Mission Accomplished...kind of

If you've been to our house recently, you know that there is a large 'master summer to do list' hanging on our fridge. It contains basically everything we need to do before P arrives. While neither Suellen nor I actaully did much of the work this past weeked, we did accomplish repainting the office/guest room, the baby's room and the hallway, all thanks to Suellen's sister Stacy. Here are some shots, but both rooms are still in progress (i.e. we haven't rehung things or decorated yet).



This is the new green (officially called 'Summer Rapture') in P's room.







This is the room formerly known as 'orange' (if you've been to our house in the last two years, you know what that means). We squeezed the twin bed in here with the computer. It does take up a good deal of space, but it's the only place we had for it.



And this is the new hallway color, albeit it's not much different than the old color. We made the drastic move from 'cream' to 'beige' (or 'Baked Brie" as Lowes would call it).



I think that's all for now. My back is feeling better thanks to some leftover muscle relaxors from a previous injury and a good dose of ibuprofen. It still flares up a bit everytime I do something for more than 10 or so minutes, but I'm getting kind of bored laying around. Perhaps I soon feel good enough to tackle another project of the list.

Oww!

No post yesterday, partly because we had the modem disconnected while painting and partly because my back is still wrenched and I am in a good deal of pain. I know I should go to the doctor, but I'm going to spend another day convincing myself it will go away. Then I'll give up and go in. Great logic huh?

Thirteen Irrational Fears

So in the spirit of my blogging friends who do these things, I'm doing a Thursday Thirteen. Granted, I'm not really sure what a Thursday Thirteen is officially, but I've gleaned that it's just a list of thirteen somethings. I mean it's not rocket science.

Anyway, here thirteen irrational fears I have about the baby. I figured it would be good to vent them.

1. That the baby will actually be a boy.
2. That the baby will not be healthy.
3. That the baby will be ugly (Suellen has caused this fear because she's certain our ultrasound pictures showed a hooked nose).
4. That the baby will be a unhealthy, ugly boy. This is kind of the trifecta of the first three fears.
5. That the baby won't love me.
6. That the baby will love me, but will then grow up and start following some cultish religion that teaches her she can't love me causing her to stop loving me.
7. That the baby will like pink girly things. Barf-o!
8. That the baby will cause us to become even more broke than we are (which will probably happen), and that I will have a massive panic attack as a result (also a good chance of this).
9. That the baby will get pregnant while still in high school. This is a new one that suddenly came to me in the car last night.
10. That something extraordinarily crazy (tornado, plague, sci-fi like virus epidemic a la Michael Crichton) will hurt the baby and I won't be able to stop it.
11. That the baby will suck up my entire life (again, this will probably happen).
12. That the baby will suck up my entire life, and, despite my best efforts, I will come to resent her for it (I hope to God this doesn't happen).
13. That I will do something stupid that results in hurting the baby, like mistakenly feeding her poisoned plants or bad cheese or something close to that.

Ok. I feel better now. Well, spiritually and mentally at least. Physically, I'm in a great deal of pain because I managed to pull my back, get this, throwing out a toothbrush. I know that's not the real reason - the real reason is that I spent all morning on my hands and knees cleaning the bathroom, including scrubbing the hard to reach places with said toothbrush. So, the garage didn't get cleaned today like anticipated, and we are a little more behind getting ready for Paintfest 2008, which is how we are spending our 4th. But, Suellen's sister Stacy is due to arrive soon, and she's a hoss; so, hopefully she can help me finish moving the furniture. Woo Hoo!

Our very first P-Day

So the memory that's been on my mind a lot lately is the very first time we went in to try for P (which is what we are calling the baby right now).

Sidebar - I was apparently confused about whether or not we were telling people the name Suellen and I have picked out. I thought we were, but we are not. This has landed me in a bit of hot water; so, if you want to know any other name hints, talk to Suellen. I'm not saying anything any more.

Anyway, we first started trying back in June of 2007, which for us really meant a lot of meetings. And interestingly enough, a large discussion about whether or not Suellen was immune to Rubella (blood tests were taken, screwed up, taken again, shots were given, it was not a fun time). So, we had finally arrived at June and were ready to give it a go. We had picked out a donor. He was a dancer with blond hair and blues eyes (like me - the hair and eyes, not the dancing) and didn't have any family health issues. Of course, we had picked him, had him shipped on ice, and then decided we didn't like the fact that he was short and skinny. But, we figured we'd try (you can't really return it), and if it worked then it was meant to be, and if it didn't, then God was giving us a chance to change. None of this really has anything to do with the story.

So, it's June. The nurse comes out into the waiting room and calls us back. Suellen has to double check and sign that the vials match what she order, and then it happens. The nurse hands me the vial of baby juice to 'keep warm'. Eww. While I am pleased to be part of the process as 'baby juice warmer', this completely weirds me out. But we keep walking down the hallway and arrive at the exam room, all the while I am holding this little vial of pink-dish-soap-looking baby juice in a vice grip for fear that it might suddenly get a chill. The nurse ushers us in to where Dr. DHM has readied several instruments that look more painful than I want to think about, including some that light up, and leaves.

So here I am, holding the baby juice, squinting at it, trying desperately to decipher whether or not the swimmers are even in there while Suellen gets on the table, feeling quite squeamish and very nervous. Then Dr. DHM comes in. There is a small amount of explaining of the procedure, none of which I actually understand, I hand over the juice and pick up Suellen's hand, and Dr. DHM starts to do her thing.

Then this little thing clicks in my head. I am scared shitless.

Don't get me wrong, I'm being supportive. I'm standing there, telling Suellen it will all work out. But in my head, I'm doing one of those slow motion movie moments where the hero leaps across the table screaming 'Noooooooooooooooooooo' and knocks the world-ending device out of the villian's hand. Yeah. That's me. In my head, crazy light up torture devices are flying everywhere.

Of course, I'm really doing nothing but standing next to Suellen, holding her hand and looking awkwardly at the floor.

Needless to say, we did not get pregnant that try, which means we will not have a freakishly small dancer baby. (hahaha - "Tiny Dancer Baby" - oh Elton John how I love you). And, I was not nearly as scared for the other attempts. In hindsight, it's probably better that I had a little extra time to get mentally ready.

Now I need more time to get physically ready. Tomorrow's to do list involves, cleaning the bathrooms, moving furniture for painting, buying the paint so that Suellen's sister can help us this weekend, and cleaning out the garage. Yikes!

Write about the baby

I was on the phone with my boss yesterday (who is also a friend and who still believes in the illusion that I am in fact a writer despite the fact that I really haven't written anything since teaching absorbed every spare moment of my life), and he asked if I've written anything about the baby.

Well, I haven't, but it's not because I haven't wanted to.

It's because I'm nervous and excited and scared and busying myself with five million things to get ready for the baby so that I don't have to think about the actual baby, and all of that leaves my very tired and generally 'uncreative'.

I've always been kind of a gestational writer. I tend to mull ideas and lines over and over (and over and over) in my head before I write them down. This is probably one of the reasons poetry suits me well - if I tried to write books, I'd never remember all the lines. But, it's time to actually get thoughts on paper before I forget everything I've been thinking about; so, I'm going to set myself a goal of writing each day this month. I probably won't be as diligent as Amy, but I'm going try. And, we should be home for most of this month, which will help things.

Look for feeble insights to come later, blog stalkers. For now, it's off to grocery store!

And we're back

For those of you that stalk Suellen's blog, you may have noticed that we've spend a good deal of time out of town recently. Well, we're back, and none of the crazy family time managed to kill us (nor did my mowing of our hugely overgrown lawn when we returned - though the lawn mower did go on strike for about 4 hours in the middle).

Anyway here goes...

1. A smile is sometimes hard to do on command. I'm not a good 'on command' smiler. I always look stupid. This made the baby shower particularly painful.
2. Life Boat is my favorite board or card game, though I usually end up dying.
3. I would love to have more time to read in my life and less work related stress.
4. When I think of the Summer Solstice, I think man it's getting hot outside. Where did we buy this house, on the sun?
5. I just remembered I need to figure out how much mulch to buy tomorrow.
6. One of my favorite song lyrics goes like this:
you'll fight and you'll make it through
You'll fake it if you have to
And you'll show up for work with a smile
And you'll be better
You'll be smarter
More grown up and a better daughter or son
And a real good friend. - Rilo Kiley
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to going to ComedySportz to celebrate my birthday (yea oldness!), tomorrow my plans include moving furniture and remulching (yea sore back!) and Sunday, I want to remember what it was like to be young and not have a bad back!

Almost Done!

I'm squeezing this in on my last Friday of work before summer. Yippie!

1. Idle hands are...wait....I don't think I know what those are.
2. I love standing half-asleep in the shower. It's a great way to wake up
3. My favorite time of the day is when everything is done. Unfortunately, that's about 30 seconds before I fall asleep.
4. The last tea I drank was yuck I hate tea.
5. I like to sit on our deck in the Summer. It's my new favorite place.
6. My mother always said be sure to say 'I love you' before you hang up the phone with someone you care about. Ok, well, she didn't actually ever say that, but she always did it.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to shopping for graduation gifts, tomorrow my plans include University's graduation and a tour of parties and Sunday, I want to sleep, but I'll probably have to mow the lawn!