Andi Pandi

Dear Internets,

Because of your enthusiasm over our new little one, I have exceeded my photo-alotment for this month! eep!  I am working on getting it restored for you right away.

In other news: I am the worst baby-mama-blogger ever!  I am supposed to be posting pictures everysingleday! and telling you every milestone for all of you!  I suck.  I have been hogging up all her magicalness all to myself...But i am back.  And I am sharing. (bullet style of course, before she wakes up!)

1.  Bethiclaus (try the link on the side, she is hysterical and mad-talented), sent us a beautiful afghan for Sophie and (again) as soon as I get the picture thing sorted out, I will post some!  Seriously: mad-talent...it is amazing...and you all know how the home-made gifts make me cry!

2.  Tried last week to go to the mall.  As soon as I got in the parking lot I realized that sweetness herself had pooped up the back of her outfit and I would have to change her in the backseat: no problem.  Also? She was starving and my boobies were about to rupture and drown all of Norman.  Again? No problem. (am feeling like super empowered super mama).  So I start to change her and she starts screaming and i start leaking and pretty soon my t-shirt needs to be wrung out.  again? no problem: I found a hoodie in the trunk.  I am determined to get some damn shopping done.  Get everything loaded up, cleaned up, packed up and get into the mall and break down in hysterical tears.  End up going straight home.  Hormones are f.u.n.

3.  We have the sweetest little baby ever, who hardly cries and loves to be passed around from person to person and loved on.  She lets out one warning cry to let us know we are needed and that is usually all it takes.  Until three nights ago when Sophie's eviiiiil twin: Mophie showed up.  Mophie is the little piglet who cannot get enough to eat and screams when the boobies shrivel up empty after an hour of nursing.  Mophie screams loud enough to wake the dead and elevates my blood pressure to danger-zone proportions.  Mophie stayed for about three hours and then let our poor little Sophie get some sleep.

4.  We were finally able to reinact our shopping trip yesterday without any sort of catastrophe.  She slept like an angel the whole time (even somehow through the music at Express--and btw, what the hell?  are they seriously trying to give you a stroke with the music volume in there?).  I kept her fully covered though so people could not peek at her and I felt much more safe about that.  (Of course some nosey busy body at the tupperware kiosk refused to yield out of the way of the damn stroller until I uncovered her for a second...damn tupperware bitches--just for that: Rubbermaid forever).

5.  Thanksgiving is nearly here and we have so much to be thankful for: the little piglet that we get to kiss on everyday, the little dog that only vomited on the floor three times today and by-God: Honeybaked ham.  This is our outing for the day today: go get the ham.  The precious glorious ham.

6. Mini-bullet: we finally got a Sephora! yay!

Sorry about the bandwidth issue, will try to have it recovered for you by tomorrow!

I am not going to take thirteen hours and type out the whole "birth story" but I will give you the highlites and then what you are all here for anyway: The Pictures.

We went to the hospital at seven in the morning last friday for our c-section.  They started my epidural and no-joke: it hurt.  I suppose it wouldn't hurt if I were already in some amount of pain, but I was in a great mood and no pain at all, so it sucked.  They wheeled me into the OR, got Steve all dressed up in some cute doctor-scrubs and a mask (the blue eyes gave him away anyway though) and put up a big drape thing so I couldn't see anything.  They never said like "ok! go!" or anything, so after a few minutes of "you may feel a little pressure" they held my little girl up over the thingie for me to see.  She was all gooey and purple and perfect.  Steve went and took some pics of them cleaning her up and everything and then after another 15 minutes of them sewing me up, they were all done and they wheeled me back into my room.  Steve got to walk ahead of me with the baby and take her into our room where everyone was holding her and cooing at her.  I was still totally numb from the waist down, so I felt great, got to hold her and attempted (feebly) to nurse her. (more on that later: nursing sucked the first three days).

We stayed three nights in the hospital and I was never happier to get home. 

Tired of typing, here are your pics:

So, because tomorrow I will be slightly busy (GIVING BIRTH, DIDN'T YOU GET THE MEMO?), I am giving you bonus materials now...as in TWO blog entries in one day! yipes!

Spent the day trying to be preoccupied...ate some yummy greasy non-diet foods. (these will prolly hurt me when I vomit them tomorrow morning).

Leesie the Sissy is on her way here at this very moment.  yay!  I had to have her here because she has the best way of making the suckiest things sooo less awful.  Her hubby has been such a peach about always letting me demand her time.  He always caves when I call with the whiney sister voice "can elise pleeeeeeeeease come out here?".

Yes, Sophie is stuffed into that dress with me.  Leesie's flowers were amazing...photographers at the Bellagio?  The best.  Everyone should get married there.

This was my most favoritest of our wedding pictures because it was totally unscripted.  Mostly the photog guy was awesome with the direction: look this way, look that way, kiss her now etc...but this was towards the end and we were tired and just smoochin on each other...This is who we are.  This is who Sophie will know.

Look at those baby blues! 

So on the night before our little girl gets here, these are the pictures I am staring at.  These are my favorite pictures of us.  This is the man I love.  Tomorrow he makes me a mama, the role I have looked forward to most in my life, second only to "Steve's Wife".

Thank you honey, for the greatest gift you could ever give me...I love you.

Went to the OB yesterday.  Found out that little Sophie's head is not engaged in my pelvis and that she is (stubbornly) looking to the side.  Little monkey.  Not dialated, not effaced, not anything moving in the Get The Baby Out department...even at 39 weeks.

Doc decided we should just do a c-section.  She (kindly) offered to let me labor, but told me she thought I would recover faster if I just skipped all that nasty labor crap and got right down to it.

Most people would be relieved,  I on the other hand, have to have SOMETHING to worry about, so this is it:

• what if i die?
• what if i am too stoned/delerious to remember the first moments with my little girl?
• what if i bleed too much and have to have a hysterectomy?
• what if everyone is so consumed with the baby that they forget about me?(or, because i am a total freak: what if no one pays attention to her and she gets sent to the (God Forbid) NURSERY? gah!)
• what if i can't nurse because i am too stoned/delerious/not equipped/not able?

so as you can see, i am INDEED out of my fucking mind...per usual...so I guess things are essentially status quo around here.

tomorrow this time=babyrama!

Went to the OB yesterday.  Found out that little Sophie's head is not engaged in my pelvis and that she is (stubbornly) looking to the side.  Little monkey.  Not dialated, not effaced, not anything moving in the Get The Baby Out department...even at 39 weeks.

Doc decided we should just do a c-section.  She (kindly) offered to let me labor, but told me she thought I would recover faster if I just skipped all that nasty labor crap and got right down to it.

Most people would be relieved,  I on the other hand, have to have SOMETHING to worry about, so this is it:

• what if i die?
• what if i am too stoned/delerious to remember the first moments with my little girl?
• what if i bleed too much and have to have a hysterectomy?
• what if everyone is so consumed with the baby that they forget about me?(or, because i am a total freak: what if no one pays attention to her and she gets sent to the (God Forbid) NURSERY? gah!)
• what if i can't nurse because i am too stoned/delerious/not equipped/not able?

so as you can see, i am INDEED out of my fucking mind...per usual...so I guess things are essentially status quo around here.

tomorrow this time=babyrama!

Okay, so a long time ago I read a report that linked the incidence of ADD or HDAD to mother's consumption of caffeine.  EEEP!  We actually know some people whose kids have these type disorders and we were NOT willing to suffer a lifetime of that, so I cut the caffeine out.  Occasionally I would have a coke to settle my tummy, but coffee?  No way.

My mother came to stay yesterday and the woman has coffee percolating through her veins.  This morning she had a hot pot of lucious hot coffee going at seven.  I couldn't help myself!  I figure at this point, with only two days left, that it's not really likely that Sophie will have any sort of permanant damage...unlike my bladder, which is taking the brunt of her hyperactivity at this very moment.

Today we go to our last OB appointment (why did she need to see us if we are actively having the baby tomorrow? I have no idea).  Little Prissy has her appointment at the booty parlor to get her ass-glands squeezed, so as not to offend the sensitive nasal passages of our new little girl.  Leesie the Sissy flies in late tomorrow night...just in time to ride along to the hopsicle and see me get all "checked" in...

So, mom, when the baby gets here? Can I eat her?No? How about just lick her a little all over her pruney face?  No?  I hate you.

So yesterday's list of things to do before baby-dom only included one (?!) shopping related task! Blaspheme!

So, that is the task that got done.

I am relatively new to the whole "shopping at the commissary" thing.  I didnt realize that there are high times and low times and no times in between.  Mondays at two in the afternoon are known as geriatric-happy-hour from now on.  I was indeed the youngest person in there by an easy 40 years. 

Have you ever watched old people shop for meat?  I walk up to the chicken breasts, see the words "boneless, skinless" and look for the biggest weight.  They actually contemplate it and move all the little styrofoam plates around and dig to the back and discuss it with all the other oldies around.  KILLING. ME. (not very softly)

A cute little lady in a day-suit came up to me and asked me if I thought they were being honest about the "seedless" grapes.  I said "I can't imagine what would induce them to lie" and she made the little old lady "tsk" sound and walked away like I was so niave. (they do not have seeds, I tested them when I got home.

Interesting to note also: appparently there are "seasonal" groceries that you are supposed to scoop up and hoard.  Would you like to have some corn syrup to make pecan pie with?  Too Bad.  You get nothing.  People were seriously hoarding all the hams and turkeys.  Is this the last shipment they are going to get?  Is this the only shipment of holiday food?  Where in the world are they going to store a turkey for three more weeks?

I was happy to get out of there, albeit stunned when I ended up with $270 dollars worth of groceries.  yikes! 

I failed.  I totally missed yesterday's post.  Not because I wasn't trying, but because our house is a black hole for computers.  Whenever I actually need to get something done online something, SOMETHING goes wrong and I either can't connect or get some slow stuttery connetion or something.

I don't really help this though because I sort of gave up on learning how to fix it all...Now, I just buy insurance and then abuse my little pc.  Somehow, magically it always comes back to life when the nice people at the fix-it shop send it back...

So we're down to about six days on the baby thing. 

I spazzed out yesterday and decided that the rug we spent half a fortune on for the nursery?  Smelled too nasty to expose my child to, rolled it up and drug it eight feet out of the nursery.  Then? I was too exhausted to move it anymore, so had to resort to mopping the floor instead.  I am sooo pissed about that stupid rug.  It was made by Pottery Barn, whom I don't mind bashing openly on the internet, because the rug was designed specifically for a nursery and it smelled like poison.  It made our noses burn and our eyes water.  Steve even took it outside and aired/sunned it out for two days and it STILL stunk.  We sprinkled shit on it, vacuumed it, fanned it, sprayed it and prayed about it and still? nothing.  It is Hitler's own nursery rug and it is dead to me.

The rug lives in the garage now.  It is lucky that Steve took pity on it, because when he asked me what I wanted to do about it?  I replied "bonfire".

Things that are left to do before little Sophie gets here?

• Figure out carseat installation. (so complex, only a seven year old could possibly understand it)
• Re-wash everything that stink-rug contaminated.
• Oh, get this: call and have freak washing machine repaired--we found it yesterday, full of clothes, soap and water and just sitting.  Could not be persuaded to move, agitate, empty or anything...Like it is on premature strike.
• Get little dog to groomers so she doesn't smell like poo anymore.
• Do enormous end-of-the-mellinium grocery shopping at insane commissary...sigh.
• Figure out how to be effective parent, lose eighty pounds and juggle all of this crap without starting to smoke again...sigh....

All morning I tried to think of something interesting to post, because i am committed to this whole "blog every damn day thing".  I got nuthin.  So here is some random boredom for you:

1.  I went to Targhetto today for lunch and LO!! Diapers were on sale...the very same diapers that I already had coupons for!  Oy! the savings!!

2.  I am going to my first hockey game of the season tonight, which consequently, will likely be my last also before giving birth...yay for senseless screaming and mayhem!

3.  Speaking of mayhem: My OB called this morning to see if she could push my induction back to the 17th?!  I am fairly certain that the decible of my screaming made BREAKING! NEWS!  Needless to say, after several moments of crying on-hold the nurse returned to tell me that the doctor didnt really NEED to take a three day weekend and I could continue to give birth next Friday.  whew...(and gah...like she doesn't already know that I am insane? "I bet my craziest patient won't mind postponing her delivery so I can go take a three day weekend"...She's insane too.  We were meant for each other.)

4.  I broke down and confided my whole parenting-insecurities issues to Steve last night.  He gave the best pep talk ever and i actually kinda thought that maybe i would be better at this than I originally planned when we were done.

5.  Smooooth talked Leesie The Sissy into coming out for the birth.  I thought originally that she was just afraid of blood, vomit and placentas in public, but then after Steve talked with her the other day he actually thought that she wanted to be here...So three clicks on Southwest.com and she is on her way!  yay!

6. Feeling like I ought to do something fan-freaking-tastic for my last weekend as a non-mom, but the only thing that sounds THAT fun is sleep.  God, i'm old.

Okay, so I have managed to blog two days in a row...yay me!

I could not sleep last night...not because I am so excited to see my little girl next friday, and not because of the heartburn that could have burned the house down and not because of the leg cramps and not because of the teeeeensy bladder, but because nose goblins crawled inside my head and built a booger-dam.

I could not, for love or money, get air inside my body.  So I panted.  and then I rolled over and then I rolled over some more and then I gave up and went to the couch.  Only it was only about 40 degrees inside our house (because i am a damn thermostat junkie who won't allow any heat on yet).  so then i was snotty, congested and freezing. with heartburn.  and leg cramps.

At three in the morning steve emerged and brought me a duvet to wrap up in (thank GOD) so I did not have to add "hypothermia" to my list of complaints this morning.

After approximately 6 minutes of sporadic sleeping I decided to call my boss and see if I could come in late this morning.Luckily, he was on board so I crawled back in bed.  Where the booger-dam broke and I was sorely tempted to use the entire queen-sized sheet as a tissue for the amount of snot I was losing.

Then...Steve...like a freaking HERO shows up (he had left for work a half hour earlier, so was not there to witness me gazing at the sheet wondering about it's absorbancy), with a gas station crappacino in hand and draws me a hot bath with some of that yummy menthol bubble bath stuff in it.

Now I am at work.  The booger-dam is back in place and I am panting at my desk, but by God, I'm here. (when I think of the booger-dam I imagine the little guys from Fraggle Rock with all their little sugar construction projects....don't you remember them?)

The bad news is that I have all my work done for my maternity leave.  and I am being sneaky and turning it in over-time...(well, i WAS  being sneaky until I dumbly posted it on the internet just now).  So, now I am trying to stretch out activities like "burn data on discs" and "clean off desktop".

OH and i totally forgot (although how, i have no idea, because it is only the BEST news ever) I lost two pounds yesterday at my OB visit!  yay, two whole pounds that I dont have to obsess about after the new year!