The Kenophobic Dog

Kenophobia is really a fear of voids or empty spaces, but it's the closest thing to describe the newest affliction that Trudie has developed. After moving through the house with great gusto and navigating rooms with ease, my sweet, blind dog has developed a paralyzing fear of... hardwood floors. I know that sounds crazy, but trust me - it's even crazier to watch. This is troublesome since our entire house is hardwoods. She doesn't have a fear of hardwood floors so much as she has a fear of not being on a carpeted surface. I'm pretty sure this is my fault because every time she exits the carpet in the living room to go into the dining room, I clap my hands for her to come back. In her dark little world, she has translated me not wanting her to leave one side of one carpet in one room to me not wanting her to leave all carpeted areas. On Saturday night, we were watching Babel when I realized I hadn't seen her for an hour. She had gotten hung up on the hallway runner. Tried exiting all sides but couldn't get off. Short of rubbing down all of the hardwood floors with meat, I don't know how to correct this problem. So now in addition to having a dog that requires shock therapy, we also have one who needs confidence building exercises so she can walk on wood.

We didn't really do a whole lot this weekend. We met our friends Mike and Shanon for dinner on Friday night and I had to go shopping for new spring maternity clothes on Saturday. I had a meltdown on Wednesday morning because all of my clothes are getting tight. I don't like shopping for maternity clothes because the girls in the shops (who are not pregnant) bring you clothes to try on with promises that it'll be "so cute on". And like a sucker, I believe them every time. In my head, I'm thinking that the next outfit will not make me look like I swallowed a watermelon, but alas, it's not true. I was in Ross a few weeks ago and came across some big girl muumuus. I may try to bring those back into style.

Lee did a lot of work outside in our storage area on Saturday because it was so nice. We also had a new fridge/freezer delivered for the storage area. I figure we'll need it as we keep expanding. My latest project is making and freezing as many meals as I can ahead of time. Last night, I made one King Ranch Chicken Casserole and froze the other one. My goal is to get 8 entrees made and in the freezer by the time Ellie gets here. That way for the first couple of weeks she's home, all I'll have to do is pull out a meal and heat it up. It really doesn't take that much work to double casseroles and I know I'll be glad I did come May. I'm also collecting recipes for entrees using "pantry" or frozen ingredients. I hope to have another 8-10 meals on hand there. Everything I'm making is Weight Watchers. Don't think I won't be back at meetings the first week after Ellie gets here because I have some lofty weight loss goals I intend to keep. If you have any good recipes that freeze well, send them my way!

I went back for my 30 Week appointment this afternoon and no dice with the 3D. Ellie's hands are planted to the side of her head and she's added a foot to the mix. The sonographer tried one 3D scan, but it looked like a scary alien (not one for the scrap book or the blog). I also told my doctor about Harry Potter's "25% chance blond" comment and we had a hearty laugh about his Mendelian science. Am I a giant dork? You're damn right I am.

Next Sunday, we have our first of two "childbirth classes" at the hospital where I'm delivering. I'm anxiously awaiting the classes and not because I'll learn a lot, but because if it's anything like our "Engagement Encounter" retreat was, there's going to be some total weirdos there. My favorite couple from the pre-wedding retreat dressed like each other the whole weekend. I am anticipating that there will be the couple that's uber excited so he'll be wearing a "World's #1 Dad" shirt and hat set while she wears a "Bun in the Oven" tee, the couple trying to bridge the racial divide, the couple so young their parents had to drop them off, and the couple fighting so much you wonder how they're not going to get a divorce before the baby arrives. We'll strike pre-natal gold if there's a K.D. Lang "couple" there. Lee isn't good in these situations because he'll reach over and pinch me when he sees something strange like I'm not looking at the exact same thing he is. Actually, I'm usually already staring because I have a problem with that. This has never gotten us into trouble before, but I'm not sure how long our luck will hold with hormonal women. I'll give you a full report next Monday.

3D or Bust

Bust. We were supposed to have our 3D sonogram on Friday, but they called us and asked us to reschedule for today so we did. If you've seen a 3D sonogram, it's a pretty clear three-dimensional image of the baby's face. The kicker is that nothing can be in front of the baby's face. When we started the sonogram, Ellie's hands were directly in front of her face and there they stayed the entire time.

The sonogram technician poked at her and rattled her as much as she could, but Ellie wouldn't take her hands down from her face. She was probably trying to shield herself from the attack. Then Lee got in on the fun and he poked me in the stomach on the left side as the technician did from the right side. Poor Ellie. I bet she thought we were having an earthquake.

We did get some black and white 2D shots. Here are the best two:



This is a picture of her face... the head is on the right side and arm is on the left.


This picture is the best one. It shows her foot in the top left and her toe is touching her wrist. You can also see the bend in her elbow and her head on the right. If you flipped this picture 180, that's how she be inside me.

I have my 30 week appointment on Monday so the technician said that she'd try to work me in for a quick 3D look then. We did have her confirm again that Ellie is in fact a girl. She is. And for the record, she's a girl who can't be bothered by 3D sonograms.

Dan and Pam's Wedding (Punnett Schmunnett)

The weekend started off with some fantastic news on Friday night that my friend Anne Marie and her husband Brett had given birth to their first child, Alexander James. I can't wait to see him. He was two weeks early but is very healthy and weighed in at 8 pounds 5 ounces. I attended her baby shower in December and talked about it in my "Pregnant, Pregnanter, Pregnantist" blog. I guess I'm next!

We spent Saturday morning buying MORE items for Ellie's nursery. We went into one store and they had a little elephant already monogrammed with her name so I took it as a sign and bought it. We ordered the glider (so comfortable) from USA Baby. Since we're keeping the sofa bed in the nursery, we're reupholstering it and picked out the fabric. It's going to be done in green ticking so it could eventually fit in a boys room or a sunroom. All of this probably won't be in the nursery until late March or early April.

On Saturday night, we went to a really beautiful wedding for one of Lee's soccer friends, Dan. When the judge said "You may kiss the bride", Dan kissed Pam and the nine year-old boy in front of me screamed "SICK!". Classic. Dan's son, Alex, was the ring bearer. He's seven now, but I first met him when he was two or three. He's the reason I love little boys so much. And I don't mean "love" in a way that I have to say at least 1000 feet away from churches and schools. I just think they're funny. He was pretty worked up so I told him that if we took one good picture together:

Then we could take one picture where we're both screaming:





Not to be outdone, Lee followed suit...


I hit a new dork low at the wedding when I got into a science debate. Lee and I were talking to this guy and Lee made the comment about how Ellie will probably have brown hair since both of us have brown hair. The guy said ,"Well, if both of you have a recessive gene for blond hair then there's a 25% chance that your daughter could have blond hair." The bunk science alarm went off in my head. I said , "Are you talking about the Punnett Square?". He said that he was. I said ,"That's actually just a theoretical representation they teach high school students to introduce genetics. In real life, it doesn't really doesn't work out to a 25% chance if both of us are carrying a recessive gene." Here we go. Why God? Why must I wear my nerd science skills like a badge of honor? I admit that Ellie could have blond hair, but DNA sequences are so complex, it's not as easy as just tagging it at 25%.

But this guy wouldn't let it go. Apparently he thought I was the one who was confused so he tried to explain it to me. "You see - if you both carry a dominant and a recessive gene then that would make both of you 'big T' and 'little t' carriers so there would be a 25% chance that your offspring would be 'tt'. " Oh, I get it. What's next? The world is flat? There are pots of gold at the end of rainbows? Bigfoot? This guy seriously thinks that researchers have unraveled the genetic code, but there's still some scientist sitting in a lab churning out Punnett Squares? Then Lee gave me that one eyebrow raised "knock it off" look. With that, I smiled and nodded as if I had been utterly enlightened because I knew this guy probably believed in unicorns too, and I didn't have the energy to get into a mythical vs. magical creatures debate with Harry Potter.

Lucy Update: Many of you have asked how Lucy is doing. She's still crazy. This morning I walked into the living room and found her big, hairy, black body on our cream sofa. I didn't say anything - I just got the remote to her collar. I told her to get off the sofa and shocked her. She jumped down, but I didn't think it was on because she didn't react so I hit the button again and her eye twitched a little. Lesson - Level 6 is not high enough. Will try 7 next time.

75 Shut Down!

I sit next to a windown and usually, there's nothing to see, but today there was a huge accident!

I-75 northbound was totally shutdown. Just look at that backup. It went all the way to downtown. I would be going crazy in my car. At least it's not 105 outside.

Valentine's Day Massacre

Happy Valentine's Day! It's a big day since today I hit Week 28 which means it's the start of my third trimester. We're on the homestretch. My sweet, sweet husband tried to give my Valentine's Day gift last night because he was excited about it, but I made him wait until this morning. So promptly at 7:00 am, he pulled out a little box wrapped all in pink. He gave me some really beautiful John Hardy earrings. I had made a photo book on Kodak Gallery of our San Francisco trip for him. Better late than never!

I also had my 7 month checkup this morning. At 28 weeks, they make everyone take a blood glucose screening test to check for gestational diabetes. You have to drink this syrupy stuff that tastes like Hawaiian Punch and then an hour later they draw your blood. All went well until the "draw your blood" part.

Wendy is my usual nurse and can find a vein blindfolded. Wendy was sick today. Since my veins are the size of a strand of hair, I always have a bit of a problem with letting let people stick me. The first nurse (read: first) came in and gave it her best shot. And after she tried once, it looked like I'd been shot. Thank God nothing got on my clothes, but I'm not amused. She tried again and even though I'd never met her before, I'm pretty sure she was trying to punish me. With that failed attempt, she said "Let me go get someone else". Good idea.

I'm a little stressed out now. I jumped off the table to walk around to calm down and turned around to see the table that the nurse hadn't cleaned up. Then I loose it. Nurse #2 walks into me having a nervous breakdown and practicing deep breathing. I feel really bad because what conversation must Nurse #1 have had with her? "Hey - could you draw some blood from the girl in room 2? I've tried twice and now she's freaking out and having a panic attack. P.S. - I didn't clean up the mess. You're a pal!".

Nurse #2 starts in on my left arm. She sticks me and there's silence for about 10 seconds. Then she said "there's no blood coming out of your veins". That's when I start laughing. And it's not a sane "wow! that's really funny!" laugh. It's more like a "I'm one more poke away from being admitted to the psych ward" laugh. The good news is that she got it the last time. So four sticks, three bandages, two nurses, and one nervous breakdown later, I had completed my blood glucose screening test and I'll probably be having my baby at home.

Lucy, you got some 'splaining to do

We had quite the interesting Sunday at the Bright house. And my "interesting" I mean we "purchased a shock collar and conducted electro-shock therapy experiments on our dog, Lucy". Lord help me if the SPCA gets a hold of this blog because we're going to jail. Lucy has some behavioral problems... she loves people and loves meeting people, but she is the most stubborn dog in all of history. This has been coming to a head for a few months, but she got in a LOT of trouble on Sunday for peeing on the floor. It's not that she can't hold it because we were gone 30 minutes. She gets mad when we leave and she pees.

So we went to Petco and got her a new friend, Mr. Shock Collar. The PDBDT-305 Deluxe Big Dog Trainer is for "stubborn" dogs, which is what we have. Lee hooked it up and sent her outside. She started barking at someone one the street so Nurse Ratched (that's Lee) sent her an audible buzz to make her stop. No response. More barking so it was time for electroshock. Nurse Ratched set the collar to Level 1 "stimulation" and shocked her. No response. Here's the next thing I heard from the backyard: "Arf! Arf! Arf! YYEEEOOOOAAHHHH!". I looked at Lee and said "What did you turn it up to?!!". "Well, she wouldn't respond to Level 1 so I tried Level 10".

For those of you keeping track at home, there are EIGHT other stimulation levels he could have tried before hitting Level 10. I think it realigned some neurotransmitters because she laid in the hallway sort of paranoid crazy-eyed and very quiet the rest of the night. If we did an MRI of her head, we'd probably just see a bunch of pudding where her brain once was.

Speaking of brains, Lee and I saw an interesting exhibit at The Science Place on Sunday afternoon. It was called Body Worlds. It's an exhibit of real human bodies that were donated to science and have been plasticized. It sounds a little morbid, but it was totally intriguing. I've seen plenty of anatomy books depicting what the muscular system, heart or kidneys look like, but I've never actually seen them up close. They also had a 8-month pregnant woman who had died and had been plasticized as well as fetuses that were 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, and 33 weeks old. They had died from natural causes. It was really interesting to see the 28-week old fetus since that's how old Ellie is. I think anybody would find it fascinating to see the different stages of development. If you're in the Dallas area, I highly suggest going to see it. The only downside was that it was packed and since I can smell everything now, stinky people in close quarters freak me out.

We get to "see" Ellie again on February 23 since we're having a 3D sonogram. I haven't decided it I'm going to post it or not. If I do, everyone will know what she looks like when she comes out. You'll just have to act surprised when you meet her. She's pretty still most of the time so I hope we can get some good shots.

Goodbye, sweet youth

I'm making baby steps toward becoming a mother and one of those steps happened last night. I took out my belly button ring. Without you, belly button piercing, I feel that I am now headed for a lifetime of front-butt jeans and flats. There may also be an appliqué Christmas sweater in my future. Because I'm not a woman anymore. I'm a mom. Believe it or not, I got my piercing in 1998 - nine years ago so I've had it nearly 1/3 of my life. My stomach looks naked now. I just didn't want Ellie pointing at it, asking me what it was and if she could have one. Because the answer is NO - she can never have one. She'll be lucky if she's not still wearing clip-on earrings when she's 18. It's bad enough that he-who-will-remain-nameless has TWO tattoos. I hope she doesn't follow our examples because I really don't want her to wind up one of those girls with a piercing through her lip and a tattoo on her forearm of Mickey Mouse giving the finger. Of course, the bird-flipping Mickey would much be preferred to the initials, and I think Lee's dad can vouch for that.

I've been having the strangest dreams lately. The one I had on Tuesday night kept waking me up during the night. I dreamed that my doctor came into my hospital room to give me an epidural. She showed me the needle and it was the size of my pinky finger. I told her that I thought about it and on second thought probably didn't need one. She started chasing me and then jammed it into my back. I had the baby and they took her away. I said to a nurse "what does she look like?". The nurse said "she looks just like you". They brought her over to me, pulled the blanket back and sure enough - she looked exactly like me. It was my adult head on an infant's body. At least she got the good nose. Lee had a dream the same night that he was pregnant and couldn't get comfortable while he was sleeping. So I guess he had a dream that he was me.

Lee has also informed me that I'm going to have to be Johnny Law for the household. He said "I will never be able to discipline or punish Ellie because that's my little girl. That's my sweetheart". I'm sure he'll forget about making this statement when she comes home with that Mickey Mouse tat. I'm documenting this because I know that Ellie will one day read my writings and think "what the hell happened to that idea?!!".

I got some yarn this week so I'm going to start knitting Ellie's baby blanket. I'm 27 weeks so hopefully I'll have enough time to knock it out and maybe something else before she gets here. I'll keep you updated with pictures!

I write good

It's Thursday and I feel like I'm just now recovering from last weekend, but at the same time, I can't believe it's almost next weekend. That's one thing I'm starting to notice - 26 weeks into Project Ellie, the old gray mare ain't what she used to be. I hate to admit it, but I may have to consider slowing down a little. On Friday, I flew to Houston to take a technical writing seminar. I really liked our instructor because she's a grammar freak like me. I'm all about English rules - not necessarily when I write my blog because it's sort of a free-flowing consciousness, but when I'm writing at work, I'm the Hitler of the English language. She did say one thing that upset me... it's "okay" to end a sentence with a preposition. It most certainly is not. She lost a little credibility with that one.

I think Ellie is going to be a lot like her mother and here's why: I had to take a really early flight, so I ate breakfast at 5:30am. I got to our Houston office right in time for the class to start at 9:00 and by 10:30, I was starving. That's 5 hours of no food. Ellie is usually pretty quiet and just hangs out, but when that baby didn't get fed for 5 hours, she started violently kicking me like she had never kicked before. She kept ramming me until I had a bagel. At least I know this before she's born - always have snacks available.

On Saturday, I registered at Target and Beatings 'R Us. Okay so it's really called Babies 'R Us, but they might as well come clean and call it what it is: a baby megastore designed to make new mothers think that they need everything under the sun. Pregnant women roam the aisles of Baby Wonderland with glazed eyes. I knew their game so I took two veterans, Kristine and Leslie, with me to help me weed through all of the options. Since I was already tired from Friday, I would have scanned everything just to get out of there if I didn't have them with me. I didn't take Lee with me so he'll never know how grateful he should be that he didn't have to spend 5 hours with all things baby. There is so much crap there - I found myself missing wine again, but it's probably frowned upon for me to walk in with a giant stomach and a brown bag around a California Cab.

I did find something useful at Beatings - a new bedtime companion. I don't know how in my whole life I ever slept without this thing. I think I actually smile when I sleep now. Last night, I didn't move at all. It takes up half the bed, but that's okay. I think Lee's a little jealous of the Snoogle, but he wants one at the same time. He's torn. He tells me he's taking it after I have the baby, but he is sadly mistaken.

If you'll look to the right, you'll see that I have a new addition to my blog - a baby counter. I can't decide if I like it because the floating baby is sort of weird looking. Trust me - she does not float. What I need is a pictorial of a baby throwing a right hook at me when I bend down to tie my shoes shoved into an area the size of a soccer ball. I wanted to call it "Rosemary's Baby", but didn't know if anyone would get the joke.