girlfiend

So far this morning I learned that the car has, in fact, been totaled and they’re taking it on April 1st. I burst into tears. I call Boyfiend at work and he can’t talk.
I got a call from a woman coming to pick up something we’re selling on craigslist. The Fiendling is screaming at me to cut up his toast. She asks if it’s a bad time and I tell her no, my toddler is just acting like a toddler. I give her the address and she says she’ll be here in ten minutes.  I go to get the thing so it’s ready for her and can’t find it. I call Boyfiend and ask where it is. It’s in his car. Great. He says he’ll call me back. I call the woman back and apologetically, with a toddler screaming at me to take the butter off his bread, tell her that it’s not here. After we hang up I burst into tears again.
Boyfiend calls back. I assume he’s calling to talk about the car. Wrong. He’s on his way to the emergency room. Freak accident with a hockey stick in gym class. His eye is all fucked up.  I ask if I should meet him there. He says he’ll call me later. I burst into tears again.
All morning long the Fiendling has been saying, “Mama, no crying. Mama, no sad.” Easier said than done, kid.

A few differences between this pregnancy and the last:

I haven’t gained nearly as much weight. At this point (holy shit, I’m 32 weeks pregnant!) I’ve probably only gained about 20 pounds. By 32 weeks with the Fiendling I was up at least 40.

I’m sooooo tired. Not that I wasn’t tired last time, but this time it’s worse because I can’t nap every afternoon for 2 or 3 hours.
Even though I haven’t gained that much weight I feel enormous and have grown out of most of my maternity clothing. I am in dire need of a pair of maternity jeans and I’m way too cheap to buy a new pair with only 2 months to go. I’m down to one pair of pants that fit well and several pairs of sweatpants that are too long/too low/too tight. I hope it gets warmer out soon so I can start wearing my maternity skirts.

My feet and ankles haven’t really swelled at all yet. I was up a shoe size by 27 weeks last time.

The rest of me hasn’t really swelled either. I’m still wearing my rings and I can take them off and put them back on easily.

I’m not drinking nearly enough water this time. I still pee on average of 4 times an hour and that’s not counting the effects of coughing and sneezing.

Morning sickness lasted forever this time. I was done with morning sickness by 8 or 9 weeks with the Fiendling. With this one it lasted well into the second trimester. I didn’t start feeling human again until the third trimester and by then I started feeling uncomfortable.

Speaking of uncomfortable, I’ve been having Braxton Hicks contractions for weeks, only I’m an idiot and didn’t realize that that was what was going on. I never had them with the Fiendling and they don’t feel like labor contractions so I just assumed it was pressure from the baby. I wondered why I was feeling so much pressure so high up under my rib cage when I can feel that the baby is head down. It was only when I was strapped to the contraction monitor for close to five fucking hours on my birthday that they told me I was having contractions and asked if I felt them. Sure enough, when told what they were, I realized that I’ve been feeling them all along. Clearly I am not in tune with my body. It’s things like this that make me realize that any thoughts of unmedicated childbirth are just stupid.

Did I mention that I’m really, really tired?

We were our way to the zoo this morning, with Boyfiend’s cousins and cousin’s children following us in their car. We merged onto the highway and a car a few cars ahead of us was scared to merge and stopped. The next car in line stopped, we stopped, but Boyfiend’s cousin didn’t. I looked behind me and saw he was still moving so I was prepared for the impact and relieved that it didn’t cause us to hit the car in front of us. The Fiendling in he back seat was fine, Boyfiend and I were fine, the cousin and family were fine, but the cars? Not so much. Their small SUV smashed in our bumper pretty good. The trunk won’t latch, the taillights are busted, the license plate is pushed under the car, the license plate light is dangling and there’s other damage I can’t think of right now. Their car fared a bit better, but the front is smashed and it’s leaking antifreeze so it’s not safe to drive either.

We went directly to an autobody shop where the cars are waiting to be inspected by Boyfiend’s cousin’s insurance. We rented some cars, stopped back at the house so I could pick up a book and my laptop, and now I’m in the hospital in Labor and Delivery strapped to contraction monitors making sure the baby is okay and I’m not going into premature labor. I’ve been here for 2 hours and I’ll be here for two hours more.  Good times.

I really hope my car is able to be repaired.  We cannot afford a new one right now.  Happy birthday to me.

I made muffins yesterday. They were supposed to be zucchini muffins with toasted walnuts but after defrosting the zucchini I’d stashed over the summer it looked a bit sparse. I dumped a handful of baby carrots in the food processor and chopped them then realized I was out of walnuts. I did have some pecans so I chopped them in the food processor then decided not to bother with toasting them since it would take too long. After swapping out half of the white sugar with brown sugar, using applesauce instead of oil,  and using mostly wheat flour instead of white flour the muffins seemed a little too virtuous. So I added a little more than a cup of chocolate chips. They’re pretty good. Right now, at 9.30 am, the Fiendling has chocolate all over his face. I want to pick all of the chocolate chips out too.

I much prefer the George Carlin era of narration to the Ringo Starr or Alec Baldwin eras.

Some of the songs are pretty catchy.

I love that the Fiendling walked into the room yesterday to tell me that Sir Topham Hatt was cross. At first I thought he said that Sir Topham Hatt crashed, but he shook his head no and repeated the word I couldn’t understand. It was only when he said, “You have caused confusion and delay” that I realized he was saying cross.

I also love that he’s learned the word meticulous from the Sir Topham Hatt song.

The original stories, where Thomas is a pain in the ass and Gordon’s a dick are a lot more fun than the later ones where everyone’s all, “let’s work together, diesels and steamies alike.”

It astounds me that the Fiendling can tell all of the different engines apart and knows their names. All the green ones look alike to me. All of the blue ones look alike to me. I know James because he’s the only red one. And why the hell does Rosie have freckles? She’s a steam engine.

Blowing out the candles

Clutching his toys

We are missing a DVD, specifically a Thomas the Tank Engine sing along songs DVD. This would not be a great tragedy, were it not for the fact that this DVD is a library loan that can only be renewed so many times. If you were a toddler (a preschooler! now according to my email updates) where would you hide a DVD you adore and watch repeatedly? When asked where it could be, the Fiendling sadly looks around the room and says, “Don’t know. Watch Thomas. Sing along songs lost.”
The DVD was last seen around 5pm yesterday. By 9 pm yesterday the DVD was officially on the loose. So far it has not been found in the toy box, in the couch cushions, under the sofa, under the rug, behind the furniture, in the potty or in the VCR. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

FOUND!!

In the DVD player along with the long missing, “Baby Farm” DVD. How 2 DVDs managed to get stuck inside and the player still worked is beyond me.

A while back I wrote that the Fiendling was becoming a bit too independent and started trying to leave through the front door. After finding him on the front porch deep in discussion with a neighbor we started locking the door from the inside, using a key well out of his reach.

The other night I was cooking dinner. The Fiendling walked into the kitchen, said “Fiendling need step stool,” looked around, picked it up and left the room. It took me about two seconds to process and I quickly followed him out of the room, through the dining room, down the hall and into the foyer where he put the step stool in front of the door and climbed up. He locked and unlocked the door and put the key in and out of the lock.

I asked, “Fiendling, what are you doing?”

He replied, “Fiendling go outside.”

I said, “No. It’s dinner time and it’s dark out. You’re not wearing shoes or a coat. You need to stay inside.” I put him on the floor, made sure the door was locked, picked up the stool and returned to the kitchen with him running behind me yelling, “Uh-uh dinner time! Fiendling’s step stool. Fiendling go outside. Fiendling’s step stool!”

In two days he’ll be two years old.

We are sick again. We’re not feverish and delirious, we’re just snotty, tired and cranky. I’ve had this cold for days now and even though I’ve been going to bed early and mostly sleeping through the night I look like I haven’t slept in a week. The circles under my eyes are visible from across the street. The Fiendling caught it a few days after I did (of course he’s only gotten sick since he’s stopped nursing, and both times he’s gotten it from me, something I’m convinced could have been prevented if he was still interested in mama milk) and he’s worse than I am.

The good news is that he’s learned to blow his nose. The bad news is that he refuses to blow his nose a good 70% of the time.

I hope he’s better by the weekend. His birthday is on Saturday and his birthday party is Sunday. We’re keeping it small this time. We’re not inviting friends, we’re just inviting family, but limiting it to family still leaves us entertaining 20 people.

I’ve been trying to clean up the house in preparation, hitting all of the spots that haven’t been cleaned well since the last party in late December. I find myself getting bogged down in the minutiae. Yesterday, while I was cleaning the bathroom I started wiping down the walls. We don’t have a vent fan in the bathroom and the moisture tends to collect on the walls and drip down. It’s yellow and sticky and gross and looks like nicotine stains in the house of heavy smokers. I spent an hour wiping it all off and never got around to cleaning the sink. Today I was cleaning the downstairs bathroom and ended up cleaning the washer and dryer, the outside of the oven, dishwasher and refrigerator, and all of the walls in the kitchen. I wish I’d just done what I set to do and scrubbed the damn floors instead. At least I’m getting a head start. At the rate I’m going the house will never be clean all at the same time but the parts that are clean will literally be spotless.