Um, yeah. Papers not done. I did OPEN and turn ON my iBook, and then, like, the baby needed something and there was a parade, and then a cookout uplake, and I never even closed the screen until we left. So, yeah. Papers not done. Sigh.

It was good, though, to go back for almost a week — Dave and I went up on Saturday, and we were supposed to get out of here by noon, and almost made it, but his mom called and wanted us to swing by to give me abirthday present. ($15 giftcard to borders. Totally okay.)  Just as we were about to leave, his sister called and was on her way down, and had more pink crocheted stuff for Ingrid, so we waited through that, and when all was said and done, we spent 2 hours at his mom’s, and got to the lake after 3, when it promptly started to pour. Sigh.  By 6:30 or so, it had stopped, and I’m sort of ferociious about getting IN the lake now that I don’t live there and don’t have access, so we went down and I dunked myself in, but it was fairly boring without anyone to swim with, and freezing cold, too. Dave and I dipped Ingrid’s toes in the water, the closest thing to a baptism she’ll get, and the first dip she recoiled in terror, but the second one, she kicked a bit, and seemed to like it, so yay!

My parents were doing a pageant on the coast that night, so didn’t arrive back until after we were in bed, and brought with them 15 fresh-from-the-boat lobster for my birthday dinner.  there was also chocolate cake, and my aunt and cousins were there, and there were also leftovers enough for 2 days of lobster rolls.  Dave left that night, as he had to work the next day, and I stayed until THursday, when my folks were on their way to a wedding on Cape Cod, and dropped me off. We attended the small town parade, and Ingrid was swarmed by people who’d known me since I was a baby, and at one point, we had five cameras pointed at us. I sympathize with Britney. I’m only half kidding. Ingrid also had her first studio sitting, which resulted in almost 20 minutes straight of cheerful baby, which is a record. I’m glad it happened in front of the camera, and not like, when i was sleeping. She is a beauty.  ANd, you know, strong and smart and funny and stuff.

This one is unedited.  . . .

And this one I frigged around with high contrast and blurred layers and stuff. Davedoesn’t get the naked baby thing. I, personally, ADORE it.

My birthday was okay, lobster and cake and all, and my parents gaveme a check, which I used part of to treat myself to iLife06 and Photoshop Elements 4, but the combination of bad timing and me not working/money angst/etc meant that I didn’t get a present from Dave, which has really, really bothered me, and I’ve tried to say "this really bothers me" but it didn’t really get through until I started crying about it lastnight.  It’s not that I want(ed) someTHING, it’s just this thing where, if Dave felt like he could spend $200 on something that’s not-a-bill right now, he’d be fine, but he couldn’t figure out what to do without a huge pile of cash. This being my first birthday as a mom (or any holiday, since i missed mother’s day by five days) it really, really stung inthat "OMG, I am no longer important as ME, for I am Just Ingrid’s Mom" but to Dave, it was "I wish I had petty cash, but since I don’t, happy birthday anyway" and meeting in the middle is what didn’t happen. Anyway. I’m mentioning it because it’snot so much about dave, but about my first really emotional reaction to feeling like less of a gretchen, or whatever, as a result of BEING Ingrid’s mom. If that makes sense.

We were glad tocome home, though, and Dave was glad to see us.  This weekend we’ve hung out here — today Amy and her family were passing through, so she FINALLY got to hold Ingrid (I’m not kidding — after all of her help with the birth and everything? She never got to hold her. She was taking pictures and helping me with breastfeeding and escoritng my parents and sister through the hospital, and eating barbeque chips, and in all of the excitement, she was halfway to Portland before she realized SHE’D never gotten to sit down and hold Ingrid. Isn’t that awful?!) and even gave her a bath (yay!) before I joined her and her family at the Pancoe pool.  Dave stayed with Ingrid, and washed diapers,and hung them on the line to dry with Ingrid in a sling, and I just hung out in the pool. It was packed, so it’s not like I ‘went swimming,’ but it was nice to get wet and cool off.  They headed home after anhour or so, and I walked home, and Ingrid had just gotten hungry, so the 2oz of breastmilk I’d pumped to leave for my pool adventure are STILL available. Which means I have some evening of free time coming in the next few days, and I’m positively giddy at the thought. Who do I call? What do we do? Can I round up some people for sushi? Or do I want to go to a movie all by myself? I HAVE NO IDEA!

Oh well. Tomorrow is IUD-Day, and the next day my software arrives (geeeeeeek) and that’s about the most exciting thing going on this week. Yeehaw.

We are headed up to the lake for a few days of enjoying the grandparents, birthday lobster (31! Tomorrow! 30 was TOTALLY my year, KB!), some 4th of July celebratin’, and some whip-crackin’ on the paper-writin’.  In a wonderful example of irony (um, I think, ever since Reality Bites & Alanis Morrisette, I doubt my use of that word) I will be retreating to a home with only dialup and no wifi in order to get my paper on the revenge effect of technology written. You know the concept that all of these advances meant to make our lives easier and stuff, might actually get in the way of getting shit done? Hmm, yeah. That.  But, the return of my brain coincided with Dave’s return to work (okay, not necessarily, it showed up a few weeks after he went back to work) so having the free hands to write the paper is a challenge, too. With Grammie and Grampie at the ready, though, Mama might just finish these damn papers once and for all. Yee to the Haw.

In other YttH news, I done got me a job at Maine’s most famous outdoor retailer.  Catalog shoppers (no,I know! People still use the TELEPHONE to order stuff from other places! CRAZY!)  It’s odd to be applying for the type of job I went to college to move away from, but it’s less than 2 miles from my house, evening hours, part time, and a decent wage. Also, an easy-ass job, taking orders over the phone. (My other phone jobs were outbound health surveys, so people were annoyed to get called, and inbound tech support, where people were pissed that their internet stopped working. This is people excited to get the breed of their dog embroidered on their boat&tote bag.  Anyway, I start on September 5, which basically perfectly aligns with what I’d hoped to do about working/staying home.  It’s nice to know that there won’t be a gaping hole of "what next?" as we use our savings to supplement Dave’s income, you know? And I’ll finish my degree in December, and go from there. Woohoo.

If you haven’t noticed, I added 5 photos to Ingrid’s album, over yonder. I got a working D70 back, and still, the lust. Ahhhh.

Ingrid & my mom…

This morning, Ingrid is all happy and smiling at me, and Dave says "there’s NEVER any pictures of YOU, because you’re always taking them!" and he picks up the D70, and can’t get it to work, and I’m all "what do you MEAN, it’s notfocusing? Press in halfway!" etc, and he’s all "nothing’s happening"and the baby starts to cry, and Itake the camera and find that I have the D70 BGLOD —Blinking Green Light of Death. Well, fuccckkk.  that’s what happened to another camera earlier this month, prompting my dad to have to buy a new one on the spot, because there was a job to be done. And since then, he’s sent all of his possibly affected cameras back for the free repair (it’s a batch from 2004, so shouldn’t be a worry now) and apparently, hemissed one, the one that he lent me. Fucking Fuck. It’s not a huge deal — I’ll use a different one for the wedding, and THANK GOD none of the D70s had the BGLOD AT a shoot during grad season, but still.  The thing that really ticks me off is that a) there are still no pics of me and Ingrid, really, after we left the hospital, and B) I was reallly looking forward to playing with the camera this weekend as a non-baby-focused activity.  We had plans to go out and look for good shots, even, like, using my creative brain again, and now I can’t.  I could, with my camera, but I wanted to use the SUPER camera. Sigh.

The other weird/odd/whatever thing, is that my mom keeps telling me about her best friend’s niece’s baby blog. (It sounds closer than it is — mom’s best friend is the equivalent of Amy to Ingrid) and the few details she mentioned sounded really familiar….and it turns out that the niece’s blog is linked at babyblogarama.net, just as mine is, but lots of blogs are there, right? Well, one of the things there is that the blogger highlights blogs every now and then, and she highlighted my birth story (thanks!) and then 4-5 ‘highlight’ posts later, she highlighted the niece’s live-blogged homebirth, which is how I happened to be reading the smoochy posts, and how I recognized the details my mom was telling me. Dude, the internet is a small world.  I don’t really want to make that connection KNOWN, so much, because I don’t want my mom reading my blog, but damn, she’s like 2 clicks away from my blog and has no idea, since smoochy has babyblogarama in her sidebar. Oh well.

I have a really good camera, the Olympus C5050z, that has served me well for several years. It’s way more camera than a lot of people are fortunate to receive (for free), and I really love the balance of features and the discreet size. It was one of my dad’s cameras to use at graduations, but as he phased in more and more DSLRs, the 5050s went to my mom and I.  ANYWAY.

Since my dad wants me to help at a few weddings this summer, he left me his D70 & Speedlight to play with a few days ago, and oh my lustfulness. I’ve used the D70 several times, but more for workhorse purposes — shooting 1500 graduates in a day, or taking 8 zillion tournament pictures, you know? But now, hot damn, I have a SUBJECT, which is MY BABY, and the difference between my beloved 5050 and D70+freakin’ speedlight is huge. It’s stuff like that that makes me want to have an income again.  Getting a beautiful shot is just so damn EASY with that setup (and my baby, of course, is a beautiful subject.)  I feel spoiled that I even have a 5050, but I am now fantasizing about dad leaving the D70 in the sameway he left the 5050.  But seriously, LOOK at the pics!

My dad holding Ingrid:

Dave takes over (see, because *I* was too busy getting all gooey over the camera. Bad mama.)

All of my favorite things in one place: My family, my cat, and my iBook.

Is it wrong that when I put her in her garish Ocean Wonders Aquarium Swing, I say "time to sleep with the fishies?"

(For photo geeks, that swing is in motion, OMG I love the D70.)

See, she’s not always pissed.

I have a thing for her feet, apparently.  More pics in the Ingrid gallery, too…

One more day, and we should have internet back… as it is, I’m on a signal in a state house building in Augusta, where I’ve joined my parents for a confirmation hearing for my dad, who has been nominated or whatever for the position of LURC commissioner… also on my dad, the May issue of DownEast magazine has a picture of him as part of an article on the land trust, p 64 — he’s the one without a dog.

So, I’m in Augusta, my sister is somewhere east of South Bend, Indiana, at this point, barrelling towards Maine after avoiding, quite possibly, the weirdest internet/real life conjunction possible…. her check engine light began flashing in Omaha, where I happen to have internet friends (who like dogs!) and had offered their phoen number in case of emergency or otherwise, and literally, she was thisclose to having to call them, but it’s kate, so manna from heaven fell into her lap and she was on her way in an hour and $100 bucks. I mean, on her way after having Dave give her some tech support, and such, but still, how odd would THAT have been, to have MY internet friend (that I’ve not met IRL) host my sister and her dog? Hee.

The lack of internet is what precipitated the dismantling and cleaning of the fridge yesterday, I’m pretty sure. Or nesting, but it seems early for that. The fridge was taken apart, washed, bleached, and reassembled in a more user-friendly manner. Woohoo.  We also raked out the dead stuff from the flower beds, and mixed up some topsoil and manure and spread that in the main beds, and uhh, yeah, that’s the extent of my gardening expertise (and that was based on the suggestion of Amy…).  We did get a lot done this weekend, regardless, so lack of internet isn’t THAT bad.

But it sure is nice to check my email.

Our DSL will be back a week from today, at noon. Oy. Even DAVE is getting the shakes from lack of internet at home.  Anyway, I will survive. I should really use the time to hammer out my papers. Really.

Other than that, things are good — I just ordered more fitted diapers, after being tipped off to a sale (Kissaluvs for 8.50! New! Free Shipping!), which makes it much more palatable. I mean, 8.50 for a new kissaluv is a deal, since that’s what people pay for them USED on eBay. I can totally sell them when we’re done, like a tax refund or something, so I’m not going to worry about it.

Coming up, I have my next appointment on Thursday, where I’ll have an NST (non-stress test, where they measure the baby’s movements and such) and maybe a cervical check, as I haven’t yet and will be 37w on Friday. I will be at school after that, so I can update thatsituation (hopefully, all is good and normal, and it would be WAY cool to have had SOMETHING happen with my cervix.)

I won’t be online tomorrow, because that’s my Y day and all, but damn, I know how connected I am to the blogs I read, ESPECIALLY when there’s a baby on the way, and EVEN MORE ESPECIALLY when that expectant mama hits term, and good goddamn, I am creating my own worst scenario for anyone reading along . . . "OMG, wonder what happened? She hasn’t posted or been on AIM or at ADL at all in like DAYS, and that is so unlike her ooooooo!!!!" So. Just to be clear, no DSL at home until Tuesday. Baby better stay put until at least then, because holy hell, how will I let ANYONE know if something were to happen? I mean, Jeanne could be a portal, I guess, so I’ll make her my emergency backup baby-news generator.  I should probably let her know that. And, as an aside, anyone in the  viewing area of my local CBS affiliate could just watch the last five minutes of every newscast, since it’s the norm to announce new members of the station family in that slot, often with video or stills,  even if you’re not on-air talent.  (And hey, watch the newscasts anyway! And the shows! And the ads, and keep the widget’s daddy employed!)

Yeah — NOT IN LABOR. Just suffering through many hours of no internet.  Sigh.

I did sleep on the couch last night, which was sort of sad, but not particularly uncomfortable. I worried about the lack of pillow fort behind me, but realized the actual COUCH provided a nice back support to begin with. We are currently working on de-dusting the house,and I’m doing what I can, which is very little and involves a facemask.  I HOPE to be back in my own bed tonight, but we’ll see. I’ve taken pictures — the linen closet shows the damage best, because it hadn’t been cleaned at ALL yet. The worst part of couch sleeping is that there’sno bathroom on the main floor, so it meant a few tired trips up and down the stairs.

The part that sucks is that it’s jsut so avoidable. It reminds me of the time I backed my car into a pole. It was a major pain inthe ass to get fixed, and it could’ve been totally avoided if I’d been paying attention. So, to try to put it into perspective, here are the pros of th current situation:

Pro:  While the baby room is covered in a film of plaster dust, it’s probably a good thing that it hasn’t been set up yet. We’ll have to wipe down the crib and wash/shake out the mattress pad, and probably wash a few blankets, but since we haven’t yet set it up or prewashed anything, it’s not like we have to RE-do much. Almost all of the gifts and such we have gotten already are still in their packaging, so that will be an easy cleanup.  I would probably be tearing out my hair if I had set up the whole room with diapers in neat little rows and stacks and had to undo it all.

Pro: It’s March, so I made an executive decision and threw open the window, weather-proofing be damned. It’s also 50 degrees here, and not raining, so some good air is circulating.

Pro: The guest room was almost entirely spared, because Dave stuffed some plastic or something under the door, because the gap between that door and the floor is the biggest one. BEHIND that door is the baby quilt I’m working on, all laid out, and only about 75% sewn tgether. Sewing the last 36+ squares, covred in dust, would’ve drivn me mad. (and washing them again would’ve affected the seam allowances.)

Pro: At least the baby is in me and not out of me for this debacle. Can’t. Even. IMAGINE it.

Pro: Of 5+ years together, and almost 3 years of marriage, THIS is the first time we’ve experienced major tension in our relationship. That’s pretty damn lucky, if you ask me.

Pro: I will be gone this weekend while Dave primes, so I won’t have to freak about fumes (AND, see Pro #2 — he will be more comfortable opening a window if it’s already been done once — the seal is broken, open away.

Pro: Dave will likely never, ever powersand a spackled wall again.

Temperature is 46 degrees and rising. So, I guess we’ll get NO snowstorms this year? FUCK, that is creepy. I mean, we’re now at March 11 — only 10 days til spring — and NO major snowstorms. Hell, back in january I was slightly creeped out by the exceptionally long and warm January thaw, but kept that "oh, but we’ll get ours!" thing going in the back of my head, and yet, we haven’t gotten ours. At all. Our neighbor always helps us out by snowblowing our driveway, especially the plow-pile, during and after a big storm, and I don’t think he’s even snowblowed HIS driveway this year. So. Weird. On the other hand, I can find some satisfaction that the warmest winter I can remember is happening at the time of historically high oil prices (and historically high oil company profits) so I like to think of it as a little fuck you to Big Oil. It will be interesting to compare our total heating expenses from last season to this one; the oil is certainly way more expensive, but are we using as much?

School news! I’m chipping away at my list, and making some good headway. I’m also really excited to be formulating a plan for my last two classes, ever, as well.  I need to do my practicum and another higher level EDU course to finish. My assistantship will pay for two summer classes (exactly what I have left to do) but taking summer classes isn’t really an appealing option to me right now, because most of them start May 15. You do the math. My advisor is a peach, and set up a whole practicum section for summer, solely for me to register for it, get it paid for via my assistantship, and then give me an Incomplete in it, which I’ll then complete by jumping in with the fall section.  In arranging this, I asked about the last class, which hasn’t been selected yet, because I thought it had to come from this list of four that are on the program of study forms. Apparently, it used to be that way, but now it’s "one of these four, or a higher level EDU course as approved by your advisor." And since my advisor was advising me of that change, I decided to check out the summer schedule again.

I have two options, that I’m hoping will work out.  Option A is a summer class that starts July 10 with a face to face meeting on campus, and then continues online until 8/25 (I think. Ends before fall semester, anyway.) It’s a techie class, as opposed to a theory class, on using Moodle K-12. (Moodle is an open source online course management tool.)  It’s taught by my advisor.  Option B is a non-tech class, about middle school vs jr high organization and curriculum. Obviously an area I’m passionate about, as seeing my middle-school model based program get disassembled and merged into the juniorest of highs, so I would find it interesting as well as a way to finish my degree. The summer section starts 5/15, BUT, there’s a fall section already scheduled for Wednesday evenings, which most 500+ EDU classes are, since most people taking them have day jobs. I also know the professor of that one, and  I’m pretty sure that my extenuating circumstances, once explained, would be an acceptable excuse to do the register/incomplete/fall student thing.  (An evening class isn’t a problem, Dave would just come home early so that I could go to class.) 

Either option (assuming professor B is accomodating) would mean that my degree would be PAID IN FULL this summer.  Option A is preferable, because I would be doing one class at a time, but I could deal with option B too, since I’ll have to take a class anyway, if it was paid before I started, well, YAY. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

On getting the baby room ready, I sent a video from my phone to Amy after she offered to help, just to warn her. Despite that, she still wants to come up before my shower to help me turn it into baby-room and not minefield of crap. My mom is coming next week, and wants to help, too, in the best way she knows how: by purchasing lots of Rubbermaid. It’s a long-running joke that my mom is Rubbermaid’s best customer, there is no problem that can’t be solved without the right combination of plastic bins with lids. It’s very sweet of her, and perhaps a stash of Rubbermaid will help me corral the craft stuff into one closet and the baby stuff to another.  If I can just get the adult stuff filtered out before Amy comes, then it can just be a crafty-ass weekend where I get the bumper cover all sewed up, and get the baby quilt finished. I do want it to look presentable by the time we have guests wanting to see it.

Little lights at the end of all the tunnels, really. CBE starts tomorrow night, Dave’s last game is tonight, we’re going to see the Violent Femmes next week… it’s all good.

Man, I had such high hopes for today. I did get two loads of laundry done (and a third will be done tomorrow) but I STILL haven’t washed pots and pans, and I SO NEED TO. Instead, after checking with Amy that wearing black maternity yoga pants as regular pants was acceptable, I drove to Augusta to meet up with my mom to pick out shower stuff. After that, we met my dad (they were there to do tournament games, and there was a big gap between the ones he had to do) for dinner.  I drove home after that and by the time I got home (before 8) I was just. so. tired. Bleh.

ANYWAY, the creepy part is that on the way home, I totally encountered a car going the wrong way on the interstate, which is one of my biggest fears, ever. I’ve always wondered what it’s like to have that reality shaken up when you’re on a divided highway like that, and now I know, it’s a slow realization. I also know I react to it like I do a moose on the side of the road, try to get be as fast as I can and keep going.

Basically, it looked like a car had gone up the offramp. . . accidentally? It was moving slow, but I was like, huh, car on the right? and then like "OMG, CAR COMING AT MY GENERAL DIRECTION."  It was moving so slow that I wonder if the driver was trying to figure out how to correct the situation, and the car behind me actually was headed to go OFF on that particular off-ramp, so I imagine that was…. awkward. I didn’t see any fiery crash, the last thing I did see was the wrong-way car’s reverse lights on.

I mean, the way some on/off ramps are set up, I can see screwing it up — I’ve almost done it myself once or twice, but I see the WRONG WAY sign or the median or whatever, and figure it out.  I’ve seen it almost happen on the exit by our house — there’s an exit, but the onramp is a street down, and the signage is reall confusing: the right to get on the highway is immediately after the offramp, and the sign is before both with a big right arrow. It’s busy enough that people figure it out, though. Still. FUCK. I hate that shit.

I am SO. TIRED. I wish my dishes would magically wash themselves already. Sigh.

Both teams won their regional championships, so it ws fun picture taking. It’s so weird, on the court they move so fast and such that you forget that they are KIDS, and then they win, and I’m up close taking pictures and you see the braces and the pimples and the sheer YOUTH of the players, and it’s just… weird. Those are my favorite pics to take during the tourneys, though, and I definitely got some good ones.  I also saw a girl I used to babysit for and her mom — the girl isnow 18, a senior, going to college in the fall.. so odd. Her mom said "I sw you from the stands and thought, ‘Here I am, finishing up, and she’s down there just getting started!’" I guess so.

Had a major breakthrough epiphany today.  I’ve been stressing out having to defend seventeen million choices we’re making in regards to this baby to my ILs, not the least of which is our very mutual decision to have our children carry my surname. But, I realized today that, DUH — that’s basically what MIL did in giving Dave a surname. He doesn’t have his father’s last name, either. AND, the widget’s surname will have 100times more meaning for our family, and for the widget, than Dave’s surname has held for him. SO. Settled, if we get any flak, I’ll just turn it around and point out that we’re actually FOLLOWING her tradition.

We visited the MIL today, and my SIL called while we were there and she came down for a while. It was actually the best visit in a long time — I asked MIL about the new practice, and how I needed to switch from my current PCP doc, and she filled me in on that, and my SIL just bought a new Impreza, so she and Dave talked Subaru for a while. It’s rare that we have much to say when we’re there, so it was nice to have an actual conversation.

I used our Baby Depot giftcard today, too. I personally don’t spend any money there, but the giftcard came from Dave’s coworkers. I went with the intent of looking for a crib mattress — some way to spend all of the giftcard, and the minimum of cash — but they didn’t have the cheap ones. I did get a My Brest Friend nursing pillow and LilyPadz nursing pads, two products raved about on IM/ADL for nursing moms, and products that I can’t get anywhere else in town. I left havin to spend less than 8 dollars of my own money, so YAY. 

I then went to Target and had the most pregnant woman purchase ever: Tums, a nipple shield*, and two boxes of thank you notes.

*I’m stocking up on random nursing supplies that I’d hate to try to describe to Dave in a postpartum haze — so far, I have the MBF, nipple shield, Lansinoh and reusable gel packs (courtesy of searching for relief of the Funky Nipple), disposable nursing pads (courtesty of kb! thanks!), Lilypadz, and an Ameda Purely Yours pump.  I have the Isis and some sterilizer bags on my registry (the Ameda has a seal that hasn’t been broken yet, in case the Isis would be enough as the Ameda is my "if I get a job and need to pump a lot" backup idea…) Any other nursing supplies I might want, o experienced nursing moms? (Oh, and I have some bottles on the registry — and I have an Avent bottle, and some lansinoh storage bags that I’ve received as well) And what about postpartum? I keep worrying about diapers and sleeping gowns and stuff for the baby, but I probably need some, uhh, pads anyway, right?