First, PSA to all skiers, snowboarders, snowsledders, cyclists, etc: WEAR A DAMN HELMET. 

My mom called this morning, with the tone of "something bad almost happened" in her voice.  She and my dad and another couple were skiing this morning, and there was an unmarked blind hole that my dad hit head on, which ejected him from his skis, and threw him headfirst into a tree.  He’s fine, went and got checked out and is sore, he says it feels like he got in a car accident, but his helmet? Is not fine. Cracked right down the middle.  My mom didn’t see it, came around the bend as he was crawling out of the woods with blood dripping from his mouth (from bitinghis tongue) and that was enough to freak her out.  He skied down, but not after finding a caution pole and marking the hole, and sending ski patrol up to rope it off.  Either way, fucking scary.  My folks got on the helmet train only a few years ago, and many skiers/etc don’t wear helmets, but the helmet is probably the reason my dad isn’t swapping stories with Sonny Bono right about now.  The infirmary told him that the ski shop will give him a discount if he trades in the helmet (it obviously will be replaced before he hits the slopes again), because cracked helmets are a great way to sell the concept.

Anyway. Wear a helmet.

Last night, I was in the bathroom and heard Dave answer the door.  It was Nick, the kid who spends some weekends across the street, delivering our order of candy from some school fundraiser he did. It had been so long since we ordered, I’d kind of written it off, and Dave had totally forgotten, so when he answered the door, there was Nick — unrecognizable as he was A) not on his bike and B) wrapped head to toe in winter gear. Nick apparently just looked up and said "I’ve got your stuff," and held out a big cardboard box. Hee.  It took Dave a good minute to figure out what was going on, that it wasn’t some weird prank or something.

Today, Dave’s off doing a hockey game, and I’m going to, god, why do I do this — venture towards the mall area.  i need to get some stuff for my SIL, and I just need to DO it. Tomorrow, we’ll get a tree and decorate it, which will inevitably lead to cookie-baking and Muppets-listening, right? Right.

Wear a helmet!!

Yay, snow!  Iwoke up feeling crummy – sneezy and stuffy all at once, and just blah — and talked to my sister for a bit, and some online folks, and the shoe store called to say the shoes I’d wanted to try on were in, so yay! I brushed off the car, and headed to the shoe store. On the way THERE, only about 3, 4 miles? I passed FIVE cars off the road. EEK. I am a great winter driver, and have an Outback and snowtires and all of that, but it’s the other guy that worries me. 

I tried on the shoes and really liked them. I live in my Danskos, but they suck for winter, and I’ve been craving a winter Dansko for years.  THEY don’t make one, but someone at IB turned me onto Keens, and the Zermatt clog seemed like the just right shoe.  I had gone to the store over the weekend and had THE most annoying experience (the clerk brought me FIVE pairs of Keens to try on, none of them my size, and none of them the Zermatt, which I had held up and said "I’d like this in a 9.5/10."  Weirdo.) that ended up in a second clerk ordering in a pair from another store.  They are just what I was looking for, and super comfy — way more give than my Danskos, so I hope that will work out. I swear, Danskos are addictive, like they allege chapstick is.  If I don’t wear them, I get backaches and leg cramps, and it’s awful to adjust OUT of them each winter.  ANYWAY.

So I wore my brand new winter shoes out, and headed to Borders.  I’d planned to maybe get a muffin, and read some magazines, and pick up a few things, but I was only able to do the last bit.  I started to feel SUPER crappy, like a first-tri ooginess, and I just bought what I’d picked out and made my way home (3 cars off the highway) and came home and had some soup and toast and took a nap.

It was after FIVE before I clued in to why I was feeling SO SHITTY, I had had literally NOTHING TO DRINK ALL DAY. No morning tea, not water, no juice, NOTHING.  I chugged about 32oz of water right away, and felt much better. I can’t believe I didn’t drink ANYTHING! ALL DAY! I think because my schedule was out of whack, and I felt so sinusy crummy in the morning that I just… forgot. Goddamn, hope I don’t forget to feed the baby when it’s ON THE OUTSIDE.

As jeanne has been privy to, there are some things that just buuuug me about the internet lately, and they will comprise my daily post today.

I looove IB, and especially IM, I do. But damn, it can sometimes be a parody if itself.  For instance, let’s talk about the holidays. Yes, the HOLIDAYS.  I don’t send a HOLIDAY card, I never have, because that’s what grownups do when you get married and buy a house and — oh, shit. And have a kid, right? Right, once you have a kid, you must send a card.  But we’re not Christian (like you didn’t know THAT), so I’ve always thought that sending a New Year’s card would be a great way to go. Especially since shutterfly has New Year’s themed designs (okay, that would be awesome to send a card of the baby with a bottle of booze as decorative clip art) for holiday cards. I LOVE New Year (and I kinda love Christmas too, shut up) but I’ve always loved the clean-slatedness of New Year. So, yay! We’ll send a new year’s card. Anyway, I mentioned this on IB, and someone offered up that I’d most likely be offending my Chinese and Jewish friends. Sigh. Now, any Chinese or Jewish friends I have, are on the internet, and most likely reading this.  I don’t think I have the addresses of any of my Chinese or Jewish friends, so youprobably wouldn’t get a card anyway. But really, would that offend you? More than if I a) sent a Christmas card, which I enjoy in an entirely secular way, and you may or may not believe in, or b) sent a hannukah card, because that’s what Hallmark tells me to do, even though I’M not Jewish, and I know it’s not a major holiday in Judaism, or C) Just send a freakin’ "Hey, everyone I know had to get new wall calendars and remember to date their checks correctly Happy New Year" cards?  But of course, I might piss off the Aussies, since they will celebrate a day earlier from me, right? Or later. Whatever.

Anyway, I still love IB, although things that make me roll my eyes are: any thread title with an "Or," in it, the endless save the world, I’m so indie, I don’t need money to live discussions (usually propelled by people who don’t NEED money, because they already HAVE money.)  It’s OKAY to want your job to pay you well, and not be serving the poor and needy and children of the world. It totally is.  This also directly ties into my experience with education — when I mentioned one of the reasons I wouldn’t classroom teach again to a practicing teacher in one of my classes was the pay, he scoffed "well, you don’t teach for the money." Great, maybe HE doesn’t (not the sharpest saw in the shed, also one of my pet peeves about teachers, that I’ve been bitching about since I was an undergrad, is the general intelligence level of most of them), but damn, loving kids doesn’t pay my damn mortgage.  I really hate that line of bullshit that’s reserved for teachers, and teachers perpetuate it — "oh, we don’t need a wage that compares to other professions that require this level of education, we just love KIDS SO MUCH, that that’s enough!" Bull. SHIT.  It is totally okay to want to make more than 23k a year for dealing with the level of crap that is going down in schools these days, and it’s not until teachers stop hiding behind their love of apple shaped post-it notes and seasonally themed cardigans as job perks that anything will change.  Obviously, I have strong feelings about this.

More internet teeth-grinding:
I really love(d) the leery polyp, but lately the proseletyzing about organic food and grass fed beef is getting on my nerves. I mean, yeah, that’s great. We should have less chemicals in everything, I totally agree. But choosing organic and EC and all of that is a choice of LUXURY.  I don’t know that I could afford to eat all-organic NOW, let alone when we have the baby. And then it brings up all kinds of other choices — like, is it better for us to be scraping by and filling ourselves with the "poison of modern living" so that I can stay at home and nurse on demand? Or do I go to work and have the baby in a daycare, where I use my income to eat all-organic rat’s ass but have to –gasp! — use disposable diapers on the baby, and not practice teaching it to pee in a salad bowl on demand?

I love reading the mama blogs, and the thing I love about it is that almost all of them write in a way of "this is what I do, what I believe in, and it’s cool" and not in a "but all y’all are STUPID SHEEP that shop at Shaw’s and not out of the Amish buggy on the corner, you fools, and you’ll all die a horrible death because of it, baby-poisoner!"  I mean, we all have to make our choices the best way we can. For me, I would LOVE to stay at home, and we’re working on saving money to draw out my (unfunded) ‘maternity leave (from the workforce, and not a job)’ as best we can. But I won’t go into debt to do that. That’s MY preference, I’ve been in debt, it sucks, and I don’t want to go back. There are others who are okay with that, and hey, that’s cool! It’s not my life. And if someone suggests it, I explain my position, and it’s all good, you know? I am really committed to breastfeeding, but if it didn’t work out for someone? Who am I to wag my finger? I’m sure they are already getting it wagged from a million sources. Which is why, when my grandnephews weren’t nursed, I didn’t say anything. Not my place. I hope to breastfeed and set an example, or just model that it can be done, and if it works out (knock on wood, all of that) then maybe with the next round of kids that sprout, I can be a resource.  I have a lot of resources already that the niece and nephew’s gf DIDN’T have and DON’T have, and I am blessed because of it.

Anyway. The preachy tone of the recent posts at TLP are turning me off.  There was some preachiness in her birth plan and birth story as well, and it’s HER story, but the holier-than-thou bit gets to me. Share your story! Share your resources! But when I’m reading, and it starts to feel like all you can see when you look up is nostrils, something’s not right. Too many people go hungry each day, you know? Is it better to feed yourself organically, or to spend less on your food so as to provide more to a food pantry?

So, there you go, my holiday rant! I promise, the rest of the month will be just pure butterflies and rainbows and stupid pregnancy updates like: "My underwear continue to roll down, goddamnit."

(Just an afterthought:  I plan on using cloth diapers, breastfeeding, hope to have a drug-free birth and all of that. I don’t think any less of people that do any different than what I’ve planned — and lord knows, it could all change when reality hits — and I don’t think less of people who state their opinions.  It’s the tone of "I don’t understand why everyone else isn’t doing what is SO OBVIOUSLY RIGHT" that bugs me, which I’ve never gotten from any of my shared blog-reads or internet friends, or irl friends. Just sayin — I wouldn’t bitch if it was about someone I knew was reading. Which is why I DO bitch about my ILs. )

SInce so many of my favorite bloggers are doing Holidailies, I thought I would too, only without the pesky sign-up and stuff. Basically, I’m taking on the challenge of posting every day until January 1? I forget. The rest of this month, anyway.

Stuff!

So, Dave rocks. His company also rocks.  There is a plan in motion to set him up with a Powerbook next year, so that he can be more portable for work. For the company, this means that he doesn’t have to book time in the edit booths, which is a pain, but for him, this means that there will be times that he can work at home. His boss even said, out loud, to him, "with the baby coming, you can do some work from home now."

Now, it doesn’t mean he gets to be super work-at-home-dad. What it DOES mean is that there is a new layer of flexibility in our lives. For instance, it makes the feasibility of going with a sitter instead of a daycare better, because if the sitter is sick, we could split the at-home days.  We probably could anyway, but it won’t mean lost wages and lost work and all of that.  It also means that in the first few weeks, when we’renot sure of what I/we will need, it’s just — more options. Options are good.

We also netflixed the Nova episode "The Miracle of Life."  The first 45 minutes are all about reproductive organs, sperm development, blah blah blah, but the last 15 or so are about fetal development, which was way cool. The longest segment of in-utero moving video was from 18weeks, which is what I am on Friday, so it was really neat to be like "WHOA! That’s IN ME, right NOW!?"  Very cool.

Today, I am sneezing like a bandit, even post allergy pill, and I have a backache and whine whine whine. I’m going to school in the afternoon, because I have class tonight, so I might try to just take a nap or something, to try to wake up normal.

For the past week or so, I’ve spent great amounts of time sitting quietly, waiting to see if I can feel something.  I do in my car, in bed as I’m falling asleep, or waking up, while sitting on the couch.  . . anywhere, really.  I spend most of my time at home with at least one hand tucked under the waistband of my pants, palm to my abdomen, just under my navel.  I can feel my pulse, and my own breathing, and I try to slow everything down to feel . . . .something.

Today, I might have. I’m not sure, but apparently, no one is the first few times.  I know I felt something, on the inside,  more than once in the same spot.  Almost like a little raspberry being blown from the inside out. A tiny little vibration of . . . something. So, that’s cool, I guess?  I imagine it will become more pronounced over time, and eventually I will post the mandatory "I wish the baby would stop kicking my bladder" post, but for now, I’m just waiting for more raspberries.

With the arrival of The Belly this week, I realized I needed to order some more mat jeans, stat.  I whipped out the ol’ debit card and hit oldnavy.com, which is great, but today when I found myself in our new Old Navy, I was very excited to see that they have added a maternity section. I mean, I think it’s been added — I stopped in just after in opened in October, and was bummed that I didn’t see any mat clothes, but today, there it was, complete with the unpregnant boobied mannequins.  I bought one shirt, that I brought home and tried on and found to be REALLY tight, and REALLY lowcut, and was going to take it back until Dave rolled his tongue back into his mouth and insisted it stayed in my wardrobe.  It’s probably not something I’d wear in public, but damn, I don’t think any clothing has received that kind of response in ages. Or ever. I’m also just glad to know that I have a resource locally, non-internet, for any future clothing emergencies.

Tonight, after I got back from grocery shopping, I was curled up on the couch, and under the throw, and Dave peeled it back and was suddenly amazed by the belly. It was really cool. He was rubbing it, and talking to it, and to me, about how weird it was that I had a 7-8 inch (full length, 5ish crown to rump) creature swimming around inside, that I still couldn’t definitively recognize.  It was cool, like, all of a sudden he looked down and realized his wife was pregnant. And that he was going to have a baby. It’s definitely going in the best-memory archives.

Of course, tonight when watching Grey’s Anatomy in bed, I will have to have my finger plugging his non-burrowed into pillow ear, since the whole ep is following the preemie quints that were born last week, each with some scary complication, and since it’s GA, probably at least one won’t survive. He has a hard time with sick kids, always has, is just totally moved and terrified by them, and it’s probably his biggest fear. (Longtimers have heard me go on about having to re-normalize him after doing either of the two telethons he has for work; 12+ hours of MDA or CMN kids does crazy things to his soul.)

Anyway, things are good here.  It had started to snow when I left Shaw’s, big fat flakes that I instinctively stuck my tongue out to catch.  I drove the long way home, circling downtown to see the lights, the tree lit up in West Market Square, the candles in the windows of city hall.  I was the first person to make tracks on our street, and I almost felt guilty going so. Things are good.