It's official, I'm fat

Okay, so I went to my doctor's appointment this morning before work. It was a hectic morning, waking up late. We didn't have any milk so I ate a Luna bar for breakfast in the car. At least it was healthy. I usually eat cereal. Robert and I had to drive separate cars to the doc's because it's close to where he works but not where I work, so that was also a pain.

Anyway, so okay, I didn't gain ten pounds in a month.

I GAINED NINE. I'm so ashamed. I just wanted to crawl under a rock. But I realize now that I would not have fit under a rock. So the nurse weighs me and makes all these "Oh, my God" noises about how much weight I've gained and is everything okay and blah, blah, fucking blah. I already knew I gained a lot of weight, I just wasn't quite ready to hear nine pounds. So that puts me in a bad mood, and we weight (oops, I mean wait) at least a half hour for the doc to come in. He tells me everything was fine with my glucose tolerance test. My blood pressure and everything else is fine. Then he too sees my weight and can't believe it either. I'm like, jeez, am I the worst pregnant lady they've ever seen in their office? Is nine pounds really that bad? At least he wasn't too preachy about it. All he said was that if I gain a lot of weight it will be hard to lose after the baby's born. It doesn't take a genius to figure that one out, doc. When he looked at my weight he said, "nine pounds! Now that took some effort!" It didn't really. I just ate lots of Doritos and ice cream and conveniently forgot to walk on the treadmill. He's such a punk, that doctor. He actually asked me if my appetite was okay. He asked me in all seriousness. I was, like, are you joking? I just gained nine pounds!

We did ask the doctor if we could take a trip somewhere in the last trimester, and he said it shouldn't be a problem, just not to be going to any remote places where there are no hospitals around for miles. Yeah, thanks, that never crossed my mind. He also said the carpal tunnel is common in pregnant women, which I had deduced on my own by reading about fellow bloggers' carpal woes. Mine is only bad when I wake up in the morning. Hopefully it doesn't become unbearable. It's already a nuisance. Um, what else, he said that the hospital where we'll be having the baby allows the babies to sleep in the mom's hospital room, assuming everything is normal. This made me very happy. I was hoping to be able to do this.

Since we overslept this morning I ended up wearing these maternity capri jeans because I couldn't find one of my three pairs of maternity pants that I reserve for work. I spent lots of time in vain frantically throwing clothes out of the laundry basket looking for my capri khakis. So yeah, I wore capri jeans to work. These Old Navy capri jeans with a really wimpy panel and let's face it -- I've outgrown the damn things. So because these jeans are really small, they kept slipping down and I had to keep pulling my shirt down to hide my belly and keep it from peeking out at the world. Let's just say that I didn't feel very beautiful today at work. I looked like a pregnant slob. And I felt like a pregnant blob after that weigh in.

So 30 pounds so far, and I'm only 31 weeks. This can't be good. I ate a salad from McDonald's for lunch. But tomorrow I fear I will be eating pizza because one of our coworkers is leaving and that's where her going-away is. I will be forced to eat pizza and pepperoni rolls. What's a girl to do?

Anyway, on a more positive note, I may be being considered for a job at work. A job with a different company. It would be really cool if I could swing that, but I won't get any hopes up. It seems like everytime I think I have a shot at a job, I'm disappointed over some reason or another and it just doesn't pan out. Hopefully this one will and I'll get paid lots of money, and they'll let me start after the baby's born (two to three months after), and I will miraculously lose all this weight after baby's born, and everything will be peachy. A girl can dream, can't she?

Food woes and baby worries

My appetite lately is out of control. Yesterday I pigged out on Mexican food for lunch. I also had a run in with Doritos in the afternoon. I sat there in the living room after husband went to work and went to work on two opened bags of Doritos. I started with the cool ranch, then ate some nacho cheese, then back to the cool ranch, then some more nacho cheese. I ate like it was my last meal (I guess it didn't help that I was genuinely hungry and should have made a real meal for myself and baby). I mean, I ate like I had smoked a big bad blunt and each Dorito was the best tasting thing in the entire world! This continued until I started to feel a little full and I began to realize what I had done. Well, although I was kind of full, I still had an appetite. I waited a few minutes and proceeded to make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a large glass of milk. Just thinking about it is grossing me out right now, but it was sooo good. I had had my fill of salt and I needed something that didn't taste salty so PB&J was just right. Of course, I had other snacks throughout the day for me and baby and I did take my prenatal vitamin. I try not to feel guilty for the bad (and disgusting) food choices I'm making, but it's tough. I ate some broccoli today, so I feel a little better. All I know is lately I've been eating way too much (ice cream, cookies, and potato chips) and my next doctor's appointment is on Wednesday. I feel like a hippo, and I'm waiting for the scale to tell me that I've gained ten pounds. I'm really scared.

I love reading books for the expectant mother, but I really can't stand the chapters on diet and nutrition. I have a book that's simply called Nutrition for a Healthy Pregnancy. If I really want to feel crappy and like a very bad mother-to-be, all I have to do is read a few choice pages out of this book, which states that an expecting mother should be eating 5-6 servings of fruits and vegetables daily. Jeez. Let's see, today I had orange juice (1), some lettuce in the chicken caesar wrap I had for lunch (does that count as 2? It was in a spinach tortilla too), and that broccoli I had with my sandwich for dinner (3). I guess potato chips don't count, huh. Well, the day's not over, maybe I can shove an apple down my throat and eat some carrots or something. Hey, I did have a Luna bar during the day. And I had bran cereal for breakfast. That counts for something, doesn't it?

I guess I worry too much. Last night I took a bath and was terrified that the water was too hot for baby. But then I felt her moving as I saw down to fold clothes and watch TV. Then during the night, as I got back in the bed after peeing for the millionth time, my cat jumps on the bed and proceeds to run across my belly. Now this cat weighs a good 17-18 pounds (no joke). I was sure my baby was hurt. I was really scared until I felt her moving around again in my belly. I guess she's a tough little thing. I'm just always so scared she's going to come out weak and malnourished and it's going to be all my fault.

Anyway, on a nice note, Kelly put a link to my blog. I feel special. She also has a great pic of her cat in a red feather boa. Also, on a not nice note, one of my other cats peed on the carpet. She's about 15 years old, and I'm starting to really think that she's senile and forgets where her litter box is. And, on a completely unrelated note, on the way home from work today I saw an 18-wheeler truck on fire. It was kind of freaky looking. And all I could think was, boy am I glad it's on the other side of the highway because I really have to pee!

Unexpected day of freedom

We went to our childbirth class yesterday, but as it turns out, it was canceled. Now we weren't the ones who screwed up and forgot to write this down or anything. We got there just like we were supposed to. I got an email confirmation a few days ago saying that we were in fact registered and had to be there by 9 am Saturday morning. We woke up at 7 am yesterday to make sure that we'd leave around 8 am to get there at 9 am and have wiggle room to flounder around and find the conference room. We ended up leaving around 8:15 (I blame Robert) so I was paranoid that we would be walking in late and having everyone stare (I hate that about being late) at us because of it. We got there, found the room with minimal difficulty, but it was locked. We walked around and found no one who could help us. Soon, others began to show up. Other pregnant ladies and their men, so we knew we were in the right place. Finally, some take-charge-kind-of-guy makes some phone calls and a security guard lets us into the conference room so we can at least sit down. We were a bunch of pregnant ladies after all. Finally, a nurse comes down (this is around 9:30, 9:45ish) and tells us that the woman who teaches the class broke her arm a few weeks ago and rescheduled all her classes, but apparently ours fell the through the cracks and was not rescheduled. Groan, groan, groan. She takes all of our information down and tells us that someone will get back with us by Monday to reschedule and that we can all have parking vouchers and blah, blah, blah. So we got out of there around 10 am. It sucked that we weren't able to take it. I was really looking forward to it. I felt worse for the couples who were due in, like, two weeks. They really couldn't afford to be waiting around.

So we left and had nothing to do. We decided to go to Soundwaves so Robert could look at surfboards and possibly buy some new shoes. His dirty, torn pair of Vans that he wears every day to work is pretty ridiculous. I wanted to look at CDs too. I bought Iron and Wine's Our Endless Numbered Days the day before yesterday after not buying any new music in ages and was anxious to try to find more stuff to listen to.

I love music but I go through music droughts here and there where I'm not looking up new bands to listen to. I feel really crappy when that happens because music makes me so happy. A while back I was talking to someone at work about music and this guy lends me a Matt Bianco CD (I did not ask to borrow it -- he kind of thrust it my way and said he wanted to lend it to me). I hate it when people do this because one: if it's something I want to listen to, I'll ask for it and two: if I don't ask to borrow it, chances are I will take forever to listen to it because I never wanted to in the first place. This tends to piss the lender off because they get all anxious wanting their CD back and I end up holding on to it for longer than I should because I feel bad for not listening to it. Anyway, I finally listened to it and hated it. Not sure how many Basia/Matt Bianco fans there are out there, but I did not like it at all. Sorry. And so I had to lie to my coworker and pretend that I found it pleasantly "interesting" and "different". I couldn't very well tell him that the CD he so eagerly loaned to me sucked in my opinion, could I? Now if someone who does know my taste in music well loans me a CD for my listening pleasure I generally don't mind, but otherwise I get annoyed. I don't mind if the person just refers me to something, because that way I can go find an MP3 on my own time or whatever, but the loaning of the CDs is just so much pressure on my part. Perhaps I'm strange that way.

Anyway, so Robert bought shoes at Soundwaves. Finally. Some more Vans but they are all black and nice and not torn. I bought Death Cab for Cutie's Photo Album, 10,000 Maniacs Few and Far Between single (with Michael Stipe and David Byrne), and Bright Eyes' I'm Wide Awake, It's morning. All used, of course. I was trying to be thrifty. The 10,000 Maniacs one reminds me of high school and I'd never owned it on CD before so when I saw it, I had to have it. I don't own any Death Cab and I've been wanting to, so I grabbed that one. And I have another Bright Eyes album that I like and wanted to get more.

After we left Soundwaves, we had lunch at this great little cafe in Midtown called Le Bec Fin. It was really good. Then we went to the movies at the Angelika to see Crash, which I liked a lot, by the way. I was hoping it would be a cry baby matinee so we could see all the babies in theatre, but no luck. We were the only ones in the entire theatre.

Then we drove through Montrose to see them setting up for the gay pride parade and headed to Teahouse -- this place that makes awesome boba tea -- and had tea and played a game of scrabble, which I love (I won too). Then we drove through Montrose again, but headed home after. We didn't go to the Pride Parade because the day just didn't work out like that. Had we gotten out of our class at 3 pm, like we thought we probably would have gone, but oh well. I had a lot of fun yesterday, just roaming around. We felt like two kids who had gotten out of school really early.

Robert just came into the house after cutting the grass (I guess he pulls his weight some) and I think we're going to have breakfast somewhere. I want tacos...actually everything sounds good to me. Hopefully we can get into that childbirth class soon.

ready for the weekend

I'm very happy that this week is over for me. It started out okay, but sometime around Wednesday it became truly hellish. Having to go in at 6 am everyday and 2:30 am one day this week was just the tip of the iceberg. Work just sucks sometimes. Yesterday I left work around noon and called the husband at work just to hear a comforting voice. He was busy or something, so as I was babbling away, he got really irritated with me, and I burst into tears. All this while I'm driving home. I guess I take back that I said I wasn't hormonal. I really made him feel bad though. Good. He should know better than to openly show agitation with a pregnant woman. The nerve!

So I'm home now. Tomorrow we do our childbirth class. I don't really know what to expect. One of my male coworkers said they kept talking about "bloody show" when he went to his with his girlfriend, who by the way, gave birth last night to their baby! They had a nine-pounder! That's a big baby! But then he and his girlfriend are both six feet tall or taller. They are big people. I come from a much smaller people. I'm latina, and we're little people. My mom and dad are short. My dad is only 5'8". Husband is close to six feet, but still no giant. Although he has gained a ton of weight lately. It's nice to know that I'm not alone with this weight gaining thing. He went mountain biking today and said he was incredibly out of shape. I guess if you pick up your mountain bike once every two years and do nothing else but sit on your ass that happens. I know from personal experience.

So the Spurs won last night! They are the NBA champions. I'm really happy they won. It was an incredible game. Tim Duncan finally decided to sink some free throws and the rest of the team pulled through too. I'm sure my family was gathered at one sibling's house or another to watch the game and was elated at the outcome. I miss hanging with my familia. My family is tons of fun. No joke. I really do like hanging out with them.

Well, here's to the weekend. I couldn't be happier that it's here. We have plenty of stuff to do, I just don't know how much of it we'll actually do. I really wanted to go to the Gay Pride parade this weekend, but I'm not sure how much fun I'll have waddling through a crowd of people with no beer. hmmm, we'll see if we make it out. Now that we're in Texas City it's just so far away to do anything near downtown. I miss being near all that action.

Pregnant pic's, TV, and the Spurs

I was just reading Beth's blog and I really wish we had taken more pictures of my pregnancy at the different stages. I guess it's not too late because I have a feeling I'm gonna get bigger. Call it a hunch. Ha! I'm only 30 weeks, so yeah. I definitely think I'll get bigger. Robert's such a lazy ass with the camera, though. Everytime it's, "the batteries aren't charged" or "I don't have a media card" or "I don't have any film". At least we got plenty at the shower. I guess I should post some, in case anyone reads this and is remotely interested in seeing them. I haven't even seen them, actually. They're still on Robert's digital camera.

I am starving. I went in to work this morning at 6 am, (so I woke up around 4:45 am), and I have to go in tonight/tomorrow morning at 2:30 am (on the plus side I'll get to leave around noon for the day), but rest of the week I go in at 6 am. Anyway, to deal with the going in at 2:30 am tonight I took a long nap when I got home today around 4 pm. I got up close to 8 pm, that way I had plenty of time to watch TV. I already watched the finale of MTV's Real World/Road Rules Inferno II (I know, I'm a loser, but what can I say, I'm addicted). It was great. I hate all those bitches from the bad ass team. This also leaves me with plenty of time to watch my beloved Six Feet Under and Entourage. Damn those are good shows. And shows I'm not embarrassed to watch either. Although, Six Feet Under has been extremely depressing the first two episodes. At least the rerun episodes of Entourage keep me in a good mood. Robert worked late tonight, so he'll be home with me to watch TV. I like forcing him to watch with me. He's usually pretty cooperative. I had beat him on Tetris a few days ago, then he beat me, so hopefully he won't be engrossed my my cell phone tonight when he gets home either.

Oh, Spurs won last night in overtime! Oh yeah, they won 96 - 95. I was worried that they wouldn't win it, but Robert Horry pulled through with an amazing three-pointer in overtime with about 9 seconds left to pull them from 93 to 96. It was crazy. I'm sure everyone in San Antonio was watching with bated breath. I can't wait to see the game tomorrow. It will be back home in SA, and I'm sure the entire city will go crazy if they win. Hopefully they can put the championship away and do it in game 6. It would totally suck to have a game 7.

Anyway, enough jabbering, I'm pregnant and I need to eat!!!!

Blogging for the hell of it

I've had some unwelcomed visitors the past few days. Unfortunately, I think they'll be staying forever. Yes, I have developed stretch marks. Though they are small right now, I have no doubt that they will streeeeetch out to even bigger, more unsightly, hideous things. Oh, well, I used the Palmer's lotion, but I guess if you're gonna get 'em, you're gonna get 'em. There's no way around it. So that means that so far swollen feet and stretch marks have been the big problems of my pregnancy. And I'm into my seventh month now, so I guess I shouldn't be complaining. I didn't have any morning sickness and I haven't been extremely hormonal. And that's not just coming from me. I even asked my husband. He said I was worse when I was PMSing. I would get all weepy and stuff. Actually, add to my list of low points numbness in my fingers. I hadn't really thought about it or attributed it to pregnancy until I read Kelly's blog about the same thing. It probably is carpal tunnel because the numbness is constrained to all fingers but my pinky. So far it's not unbearable, so I hope it doesn't get any worse. I guess being all giant and pregnant makes it hard to do many things and I usually don't even bother to shave my legs anymore. If anything, I'll shave the bottom parts of my legs because I'm usually wearing capri pants. Getting up from the couch is also getting difficult.

Yesterday Robert put up Sofia's crib! It didn't take him too long and I was very happy with it, considering all the crib drama we had. There was that fiasco with the Target crib we ordered and our transaction getting screwed up. Then we ordered one from a baby furniture store in Houston that we really loved. They told us it would take us 4 to 12 weeks for delivery. A few weeks after we paid for it, they called me to tell me the crib was discontinued and they wouldn't be able to fulfill our order. Sucks! They offered to knock some off the price of the floor model in the store. That's what we decided to go with. The floor model. It was in really good condition, so we went ahead and got it. I'm happy we decided that because we probably would have been waiting forever had we ordered a different one.
Anyway, we purchased the matching chest of drawers too and Robert went ahead and bought a good mattress from the store. It was weird, after the crib was put together we just started pulling everything we needed to fix all the bedding. We already had everything. All the bedding including a comforter, mattress pad, sheet, mobile for the crib and tons of other stuff. We even have the cute little pooh lamp to put on top of the chest of drawers. I can't believe how just two weeks ago we had nothing and now we have most of what we need. I've also started consolidating the shower gifts into their respective categories. You know, bath stuff, clothes, shoes, etc. I'm a dork. It's taking me a while to do it. I just wanted to keep everything in the gift bags and keep looking at the stuff. I got over it, when I realized there would be no room in our baby's room if I left everything in their original gift bags.

So I'm planning to watch the Spurs game 5 tonight in hopes that they can redeem themselves after their disgraceful loss to the Detroit Pistons on Thursday. They didn't just lose. It was a blowout! It was an embarrassment. The series is 2-2, so whoever wins tonight is a big deal.

I called my dad to wish him a Happy Father's Day. All my family was there at my parents' house. I miss them. I hope I don't turn into a big wah wah baby once my baby is born. One of my friends said when she had her baby she just wanted her mom all the time. That would suck. Especially since my mom doesn't know how to drive (that's right -- she never learned to drive) and my dad has all these other issues and hates driving. And my dad refuses to fly. Go figure.

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there!

This blogging for the hell of it business is making me tired. I think I'm going to take a nap now.

Tetris, maternity leave, and daycare

So I'm getting back into the work routine after being gone a couple of days. Unfortunately, when I'm not stressing and pulling-my-hair-out busy, I'm extremely bored at work. I had one meeting and reviewed one document today and spent waaay too much time playing Tetris on my cell phone. Robert recently beat my high score, so I now have to beat his without seeming like I'm really trying. So, of course, I have to do it at work. Speaking of video games, Robert hasn't really played his Xbox in a while. I don't want to mention it, for fear that he has forgotten and that my mentioning it will drive him to play endless games of Max Payne.

So my day was pretty uneventful. I called about maternity leave and the HR lady told me it was a really easy process and that I could call closer to my due date to start filling out the paperwork. We get six weeks off that doesn't come out of our FMLA, and those six weeks should be paid at either 60 or 80 percent. Then I'll take a few more weeks using all my sick leave and vacation that I've saved up. I want to take ten weeks total, but some of it may have to be without pay.

I was looking at daycare centers online the other day on the State of Texas website (these are the ones that are all licensed by the state of Texas -- my sister-in-law said she wouldn't go with an unlicensed one because the licensed ones are required to meet all kinds of standards like being CPR certified and stuff and if you go with one that isn't licensed you don't really know what you're getting unless you know the person personally, of course), and I honestly have no idea how we're going to be able to find one. I should start on my list of questions now. I'm also afraid of how much they are going to cost, but that's whole different story.

Although my work routine is back. We have yet to unpack on the homefront. I'll have to do some of that tonight because I hate wearing the same pair of maternity pants over and over. I desperately need to do laundry (which is much easier in this house now that we have a washer/dryer). I only have about three pairs of pants that look decent enough to wear to work. What sucks is that they're all capri pants, so when my ankles are swollen I have no place to hide them. Yesterday I ended up wearing my beat-up old reef flip-flops that were once black and are now a faded gray color. Nobody at work said anything although I could have sworn I saw a few people eyeing them, so I figured it was fine. Today my feet seemed to be back to normal. I wore my good old slip-on black leather sandals that I wear almost everyday. Hopefully my feet stay normal for a few more days.

My little one has been quite active lately. I'm not sure if it's hiccups sometimes. How does one know?

Home sweet home

We got back into town last night around 7 pm. What a weekend! We got into San Antonio Friday afternoon in a mad dash to make my hair appointment. I scheduled a hair appointment at K. Charles, which is this really great salon in San Antonio and the stylist that cut my hair is cheaper than the guy who does it in Houston. My hair was a mess and needed it badly. We endured hours stuck in our car in traffic. There were two accidents on the road and lots of traffic. Traffic in Seguin? Whatever. Being stuck in a car was not the best thing for a pregnant lady who has to pee often. I've always been a perpetual pee-er. I didn't know it could actually get worse, but pregnancy has shown me that it can be much worse. Anyway, we made it in (a good twenty minutes late to my hair appointment -- thank goodness she still saw me), got my hair cut, got to see Robert's sister who was in town for the baptism and shower and got to visit with my parents. We stayed at my parents' house that night, but Robert's mom's place the rest of the weekend.

Saturday was a lot of running around getting ready for the shower. The shower was awesome! I had so much fun, and I know Robert did too. We invited men and women, so families basically. I loved how it worked out. There were plenty of kids running around and lots of people. My friend from Houston who came down said it was the biggest shower he'd ever been to. There was a pool outside the party house, so the kids got to go swimming. Very nice in the hellish Texas heat. So in addition to the party having a nice vibe and all, we made out like little bandits. We really did. We got a pack-n-play, a high chair, a stroller with carseat combo, a jogging stroller, and tons of onesies, layettes, blankets, diapers, gift cards. I would venture to say that we're set. We have a few big items to buy, but for the most part everything is taken care of. Our families and friends are amazing. Robert's sister even bought me a bad ass breast pump. The Medela pump in style advanced pump. Yes, that's correct. She bought me that as a gift. I find that extremely amazing since that pump is super expensive. She also gave us all of her baby's old clothes (she's got a six-month-old beautiful beautiful beautiful baby girl - our goddaughter) and a bunch of other nifty items. So the shower was a huge success. How we managed to bring everything back to Texas City in our tiny car is still a mystery to me, but we did it.

Suunday we had the baptism to go to, and it was a beautiful mass. We are Catholic - FYI. The mass was first then the baptism followed. Our goddaughter was amazing. She is such a beautiful baby. She cried a little when the priest did the anointing and poured the water on her head, but she was a trooper throughout and did very well. After the baptism, we went back to Robert's sister's in-laws to celebrate the baptism and stuff our faces and open gifts for the godchild. It was also a good time. We were exhausted by the time that was all over with. Sunday night Robert and I went over to my sister's to watch the Spurs win game 2 against the Detroit Pistons. There were a bunch of us there and we had a great time.

Monday we spent visiting with mas familia and drove back. So all in all it was a great, but exhausting weekend. Drawbacks to the weekend included: swollen feet and constant fatigue. My feet were so swollen that I never got to buy any beautiful shoes to wear with my beautiful dress. I did find some cute green flip flops with a puffy blue flower that hid my puffy feet at DSW and wore those. Actually Robert found them, no wonder I married him. They went well with my dress. I wore some shoes that I already had to go with the dress I wore to the baptism, and they cut into my feet so bad, I thought the indentations would never go away. What gives with all this swelling? I get annoyed when women tell me they never got any swelling with their pregnancies. Who cares??? Robert's mom said that she never got any swelling with her pregnancies, and I was getting ready to roll my eyes and swear under my breath when she finished with, "I got varicose veins instead." Bless her heart. I welcome swollen feet. Good ol' temporarily swollen feet, as opposed to permanent hideous varicose veins.

Anyway, so we're home now. The cats were overjoyed to see us, although Whiskers peed by the front door while we were gone. There were minimal problems. They still love us, so I feel good.

Getting ready for the weekend

I'm waiting for my husband to get home from work. I really need to go buy shoes (to go with the dress that I bought that I'm wearing to my shower...)and have no choice but to buy them today. Unfortunately, I can't go until around 7 pm because we have no money in the bank and that's about the time our direct deposit shows up. I hate being so broke! I went to lunch today with some of the guys from work. We went to this Mexican restaurant that has a special on Mondays and Thursdays. Get this: $3.50 enchilada plate. Oh yes, and they're good! And it's full service place, so you get the whole deal with chips and salsa. I love good, cheap food. I was so broke though, that I literally paid with two ones, and a bunch of change. I didn't really care. I was damn hungry.

I have to buy the shoes today because we're going out of town to San Antonio and the plan is to leave very early. Also the shoes I want are at Urban Outfitters and there isn't one in San Antonio. Robert and I are both from San Antonio. Hence the love for the Spurs. Who are, by the way, playing the Detroit Pistons in game one of the NBA finals tonight. I will have to miss some of the game, unfortunately, because shoe shopping is very important. I will probably have to get some dinner after I find shoes because my unborn baby will need nourishment too.

I was really afraid that my mother-in-law had planned our shower on a night when a game was scheduled. If this happened, I guarantee there would have been a low turnout at the shower. Either that or the people at the shower would have insisted that we leave the TV on and would have ignored me. I can't compete with the Spurs when it comes to San Antonio people. Pregnant or otherwise.

I'm starting to feel guilty about leaving our cats for the long weekend. We're not coming back until Monday, and one of them -- our boy-- is very sensitive. Not kidding. He gets very emotional when we go out of town. Also since we just moved in about five weeks ago, I feel even extra guilty. He was very traumatized by the move.

So we're going to have to take our car on this trip instead of our jeep. Which sucks. The jeep is what had all those nasty problems. Well, get this, we picked it up on Monday from the jeep dealership who had been "working" on it for five days. They did absolutely nothing to the vehicle. They had it for five days and insisted that they could not duplicate the problem. So all those days without a second vehicle were for nothing. It really pissed me off. That and the service department was horrible at calling us back and letting us know any information. Anyway, we picked it up from the dealership because they couldn't find anything wrong with it, and as soon as Robert starts driving it it acts up again. Anyway, at least they didn't charge us the stupid diagnostic fee. I would have been in a rage if they had. But now we're stuck taking our car to San Antonio for the baby shower. How will we bring our baby loot back? One of my good friends from Houston is going and he actually said we could pack some stuff into his car if need be. Since he'll be coming back to Houston too. We may end up having to do that.

Baby's been moving a lot lately. She likes to hang out under my ribs on the right side of my body and do funky dances. It's really exciting to feel how much bigger the kicks have gotten. Robert gets really excited because he no longer has to ask, "was that one?" when he's feeling my belly. He can definitely feel 'em now. We've been reading her lots of stories. I wonder if she likes them. Hmmmm.

Surprise!

Today was really, really cool! The reason? A bunch of my coworkers threw me a surprise baby shower! Isn't that the coolest? I've never had a surprise anything in my entire life! And I had no clue anyone was planning anything. I work in a really tiny group (only six of us - four guys and two girls). Anyway, today around 11:15 am, this guy in our group pulls me and two of the other guys in the direction of a conference room saying our manager wanted to meet with us real quick. I thought it was kind of strange, but whatever, I'm gullible. Anyway, we get to the conference room and they open the door and there's balloons and food and cake and presents and lots of people and they're all yelling "SURPRISE!!!". I kind of hesitated for a moment thinking, "whose party is this?" when it dawned on me that it was for me! Then my HUSBAND came up to me! So cool that they invited my husband too. I was really happy and excited. The food was great and we got lots of presents for baby. Lots and lots of Winnie the Pooh stuff from Target. I love that stuff!

Even though there's only six of us in my immediate work group, we work in a much bigger department and there were about 25 people at the shower. I was very impressed at the turnout. I had no idea people liked me enough to buy presents for my unborn baby, let alone go through all the trouble to plan something as cool as this! The main culprits were two of my girl friends/coworkers. They pulled it all together. One even called me yesterday to see if I wanted to have lunch today so I was waiting for her to call me and tell me where she wanted to eat when I got pulled into the conference room. What a sneak!

Anyway, I basked in the memory of my shower all day and, as a result, got virtually no work done. Only two more days until we make the drive to San Antonio, TX for shower number 2 and our niece's baptism. This shower will be mostly family with a few friends that we don't usually get to see since we're in Houston. I'm excited because I found a dress to the wear to the shower and it's pretty! As soon as I figure out how to put links and pictures in this bad boy, I'll start putting all kinds of stuff in instead of just talking about things. Now I just need to get shoes...

Long week, one car, and new phone

This week has been sooo long. I'm so glad it's over. It started out good -- with a holiday. But it quickly turned into a not so good week. Let's see, Tuesday I worked a full day at work 8:30 am to 6 pm or so, but then I had to go back in to work at 11 pm because I was on-call. I stayed until 4 am Wednesday morning, came home hopped in the shower and into bed to wake up at 7:30 to try to make it to the doctor's office at 9 am (office is about 45 minutes away from my house now that we moved). And on the way, Robert and I had to drop off one of our vehicles because it's been acting possessed. It idles and just stalls out for no reason. So, we dropped it off on the way to the doctor's and got to the doc's a half hour late. So we spent the rest of the week with only one car (still only have one), which means I ended up driving all the way to downtown Houston to pick up my husband after work on Wednesday and Thursday (he's off on Fridays, so that's one day I avoided a headache). Houston's not big on public transportation. Actually Robert did take the bus to work on Thursday, but I picked him up from work. I really wish this town had a subway system or a better light rail system.

The doctor's visit went well. I only gained four pounds in the last month, wich made me feel great! I just didn't want to hear that I had gained eight pounds, like the last time. Maybe the walking I was doing (which has dwindled down to once a week if I'm lucky) paid off. Of course Wednesday night we went to go eat Thai food at this place in Rice Village (I was already in that neck of the woods, right?), and I stuffed my face. I also stuffed my face on Thursday, and yesterday I had three pieces of Papa John's pizza for lunch, a doughnut, and Olive Garden for dinner (salad, breadsticks, and an entree)! Not to mention breakfast that day and the other snacks I had to keep me going through the day. Maybe I can do better today. Oh, but back to the doc's visit. He told me that it was time to do the glucose test, so I braved the lab to go drink the notorious orange drink. I drank it, and I actually kind of liked it. It was like drinking an orange soda. Like a Sunkist or Orange Crush. Tasty. Then I left to go drop Robert off at work and returned an hour later so they could draw blood. This was the scary part. I'm usually not afraid of needles (we used to donate plasma in college, and I have several piercings -- tasteful ones!), but this lady stuck my arm, didn't see any blood coming into her vial, so she started moving the needle around in my arm and for a moment I actually felt weak. She was pleasant while she did all of it, so I couldn't really be mad at her, but man it hurt! Then she wrapped the damn thing too tight -- I could barely bend my arm! On a good note, the baby's heartbeat was 148 bpm, and we could hear her moving around. The receptionist gave me a bunch of baby magazines to take home too. I love reading those baby magazines. I'm such a dork.

I skipped work that day because I had come in the night before and I wasn't going to be able to sleep a long time with the doc's appointment so I got someone to cover my shift for Wednesday. Since I didn't go to work I was able to go do some shopping after the doctor's appointment. I went to Motherhood maternity store and bought a really cute maternity shirt, a dress for that baptism, and a pair of shorts -- something I have not attempted to wear since growing a large basketball in my belly. The shirt I love -- I already wore it to work. The dress I like, but is black appropriate to wear to a baptism? My sister says black is okay to wear anywhere and Robert liked the dress, so I guess I'll wear it. The shorts I really don't like. They make me feel like a hippo. I may go exchange them for something else. Apparently Motherhood does not allow returns, only exchanges -- and only within ten days of the purchase! Normally that would piss me off, but they had so many cute things that I wanted to buy that I know that I'll find something else if I have to take the shorts back.

The rest of the week was just really slow and drawn out.
I did also have some minor cell phone drama this week. I bought a phone last week, ended up hating it and got a new one. But that was a challenge in itself. The phone I've had for two years is an old Sanyo 8100. It was cool in its day, with its nifty camera and stuff. The phone I got as a replacement was a Samsung a740, for any phone nerds like me. And it sucked (althought the camera was nice). I desperately needed a phone because we don't have a land line, and the reception for a cell phone here in Texas City is less than ideal, which is putting it mildly. I have Sprint, who doesn't offer much in the way of cell phones, but they have a few good ones, although they cost an arm and leg. Anyway, I ended up exchanging it for the Sanyo 7400, which rocks. I love that phone. I'm surprised my husband didn't kill me for spending so much money, but for some reason cell phones with all kinds of bells and whistles (this one has a camera AND takes video clips!) make me very happy, so he didn't say anything. Anyway, everytime I tried to take the Samsung back to get the Sanyo they were out at the Sprint store. Finally the guy said he'd call me when the phones were in, so that worked out. Although I think I may have gotten charged 20 bucks too much on the new transaction. I wasn't about to go back to complain. I just want to enjoy my new phone.

So that was my week. Thankful for the weekend. Robert has to go somewhere today, and I'm debating taking him so I won't have to be without the car.