night. The room just makes me smile when I'm in it.

In this picture you'll see our previously featured crib. I contacted the designer, retailer, and manufacturer of said crib to find a mattress that was not too small and thus hazardous (as the first one we got was). I finally got a voicemail last night from the manufacturer who said that the (Target) crib is designed to be upscale and therefore needs and upscale mattress. She suggested I try Babies R Us to find said upscale mattress. Oddly, we went to Babies R Us two days ago and brought home what we determined to be the largest mattress there after taking each one out and comparing them to each other. We bought the fattest mattress pad we could find and voila! A crib that will hopefully not kill our baby.

Also featured in this picture are a set of blocks glued together by Megan to read Kodner Bun in the Oven and baby's first piece of Packer propaganda--a Packer piggy bank courtesy of his/her grandparents of course. The white dresser will be a changing table once we get a changing pad to put on it.


In the picture below, you will see curtains that feature frogs, elephants, and I think mice dressed in clothes. Also, we've installed a picture ledge which is temporarily housing artwork abandoned by our ex (deadbeat) tenant.

And me at 30 weeks in a festive red scarf since we're having a holiday party at work today. I'm not sure I can really tell a difference from week to week now. I think once the belly is a certain size it just keeps being big.

Mish mosh

I would like to be assembling furniture and hanging things up in the baby's room right now (or at least hovering over Kenny's shoulder while he does so), but I have been banished and told to go blog. So here I am. It's mostly Kenny's fault that I didn't get to write last week. I've become accustomed to him uploading the pictures and sending them to me, but he didn't do that this week. Apparently he was busy trying to find a job or something silly like that.

We spent most of Saturday at baby class. The class was just like they are on TV. We got to bring in pillows and blankets, we watched graphic videos, and we practiced saying "hee hee hee." My favorite part of the class was this one woman who kept asking questions about the placenta and how she could go about taking it home with her.

When we got home Kenny knew something was up when he spotted a wrapper for a dog treat on the floor. You see, we keep a bunch of treats in a jar on the window sill in the kitchen. The lid to said jar was on the floor in the kitchen. The jar itself? Was in the living room, empty, sitting on the couch.

This means that not only had Leroy gotten the lid off the jar, he had also carried it somewhere else more comfortable to gorge himself. He'd eaten about 20 days worth of treats in one afternoon. His belly was huge. After careful questioning and examining of the stomach, it was determined that Jack played no part in the heist and refused to partake in devouring the spoils.

When we were little my brother and I used to put up the Christmas tree on November 1 (as that was safely after Halloween and we never had Thanksgiving decorations). Since sharing a home with somebody not quite so into Christmas, I now hold off all the way until after Thanksgiving. My tree is about 4 feet tall. Putting the lights on required a moving squatting position. After I tried and fell over twice, Kenny kindly took over. For a Jewish boy, he's amazingly good at decorating a tree.


And, as always, the belly picture. This is me at 29 weeks in what must be an embiggening shirt. I frightened many people the day I wore it.

Green

As an anniversary present to us last Wednesday, Kenny’s company decided they’d take away his job. I must say, I have gotten better anniversary presents. As crappy as the timing is, I do think this will all be for the best though, and he’ll get a job he loves. Let us know if you hear of anybody who needs a fabulous graphic designer...

Because of the unfortunateness, Kenny was home on Friday to help my mom paint the nursery. I was terrified that the color was going to end up being too neon, but I think it turned out lovely. It may even appear neon-ish in these pictures, but that’s just the camera’s fault.

On Saturday, we hung these fun lights which provide the only overhead lighting in the room. The grown-up bed will have to stay for a year or so because we'll continue to need a place for guests to sleep. Afterall, somebody is going to need to take care of that baby.

Last night we assembled the crib. Kenny and I did it together and I don't think anybody called anybody names or got up and stormed off. It was quite the success. The quilt was made for me by my grandma when I was a wee one. Of course we had to test out the sturdiness of the bed with a series of puppy tests. We tried to put Jack in the bed. That lasted .5 seconds. He jumped out with terror almost breaking himself the moment his feet touched the mattress. Leroy, on the other hand, was quite content and might have stayed all night if we had let him.

And whoops. Looks like I'm wearing this shirt again for the 3rd or 4th time in these pictures. Apparently it is a very Tuesday shirt. This is what 28 weeks (definitely 3rd trimester) looks like on Emo. I can still see my feet and don't quite understand how one gets to the point where they can't. So many things to still look forward to. Baby has become quite movey lately. As I am writing this it feels like somebody is running on an eliptical inside my belly. I also continue to confuse the kicking with tummy growling causing me to think I'm hungry. Hmm.

5-point Friday

Laziness has gotten the better of me this week. For that reason, you get a hastily written 5 point post.

1) Jack turned 5 years old on Sunday. To celebrate, Kenny gave him a Leroy portion of food and we got a new sweater for him out of the dollar bin at Target. People can tell me that dogs don’t need clothes all they want, but my little guy gets cold and appreciates a little something. He shivers and helps put his legs through arm holes like a pro.

2) Leroy got an expensive yet clean bill of health on Tuesday. A week before he was diagnosed with an intestinal infection--the kind of infection you get when you treat the neighborhood sidewalks like a buffet table.

3) On Wednesday, Kenny and I celebrated 3 years of wedded bliss. He gave me coupons for 10 minute back massages, dog walkings, and clean ____. I've given these to people before and they haven't used them. That will not be me. I will use every coupon and I will probably use them too quickly and then be sad I didn't spread them out.

4) I am 27 weeks as of Tuesday and this picture. According to 2 out of 4 sites I looked at, I am now in my third trimester. Ahhh! I finally got my hair cut but have not figured out how to style it yet.




5) My mother and stepfather, Jack, arrived for a visit last night. This is to be a visit-Kenny-and-Emo-and-help-nest visit more than a site seeing visit. By the end of the weekend we shall have a disturbingly green nursery with an assembled crib and everything. We've pretty much decided to not look at the contents of The Envelope and are thus committed to a gender neutral room. Do you think there's anything wrong with putting bright pink stars in what might be a boy's room? I, more than most people, think pink can go either way. For some reason, I really feel like some big pink stars will tie the room together though. We'll see.

She promises they don't just boil water.

I am suddenly feeling very behind. I have just 1 or 2 weeks left of the 2nd trimester depending on who you ask and we have not selected a pediatrician, signed up for birthing classes, found a daycare, or created the nursery. Ahhh! I tried signing up for some classes yesterday only to find that they were already full. Fail.

We did cross one important thing off the list and that is finally getting the nerve to break up with my doctors and switch to a midwife practice. The doctors had been either patronizing or defensive with every question I had asked about the birth. I’m fairly confident that I could have maybe succeeded at having the birth I wanted with them, but it would have been a lot more stressful and non-automatic.

Several weeks ago Kenny told me he would end my bagel in bed service until I finally made a decision about all of this. He followed through with his threat, and I’ve had the hardship of making my own bagel for several weeks now. We did some research (i.e. read several online reviews) and found a midwife practice within a hospital (see Dad? It’s in a hospital!). I had a consultation with the director of the practice last week and it was amazing. I had a mental list of questions for her, but by the time she finished describing their prenatal and birth philosophy and process I was in love. Every “silly” thing I had asked my doctors about is just how they do things at this practice. It was as if I had written down a description of my ideal environment and care ahead of time and given it to her to read. She said she would do the breaking up with my current doctors for me, so I even got to skip that awkward step.

And finally, me at 26 weeks still in need of a haircut and this time with a really weird smile. That giant thing in front there? Makes my back hurt lots.

Adventures in Medical Land

I feel like the only thing I ever do anymore is go to doctors. I go to the allergist, the dermatologist, the dentist, and the baby doctor. My boss probably thinks I am making up appointments. I had a baby doctor appointment on Friday. I first had to convince the nurse that I was 24.5 weeks, not 23 weeks. This was the first time I met her and she was rather indignant when I countered her claim that I was 23 weeks. She asked me where I had come up with 24.5 weeks. Had a doctor told me that? Yes, a doctor had told me, that but come on. I am also constantly aware of what week I’m at. I post a weekly picture. I read no fewer than 90 pregnancy week-by-week thingies each week. It’s on my Google calendar. I don’t know what her source was, but she refused to believe me until I told her my due date and she got out her little slide chart thing and told me that yes, I was in fact 24.5 weeks. She then realized that I should have been scheduled for a glucose screening at this appointment but it was too late in the day. She went on to scold me about how I better pass the test when I did take it or I would be punished by having to come back in for a 3-hour test. I asked her how I go about passing it (I’m thinking..maybe by not having gestational diabetes?). She said I better not come in with a Starbucks full of sugar, and I better stay seated during the test and not try to sneak out and go shopping or something.

Things only got better when the doctor came in and told me that he was sorry, but he was going to have to rush me. He had a patient who was 9.5 centimeters dialated. Now, the office is not in the hospital and is at least 10 minutes away. He congratulated me and Kenny on being pregnant. I couldn’t remember any questions I had for him and forgot to even update him on how I had been failing to breath a few weeks ago and how my allergist had changed my medication around. I was too concerned about that woman who was about to give birth and maybe wanting her doctor to be there. He listened to the baby’s heartbeat and commented that I was definitely pregnant (whew!). He didn’t argue with me or try to do any procedures twice though, so I will give him that.

I went back Monday morning for my glucose screening. They gave me about 10 oz of a very sweet Kool-Aid like drink and told me to tell them to take my blood an hour later. Much like telling us we can’t have cold deli meat, I’m pretty sure this is just one of those things they do to screw with pregnant women. I was in a nauseous, sleepy sugar coma until after lunch time.

And of course, the belly. 25 weeks. 15 more weeks? Where? How? My head will return to photos when I get a haircut. If I like it.

My last two weeks, the Cliff's Notes version

I spent a good many hours enjoying this view last weekend. This is the view from Kenny’s sister Robin’s cabin in San Juan Island (near Seattle). The island was just full of beautiful—hills, moss, Puget Sound, lots of trees, a view of Canada. If you walk down the hill from where this picture was taken you come to a cliff overlooking the water and where there are sometimes whales swimming by. Sunday morning we went to a pumpkin carving brunch at an equally beautiful wooded area near an adorable cabin.



My pumpkin is the one on the left that says BOO. It also has a sadly misshapen witch's hat on the left side out of view. Robin carved the next two. Our friend Carri who lives in Seattle and joined us for the island adventure made the cyclops. Kenny made the roboty one, and Robin's boyfriend, Jason, made the horned fellow on the right. I love Halloween, but this will probably be the extent of our Halloween celebrating for the year. Lame.

We spent the last two days of our trip in Seattle. We were going to stay with Carri and her husband Derek, but Derek had to go and get the flu or some such illness. Apparently asthmatic pregnany ladies should avoid getting the flu and other such illnesses, so we stayed at Robin's Seattle studio for one night and a hotel for the last.



This is of course the belly at 24 weeks + the Public Market + Puget Sound. Apparently I am just going to keep getting bigger. Our hotel was hilarious. It had black hallways and giant black and white pictures of rockstars on the doors. It also had a pillow menu. I dialed zero and requested a body pillow. Will now have to buy a body pillow for home use and hope there is still room for Kenny in the bed in addition to me, my belly, the pillow, and two dogs who sleep attached to me.

And last, but not least or even chronologically last, a report on the 2009 3Ms conference:
We all enjoyed milkshakes when they arrived last Friday night. Saturday we bravely headed to Ikea. Something like 5 hours later, we emerged. Megan bought herself a nursery (pictured below in the 4 big boxes at the right. The cart is also hers. Did I mention she flew to Chicago? Molly wins the Ikea restraint contest. She is holding her one purchase. Kenny and I are responsible for the cart on the right. We (read Kenny) somehow fit all of this and 4 people (plus 2 half people) into our Corolla.

When we got back from Seattle, etc. there was a large box waiting for us in the foyer. The crib we ordered from Target a few days earlier (the one that said it would take several weeks to be delivered) had arrived. I am now pretty convinced we are having a baby because there is now a bed in our house just for it. Feels kind of like it did when we bought a crate before we got a puppy. The boxed up crib is living for now along side Megan's boxed up nursery furniture in our guest room. Sorry Kenny's parents who are coming to stay in that room this weekend!

I guess I never finished discussing the rest of the 3M weekend, but now that I've already come back to present tense, it seems confusing to do so. Have a good Halloween!

I break dresses

All the fun was indeed had last weekend, but I’ve been trapped under something heavy all week and unable to tell you about it. Yesterday was the last of day of our giant 3-day all member annual conference. Our wonderful bosses gave us today off, which is great because I need today to clean the house and get ready for our trip to Seattle. We leave tomorrow morning and some friends come to stay with the puppies. In other words, I will also fail to tell you about last weekend today.

Because of the conference I had the challenge of dressing in business dress for three days. I do not own 3 suits that can fit around the belly, so I had to get a bit creative. For two of the days I ended up wearing two non-maternity dresses that happened to have belly space. Everything was going swimmingly until the third day. I was sitting in a session and the, um, upper part of the dress (actually it was a jumper) was a bit snug and inhibiting my breathing. I was at the back of the room so I decided I could unzip my breath and have a little reprieve. The session was ending so I went to zip back up. I couldn’t reach so asked my friend/coworker, Lisa, for help. The zipper got stuck. She tried for a few minutes with no success. Another coworker suggested that standing up might help. Meanwhile, around 400 members are sitting in the rows in front of us learning about investment risk. Standing up did not help. A managing director saw what was happening, and he came over to help as well. Zipper. Would. Not. Budge. Lisa and others tried to convince me that it looked like a style feature of the dress. I went to the bathroom to survey the damage. From far away it did conceivably look like an intentional feature. Really though, it looked like I was walking around with my dress unzipped. I took the jumper off completely to see if I could fix it. Nope. Zipper looked tired and angry I had forced it to close earlier.

I ended up borrowing a suit jacket from a coworker to hide for the rest of the day. When I got home I handed the jumper to Kenny who promptly zipped it up in about 15 seconds.

And now, the poor belly, pictured here at 23 weeks trapped under two layers of spandex. Not its best look. I blame Kenny's photography.

The weekend's accomplishments

While we were looking for a home to buy, we considered several severe fixer uppers (i.e. they needed new roofs, walls, electricity and plumbing). After 5 months of moving into a place that really had no problems, I now understand that we are not the sort of people who can do that.

Exhibit A: We found this mid-century dresser at a second-hand store to use as a TV stand. It was what I believe my grandma would have called baby-shit yellow in color and had the world's ugliest hardware. Kenny has been slowly, and I mean slowly, refinishing this on our porch for more than the last 3 months. I of course would have helped had I not been in my delicate condition. I do think he did a wonderful job.

Exhbit B: We got on this big mid-century kick (our parents love that term since it also applies to them) and bought these lovely chairs off of craigslist. They had the original cushions on them. Apparently foam is not meant to last 50 years. I would find powder of said foam below both these chairs and our dining room chairs. My mother had offered to buy me a cruise ticket for my birthday last year. We ran out of times when we could go, so I asked her to make me new cushions instead. I think she should quit teaching and take up cushion making full time.

And Exhibit C: Our still not complete dining room. It is mostly complete. Kenny finished recovering all of the chairs this weekend. I would have helped, but I lack the patience and perfection threshold that Kenny has. I somehow managed to not capture the chandelier in this photo, but you've seen it. All that we have left is for Kenny to make me a pretty picture for the wall.

I was in charge of switching out winter/summer/too small clothes and emptying out the future baby's room this weekend. There just really aren't any pictures to go along with that. Also, I have been working on one other rather taxing project:

A picture with a head for once because my mommy asked for one. I can now see it is time for a haircut. Today I am 22 weeks. Because I don't quite understand how 40 weeks fit into 9 months, I looked it up online today and was shocked to discover that I am now in my 6th month. When did that happen and when did my belly get so horizontal? I also read that my belly button might pop out any day now. Am terrified.