I have been working with the assumption that I will go into labor at the absolute most inconvenient moment possible. That is why I booked something for Mia and I to do every single day this week, certain that doing so would cause me to go into labor in the wee small hours of Monday morning and have to try to deliver a baby while figuring out how to get ahold of everybody and cancel a week's worth of plans. Clearly, not so much. So when my friend Laura asked if I could watch her two girls this morning, I was thrilled. Obviously if I didn't go into labor in the middle of last night, thereby ruining Laura's day, it would happen when I was the sole adult responsible for three children. Again, not so much.

On the plus side, I survived a morning with three children. In fact, it was easy. So easy it got me thinking hey, I should have another baby! Very convenient. The fact is that Laura's girls are so good that my only real reason for being here was to dispense snacks and I could have spent the rest of the time snoozing on the couch to no ill-effect. (Laura, I didn't do that, I promise.) The only hitch was that I gave the youngest some banana slices and she had a great time rubbing them all over her pants and then spit a mouthful of milk on her own shirt moments before her mother got back and I was so mortified by the layer of filth covering the child that I seriously considered hiding her in the closet and trying to convince Laura that no, really, she only had one daughter, I was positive.

It really is getting to be time for this baby to come out though, as I have even finished nesting. Seriously, the hospital bag is packed, the laundry is done, the presents for and from the baby are wrapped, I vacuumed the upstairs for the first time in a month, and I sewed up the hole in the chair cushion that has been there for at least two years. I've made a $500 trip to Costco, and spent at least that much again at both Target and the grocery store, because apparently when I have no need to buy baby clothes I replace it with the need to buy a 12 month supply of toothpaste, toilet paper, and frozen waffles. My house is reasonably clean and Chris has been fully instructed on what Mia is to wear to the hospital to meet the baby and what she is to wear when we bring him home. If I don't go into labor soon, I'm going to have to get a hobby.

(Yeah, I know my cookies aren't cookie-ing. Working on it.)

Ok everybody, on the count of three, hit that little "refresh" button up at the top of your browser. Ready? 1, 2, 3! Did that fix it? If not, let me know, but I think I've gotten most of the bugs out. Also, dear Mac users, if one of you would like to loan me your machine for several days I will be happy to test/fix this design for a Mac, but until I get a volunteer, sorry but there's nothing I can do about it.

Now, aren't I pretty? I am, yes. Tell me I'm pretty, you know you want to. I think I will develop a firm policy to totally redesign my website every four years whether it needs it or not. And yes, a couple of you miss the purple and I do just a bit too, but it was well past time to do something else and I feel like I have a big girl blog now instead of whatever mishmash I had cobbled together with my own sorely lacking design skills and almost non-existent html and css knowledge.

Why do I look so pretty? It is all courtesy of Emily. See, we worked out this deal where I would install MT for her and she would do a new design for me, and she got by far the raw end of that deal but she did it anyway and she's amazing. I think the sum total of the guidance I gave her was "purple, not too girly, and for the love of god no big cartoon woman at the top." (Is that cartoon woman thing still a trend? It seems not to be so much and nothing against you personally if you have one but man, they were just every-damned-where for a while, weren't they?) Anyway, out of my totally unhelpful "dude, keep it sort of simple, maybe, and possibly also a nav bar?" comments, Emily made an absolutely gorgeous design. Which I then made her change to suit my whims, and she didn't mention even once that it really did look better her way, oh no, she just changed it and changed it to make me happy.

And then! Then she let me implement it myself, which would have driven me flat up the wall in her position because who knows what I'm going to screw up, and then she spent hours of yesterday helping me fix the things I screwed up, and she didn't even complain that I changed a couple of little things even though again, her stuff was certainly way better than mine.

There were a couple of things I was really afraid of when I agreed to have someone else design this site. First, I was scared I would hate it. Second, I was scared there would be all this drama like what do you mean to reorganized your sidebar, you stupid, design-impaired loser? It was perfect! But there was not a bit of that - Emily very graciously made any changes I asked for and didn't even mention the changes I made other than to help me make them look better.

And you know what the best part of this is? For you, I mean, obviously the best part for me is that I have this amazing new design. The best part for you is that Emily does this professionally, and if you asked nicely I'm sure she would agree to do a design for you for a very reasonable fee. And even if you don't want her to do a new design for you, I think you should head over there and tongue kiss her just for being so fabulous. You will have to get in line behind me though, and I plan to be taking up most of her tongue kissing time for at least the next few days.

Now, let's talk about my fat ass, shall we? Although actually, while I looked stupidly large for being 6 months pregnant back in October or so, I look pretty ok for being nine months pregnant, although the ass really is distressingly fat. And no, this fetus is showing no signs whatsoever of coming out any time soon, but my own OB told me herself yesterday that none of that means I won't go into labor any minute. (And please, pretty please, I mean thank you and all, but there is no need to tell me all the ways you know to send myself into labor because a) I don't think they do a damned thing if you aren't basically ready to go there yourself, and b) I have access to google and I know how to use it.) The truth is that I'm not in a screaming rush to get this kid out of me. Sure, I'm pretty uncomfortable, but other than a couple hours at the end of the day it isn't too bad and really the worst part has been two spots of eczema on my hands for which I am not allowed any good drugs and which drive me batshit insane a couple of times a week. (And again, thanks but no thanks on the natural remedies. See google, access to above.) I would like very much to go into labor sometime before 7:30 on February 11, which is when my c-section is scheduled, but it that means going into labor at 6:30 on February 11 that would be ok with me.

I did have a couple of hours very early Tuesday morning when I thought labor might be happening. Turns out it was more likely a case of too many brownies, but it was an interesting experience. My first thought on thinking this might be the onset of labor was "oh god, please no." Turns out I'm still a little more scared of the whole thing than I have been allowing myself to believe. It all just sounds so... unpleasant. And yes, I have chosen to try it the old-fashioned way even though I could have been busy having myself a c-section right about now, but the reasons for that decision have nothing to do with the "experience" of labor or childbirth. My c-section with Mia was great, my recovery was great, if it goes that way again then oh well, no biggie.

Wait, I seem to have forgotten my point. I suppose it is a) Beth is scared of labor, and b) if Chris shows up here sometime in the next not-quite two weeks and announces that Wally was delivered by c-section and mama and baby are doing great, there is no need to dedicate the slightest bit of concern or sympathy regarding the c-section bit because I just don't care that much.

(And I just have to throw this in, since I am vaguely on the subject. You know what really chaps my ass? When I was researching the whole VBAC vs. repeat c-section issue I found all these websites that listed the risks of both methods. The c-section list was always pages and pages long and listed all sorts of dire things like death from hospital-acquired infections and crushing post-partum depression and total inability to ever bond with your child and being miserable for the rest of your life, and the list of vaginal delivery risks said minor tearing and shoulder nerve damage to the fetus. And hey, you know what's a major risk of vaginal delivery? Fetal death. You know another one? Maternal death. In fact, for much of human history (and to this day in a lot of places on this planet) childbirth was a pretty common way for women to die. You know why it isn't much of a risk for us? Because before it gets that far, we have c-sections. Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.)

"Outlook not so good."

(If things look weird around here, try refreshing the page. Will give you the skinny on my beautiful new design tomorrow. In the meantime, let me know if I broke anything. It isn't like I'll be too distracted by labor to fix it.)

Things I have given up for the remainder of this pregnancy.

• Pants of the non-yoga variety.
• Nutrition. (Brownies? For breakfast? Hell yes.)
• Shoelaces.
• The shaving of the legs. (Ok sure, I might get inspired once I go into labor, but I did it on Saturday and I can assure you it was not at all worth it.)
• Caring whether my expansive midsection is fully covered by my increasingly too short shirts.

You wanna make something of it?

She's ahead of her time.

Me: (trying to get off the couch)
Chris: (laughing)
Me: Shut up.
Chris: I'm laughing with you, not at you.
Me: I'm not laughing. And this is all your fault.
Chris: Not really.
Me: You did this to me.
Chris: You had a hand in it.
Me: I was just trying to be polite.

P.S. What would you do if your 2.5 year old announced that she hated the name you had chosen for her impending little brother? Actually, she said it scared her.

"Don't count on it."

Mia and I went to have the car seats inspected yesterday. Car seats. Plural. It appears that I am going to have another child. Yikes. Oh, anyway, Chris moved Mia's car seat and installed the infant car seat over the weekend, so we went to have them checked out. At the fire station.

Now, the last time I had firemen inspect my car seats (and I am more disappointed than I can express that this is not a euphemism for anything) I was sorely disappointed. The firemen were all either old or unattractive or bemulleted and regardless were more interested in discussing where they wanted to go for lunch than in flirting even slightly with an unkempt, likely unshowered, housewife. So my expectations were not high.

But yesterday, oh my, yesterday. There was just one fireman, which was initially a bit of a disappointment, until I realized that he was a certifiable hotty. I mean seriously, not the kind of person you want to be confronted with when 37 weeks pregnant and unable to pretend even for a second and with absolutely no basis in reality that it might be possible to have just the tiniest of flings with the hotty fireman who works right around the corner from your old house and dammit why did we move, that house was perfect? Yeah, that kind of hotty. And just the tiniest bit flirty in the way that only hugely pregnant women can really appreciate with appropriate gratitude, so that I know he is also the father of two girls and that they (the firemen) throw a football around when they get bored (he made sure to demonstrate his skills in that area) and that he didn't even care that I sneaked over to our former county for the inspection because our current county wouldn't do it until March. Also, he let Mia sit in the fire truck, and you should have seen the way that kid's face lit up when I put her behind the steering wheel. Made her week and mine.

You know the only thing that really sucked about the entire experience? He was entirely too young for me.

Sigh.

(Magic 8-ball cervix update #2 coming later today. Hey, did I tell you that last week they had to do an ultrasound to make sure the fetus was head down, because he was so high up they couldn't tell for sure any other way? Dude, get the heck out of my ribs already.)

If you had asked me fifteen years ago where I would be today, this probably would not have been my answer. I had different ideas at 18 that didn't involve the suburbs 10 miles from the house where I grew up or a career in housewifery and that were decidedly more glamorous and outrageous than real life usually turns out to be. But, if you had asked me 15 years ago who I would be spending my undefined life with today, I probably would have hazarded a guess that it would be Chris.

Today is our 15th anniversary, although we seem to disagree as to the 15th anniversary of what exactly. Chris feels it is the 15th anniversary of the night I picked him up in a bathroom. I think it is the 15th anniversary of... erm... something else entirely. Either way, I knew early on that we were kindred spirits, that by starting up with this guy I was probably committing myself to the long haul. And I am happy to have made it 15 years in with no end in sight.

It hasn't all been good, in fact some of it has been pretty damned miserable. It hasn't all been happy, I haven't loved every minute of it and, to be honest, I haven't even loved him every minute of it. But here we are, and as they say, we are still married. Happily married, wouldn't change it for the world married, can't imagine it any other way married. And blessed beyond reason by our quiet little life, our happy little family, all those things that would have sounded so boring to me 15 years ago but that have turned out to be everything I ever wanted.

You know what's awesome about being pregnant? Eating homemade oatmeal raisin cookies dipped in peanut butter for lunch. Because hey, I'm already fat, what's another pound or two?

Mia's homemade word for making footprints in the snow? Snowprints. Yeah, that's pretty damned cute.

We're going to a dinner party tonight with pretty much everyone Chris works with. Who wants to bet my water breaks in the middle of it?

It has occurred to me that, since all four grandparents who will be jointly responsible for Mia's care and maintenance while I am busy producing an additional offspring have graciously agreed to come to us so that Mia can stay in her own house and thereby minimize as much as possible the disruption to her life, I need to be prepared to have house guests at any moment with very limited warning. And not just house guests, but house guests who will be perusing the cabinets and cupboards in search of sustenance and clean towels. This means I need to keep my house in a relatively tidy and clean condition at pretty much all times, which I am not good at. It also means any incriminating items need to be well secured. I have pregnant brain people, so help me out here. If your parents, and worse, your in-laws, were going to have unfettered and unsupervised access to every corner of your house for two to four days, what would you make damned sure was hidden in the very bottom of the Christmas ornament box?

"My sources say no."

Ok really, how much do you people want to know about my cervix?

I ask because I have my 36 week OB visit this morning, which we all know marks my triumphant return to the stirrups, and is also when people generally start telling you about centimeters and percentages whether you want to hear about it or not. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I just don't feel that you and I have that sort of relationship, and things have been going really well with us lately and I hate to mess it up by suddenly forcing you to withstand biological details of a part of my anatomy that even my own husband is highly unlikely to encounter. (And I was going to make a joke about my husband and my cervix, but then decided that even that joke was more than you needed to know, so I've removed it.)

Here's what I'm thinking. I'll go to my appointment, and my OB will violate me and then pronounce that I am somewhere between "steel trap" and "crowning" and then I will come back and report directly to all of you. But I will report using only Magic 8-Ball-ese. Which I have already Wikipedia'd and therefore have before me the complete list of original Magic 8-Ball responses from which to select. Granted, this will not give you much in the way of actual information as to whether I am close to going into labor or not, but the details wouldn't give you any actual information either as it is all basically moot and just gives us pregnant ladies something to do in the last few weeks.

Anyway, wish me luck as I am seeing the OB that often keeps me waiting for 2 hours and am taking Mia with me. Yeah, I expect it to be just as much fun as it sounds.

People keep asking me if I am "ready." I'm not quite sure what that means. Does it mean am I ready to have a baby in the house? Ready to stop being pregnant? Ready to be the mother of two? No matter the intent, the answer would really be the same: yes and no. I have diapers and clothes and a place (actually, several places) for him to sleep. I am stocked up on detergent and baby wipes. The hospital bag and car seat can be ready to go in ten minutes or less, and I got a pedicure on Sunday. But I need an oil change and new tires and a gift for the baby from Mia and one for Mia from the baby, and I haven't picked any pants to wear home from the hospital and the child still needs a middle name. And I haven't made Mia's baby book and I would really like to do the taxes first and I'm not even full term yet so no, I think it would be best if he waits another couple weeks.

I am very ready to get my body back to myself, at least partially, and am ready for the heartburn and hip pain to end. I am ready to lose this weight, not because of appearance issues because I think I look just fine, even if my thighs are rather chunkier than I prefer (but then, aren't they always?), but because it makes me physically uncomfortable. But I am terrified of labor, terrified of delivery, terrified of recovering from surgery while trying to mother my toddler. And I regret, just a bit, the retiring of my uterus. Not in a "want another baby" sort of way, just in a "enjoyed making the two I've got" sort of way.

And I have no idea if I am ready to be the mother of two. Based on my performance of the past few weeks though, I would have to say no. I seem to spend all of my time snapping at Mia. She is just so energetic and willful and challenging, which is wonderful and appropriate and I adore it, but I am so tired and so sore and it really is so hard for me to get up off the floor, walk across the room, bend down and retrieve whatever toy she has asked for so nicely with two pleases and a premature thank you that I just can't stop myself from taking it out on her. And oh, how I hate that, how angry I get at myself for doing that, but she still gives me kisses so I suppose she still loves me and I hope she is willing to tolerate Crabby Mommy for at least a few more weeks. (At which point, Crabby Mommy will be replaced by Zombie Mommy.)

Ready? Yes and no. But it doesn't much matter, does it? This baby is coming when he's coming, ready or not.

Mia's butterflies and flowers are Wallies, and so far I would heartily recommend them. Not too pricey, shipped quickly, easy to put up provided you have a supply of patience at hand (which is why I refused to allow Chris to help) and supposedly removable.

My kid looks like me. Or so everyone tells me. I see a lot of Chris in her, but I have been asked more than once whether he was in the state when she was conceived or if I just skipped the sex bit and had myself cloned. Thanks to spending every waking moment with me, my kid talks like me too. She apes my inflections, repeats things I say to her verbatim, and is very good at capturing my exact tone of voice to parrot back to me when she wants to push my buttons. I see a lot of myself in her in everything she does, which I suppose is only natural since I am her primary model at this point.

There's a lot of Chris in her too. She loves music in any form, she has his lips, and when she gets mad, she throws things. She also refuses to eat, goes into a crashing and ugly low blood sugar inspired tantrum, and then still refuses to eat anything, preferring to behave like a little beast and make my life miserable. That one is straight out of her father's playbook.

Mia refused both breakfast and lunch yesterday and spent most of the day screaming at me about it. Then she declined to consume dinner. Ah well, maybe she'll eat today and I can stop searching for ways to knock myself unconscious just to get a break from the whining.

And thank you, but no, I do not want any advice on getting my kid to eat. No, really. I mean it, sit on your hands if you must while you fight the urge to type. There, see? It went away.

I spent Sunday morning pasting butterflies and flowers to Mia's walls. As soon as I finished, she told me she didn't like them and asked me to take them down. I refused, because I am a mean mommy. Eventually, she decided to just ignore them and host a tea party on her bed.

Oh yes, those are the "tower cups" we discussed last week. So now you know.

Mia: Mama! I need my tower cups?
Me: Your shower cups?
Mia: No, my tower cups!
Me: Your flower cups?
Mia: No, my tower cups!
Me: Your power cups?
Mia: No, my tower cups!
Me: Your tower cups?
Mia: Yes! (You dumbshit.)
Me: Oh, I think they're in your closet.

Sometimes a cigar, etc....

I finally broke down and opened the box of See's Candy we got for Christmas, and Chris had better hurry home or there will be none left for him. But the candy just wasn't cutting it for me, so I've been dipping each piece in peanut butter. Man am I going to be sorry when the baby is born and I have to get fourteen layers of lard back off my ass.

Best thing anyone has said to me in ages:

Woman we haven't seen in about six weeks: You haven't had the baby yet?

Gee, what tipped you off?

Dudes, when do you pack your hospital bag? I mean, I am spitting distance from 36 weeks, is it time to think about getting prepared here? Or is it one of those things where if you don't pack it you are sure to go into labor early and if you do pack it you will be sitting around yelling threats at your fetus as your due date comes and goes?

You wanna hear about pitiful? I can no longer climb a flight of stairs without sitting down to rest afterwards. Better go get some more candy.

I get a lot of questions about breastfeeding, and while my vast experience of successfully breastfeeding one child does not make me an expert (even if she did frequently spend 20 hours a day clamped to my boobs) I am planning to write a post about it. However, it is likely to be quite lengthy and I am no longer capable of sleeping past 3 AM and just can't muster the energy for all that typing. There is, however, a sub-issue that I wanted to address: public breastfeeding.

I want, really want, to be all hey, breastfeeding is normal and natural and if the idea of a potential momentary glimpse of a breast gets you that terrified you should a) not look and b) go back to junior high since you are clearly 12 years old. But the truth of the matter is that the sum total of my public breastfeeding experience is two highway rest stops and a La Leche League meeting, where you start to feel really awkward if you aren't flinging your nipples around. With Mia, I just made sure I was home when she would need to eat. I know that isn't going to be possible with Offspring 2.0, because Mia has a life and should be allowed to live it, but I'm nervous. I'm seriously considering getting one of those blanket things that ties around your neck and covers the whole process from prying eyes - not because I think I or anyone else should have to do that, just because I think it would make me a heck of a lot more comfortable.

So I was wondering, first, how do/did you handle public breastfeeding? And second, can I aggressively support your right to feed your baby where and however you so choose while hiding myself behind a sheet, or am I a hypocrite if I don't walk the talk?

Last Friday, Mia and I had lunch with Jodi and Michael, and I decided that I would wear a somewhat decent pair of pants since none of my maternity jeans will stay up and I didn't think Jodi needed to be subjected to an afternoon of watching me haul my pants back up over my monstrous ass. So, I pulled out a pair of pants that I wore to work a lot when I was pregnant with Mia, and that I actually wore to the hospital the day she was born. I couldn't button them. I couldn't even get close. I was so despondent that I just got dressed out of the hamper, don't tell Jodi, ok?

The belly at 35 weeks, she is formidable.

(I stood behind that chair on purpose. It's an Ass Shield.) The belly is also usually lopsided, with a noticeable hump sticking out on one side or the other as the fetus shoves his butt out from under my ribs, however briefly. The belly also tends to be visually in motion, hopping and rolling and jutting unpredictably as the fetus practices his Riverdancing, and I can only assume that to the casual observer this must be a rather disturbing sight to see. I mean, it freaks my husband the hell out, and he knows to expect it.

I suppose I should try not to complain, as I have had two entirely uneventful and mostly very easy pregnancies and have also made it through 74 total weeks of pregnancy so far without a single stretch mark (and oh yes, I am pounding the beejeezus out of my wooden desk as I type that) and I am also a bit sad that within the next few weeks I will end my career as a pregnant woman and will never again feel a child rolling around inside me, but holy cow the final stretch is just a misery, isn't it? Everything just hurts, and everything is a huge pain in the ass and I am still recovering from a kick to the ribs I got three solid days ago and whine whine whine poor me I'll shut up now.

On a brighter note, I am interviewing maids today, and that makes me very happy. Oh, how I miss the maids we had when I was working, and oh how fondly I am anticipating the few visits I received as a birthday gift from my parents for after the baby is born. It may even make all the end of pregnancy woes worth it. Yes, I am a yacht and can't sleep and can't stand up without careful planning and a great deal of pain, but for a few weeks someone else is going to clean the toilets, and that is a thing of beauty.

Also of a more positive bent, we may have named this baby. First name at least, middle name is still a bit nebulous and I suppose both are subject to change at any time without notice, but I do think the first name will stick and I have started using it to address the fetus. Which one does, you know, mainly to tell him to get his toes the hell out of your tonsils.

Mia has an absolute horror of dirty hands, but it seems that she is willing to suffer for her art.

Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed a goose egg the size of Kansas smack in the middle of my child's forehead. I don't want to talk about it. She's fine, you should see the other guy, etc., but Chris and I plan to have nightmares about the experience for the rest of our lives.

It seems that I am quite pregnant, oh quite pregnant indeed. In the past few days, I have been forced to face some harsh realities. Such as, yes, actually, I would like to sit down. Preferably with my feet up. Thank you, yes, I do need help lifting that, moving that, getting that out to my car. Yes, the laundry can wait in the basement until someone other than me is available to carry it up two flights of stairs; and if you could change the light bulb at the bottom of the basement stairs while you are at it, that would be great, because no, I have no business climbing up on a chair to reach that. And no, Mia, I'm sorry, but I cannot swing you in circles over my head or run around the nursery with you or even give you a bath.

I am not at all accustomed to asking for help or waiting for other people to do things for me, and it aggravates me, makes me angry even. But right now, there are a lot of things I just flat out can't do, and even more things that I could do, but have gotten through even my thick melon-headed skull that it would be a bad idea. So if anyone needs me, I'll be on the couch eating ice cream (blessed, blessed ice cream does not give me heartburn) for the next three to six weeks.

Ok, ok, you ask, you get. The Guess Wally's Birthday Game has officially begun. My due date is February 10th, I am measuring dead-on for 34 weeks, and have had zero indication of anything approaching labor so far. Here are the official rules:

1. You must guess a date and time. We'll do closest overall, no Price is Right rules.

2. You may not guess any date prior to January 21, which would be 37 weeks. Seriously, don't do it, I'll slap you.

3. You may guess dates later than February 10th, although my OB won't let me go more than a couple days past my due date before coming at me with a scalpel, so anything later than the 12th or so is a wasted guess. This will not be a Valentine's Day baby, but you go right ahead and guess that it will be if you want to because who I am to rob you of your delusions?

4. Those who want to be considerate will select dates in February, since Chris gave me an amethyst necklace for Christmas and if Wally arrives prior to the birthstone-relevance period it becomes merely pretty rather than pretty and significant, and that would slightly upset my husband.

5. Guesses must be in the comments of this post to count.
   

Winner will receive a mention on this website when I get around to it and jack-all else since I will be slightly busy nursing a newborn (as well as stitches in one or another part of my personal anatomy, most likely) and chasing a toddler and snapping at my husband and will not be spending my precious few seconds of down time sending out prizes. Sorry kids, showering has to come first.

Ready, set, GO!

Wally is head down at 34 weeks. Good fetus.

(For anyone who may not have been hanging around here for the past two and a half years (hey, where were you, you slacker?), Mia was breech, so Wally being not-breech is a Big Hairy Deal.)

Um, I'm having a baby this year. The whole "next year" thing has, so far, made it all seem rather remote, but I no longer have that mental barrier between me and a life trapped in the house with two screaming children all by myself 12 hours a day. I am not entirely ready for this, especially since Mia has decided that she only does bedtime with two solid hours of near-constant mommy-intervention and I have no idea how I am going to manage that with a newborn attached to my boobs. I suspect we'll just let her stay up until midnight every night and haul her up to bed once she collapses on the couch, totally overloaded from eating and watching whatever she wants because we just need her to chill.

However, I did manage to wash, fold and put away the first six months or so worth of baby clothes, sheets, towels, blankets, and whatnot and raised the crib and found a mobile and bought almost all of the six or so things that I needed for this kid and did not receive for free from generous family and incredibly generous friends. There's still nothing on the walls in the nursery, but at least the walls are no longer pink and there is furniture and a crib. Of course, the mattress is propped up against the wall waiting for me to iron and install the dust ruffle, which knowing how much I hate ironing will probably happen when this kid is four months old. Mia didn't sleep in her crib at all for the first six months, so I'm not all that worried.

I am worried that this kid still doesn't have a name. I told Chris I was not giving birth until we have a name, so if we don't decide by the time I go into labor, we are going with whatever I decide in the car on the way to the hospital.

I also procured myself two sets of hospital-appropriate pajamas, which was absolutely necessary since my usual pajamas are a shirt that has officially become more holes than fabric (which I am sure Chris will steal and burn someday soon, such is his hatred of that shirt, which I stole from him in the first place many years ago) and a pair of formerly black, now gray yoga pants with an ever-growing hole in the ass. My new jammies are two sets of pants/hoodie combos, of which I cannot even hope to zip the jacket, but I am optimistic that once the parasite is removed I'll have better luck.

Speaking of evicting the parasite, on Sunday I gave serious thought to calling my OB and telling her to screw this VBAC thing because I wanted to be strapped to her operating table the absolute soonest she would agree to take this baby. The sheer fact of being pregnant was so painful that I spent the entire day fighting the urge to collapse into a puddle of pitiful tears. Moving hurt. Not moving hurt. Breathing hurt. I couldn't imagine enduring six weeks of that. Fortunately, Monday was a little better, even with nearly passing out in the middle of a facial. I cashed in the birthday gift certificate from Chris and it was mostly lovely and I even bought some things which I ordinarily never do because they are expensive and I am cheap but I had the money and couldn't do anything else with it so whatever. However, about halfway through it occurred to me that I wasn't feeling entirely well and literally my very next thought was hey, I am about to either pass out or vomit or both. I managed not to do either, but I did have to spend some time convincing the aesthetician not to call 911.

And hey, does anybody know what an aesthetician does during that middle part of the facial when they have smeared crap on your face and covered your eyes and then say they are going to step out for a minute? I used to think they went and saw another client, but now I suspect that they either head down to the break room and shoot up, or just pretend to leave and really stand silently in the corner watching to see whether you pick your nose while they are gone.

Wait, I was talking about something else. Oh yes, by Tuesday I was back to just being mildly uncomfortable all the time and bearable pain when doing crazy things like moving and inhaling, so I am optimistic that Sunday was a fluke that won't be repeating itself daily for the next six weeks.

Jeez. Take me back down to only one blog and I go all crazy with the typey-type.