Ba-nunuBOW Ba-nunuBOW

Scott does this thing where he makes techno noises when he’s sitting around.  I guess it’s his version of singing, I don’t know.  I’m pretty sure it’s the beat from some Stereo M.C.‘s song.  It’s hard to explain.

Anyway, I’ve told him repeatedly over the past half decade or so that it’s really, really annoying.

I don’t tell him that things are annoying because I have delicate sensibilities.  It’s just that the chances are good that if I find it annoying other people (you know, the ones who matter) probably think it is, too.  Also, it wasn’t a habit I wanted Rosco picking up.  Rosco spends a good portion of the day testing his limits and being loud for the purpose of being loud already - he doesn’t need anything new in his repertoire.

Well, guess what?  Rosco does that weird techno beat thing now too.  Started this week.

Thanks, Scott.

If you all need me, I’ll be hiding in a closet, twitching.

Posted by Tiffany on 02/25 at 01:05 PM
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She ain’t heavy, she’s my mother.

I need to do a better job of keeping up with my weight gain from one OB appointment to the next.  What I mean is, I know what the scale said today, but I can’t remember what it said last month…so I don’t have a reference point.

This is Girl Scout Cookie season!  I need to know if I’m within acceptable parameters or if I’m turning myself into a heifer.  I *think* that I gained less weight in the past month than I did the previous month, so that bodes well for my cookie-eating.

I could just call the OB’s office and ask what my recorded weight was, but I don’t want them to think I’m trying *not* to gain weight.  Well, to a degree I am, but not in the way you’d think.  I know a lot of my weight gain with Rosco came from things like Sprite and Orange juice. That sugar just *stuck* to me.  I was so miserable that summer: my under-boobs were sweaty all the time and I had problems catching my breath when walking around downtown.  I don’t drink sugar now.

If I can stay in the 30-pound range I’ll be one happy momma.  If I exceed that, it’s not like I can complain since I don’t exercise other than what I get carrying Rosco to the bathroom to brush his teeth when he’s refusing.  (On that note, as soon as I finish typing this I’m going to put on some pants and go out in search of candy.  I just eyed a discarded Skittles wrapper in my trash can and it’s influencing me.)

In other rumblings, I have to do that damned glucose test at my next visit.  My appointment is at 8:30 in the morning, so that means I have to chug that nastiness at 7:30 before I’m even good and awake.  I hope I don’t barf up that glucose drink.  It is sooooooooooooo sweet.  It’s like drinking 10 ounces of soda fountain syrup.  [If you’re not familiar with the one-hour glucose test, basically when you go in at 22 weeks your doctor will hand you a little bottle of this sugary concoction with some instructions.  On the morning of your 26 week appointment, you chug it an hour before having your blood drawn.  They’ll then test you to see if you may have gestational diabetes.  If you fail, you have to take a three-hour test.  If you refuse to take the test, they have to treat you like you have diabetes.]

Okay.  Off to get candy.

Posted by Tiffany on 02/24 at 03:08 PM
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How to Make Yourself Cry (In Seven Easy Steps)

Step 1: Lurk on cruise planning forums and look at pictures.  Determine that what you bought for dress-up night isn’t dressy enough (for your standards).

Step 2: Tell yourself that you’re not that big yet and that you can probably still get into some of your non-maternity dresses.

Step 3: Get your garment bag out of the closet, unzip it, and try to pull every dress in there up over your hips or down from the head.

Step 4: Brainstorm ways in which you can hide the zipper you can’t get up or how to offset the fact that the dress is now too short.

Step 5: Observe in the mirror that you look like one of those women who’s trying to dress like she’s not pregnant when she obviously is.

Step 6: Ponder how much it would cost for you to buy a new maternity dress (that you’ll only wear once).

Step 7: Put the dresses away and sigh with exasperation.  Perhaps pack the stretchiest one that you can wear without looking like a harlot, but wear it only if you have a good bra.

Step 8: (Optional) Wonder if you have any friends who have a maternity cocktail dress in your size they’re dying to get rid of, but don’t bother to ask because that would make life too easy and that’s not how you roll.

Posted by Tiffany on 02/23 at 05:14 PM
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Or how about if I get the CATS to clean the house?

You know what I need to do before our vacation (other than asking the neighbors to feed the cats)?  Clean this entire house.

Stop laughing; that’s not funny.  I’m capable of cleaning.  For real, I am.  I can clean real damn good.  Most of the time it just seems pointless, so I don’t bother.  There are other things I could be doing with my time that would be much more enjoyable.  For example, I could be surfing the interwebs.

I do like the idea of coming back to a clean house and plopping on to a clean, made bed and shuffling my feet on vacuumed floors.  Whenever me and my grandmother left for a long trip she had this ritual of “battening down the hatches.”  She’d clean out the fridge so there’d be no stink in there upon our return, tidy up the bathrooms, catch up on laundry, etc.  Of course, her house was always immaculate (my room being the exception) to start with, so doing this wasn’t that big of a chore.  She had one of those houses where you could go in on any two random days and see vacuum tracks left in the carpet.  I don’t bother with vacuuming.  As soon as I do it one of the cats starts to wallow on the floor (even though the prissy little skanks aren’t typically floor dwellers).

I just want to come home and have my house smell like the freshness of springtime.  Is that too much to want?  I even called the pet hotel to see how much it would cost for us to board the cats for a week or so.  It would be reasonable if we kept them in the same cage, which is an option, but they would kill each other.  I bet you anything we’ll get home and there’ll be a puddle of cat piss in the kitchen, another behind the front door, and a lake-sized one in the laundry room.

Posted by Tiffany on 02/23 at 12:17 PM
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I feel violated.

I have a very highly evolved sense of fairness.  That’s just part of my personal constitution: I believe in waiting my turn and paying my dues.  I don’t take things from others.  Yeah, if I see a $20 bill on the sidewalk I’ll pick it up, but that falls into the category of serendipity.

Theft pisses me off.  People may consider it to be a victimless crime because the victims usually aren’t physically harmed in the process, but it still violates the victim in some way.

Yesterday at work Scott’s car got broken into.  Don’t bother inserting a “But…you live in Durham - you should expect that” joke here.  The same car was broken into when we lived in Carrboro for the same reason.  People target certain kinds of cars.  That little Honda happens to be one of them.

That geriatric 13-year-old Honda with the leaky sunroof and slow-to-warm heater.

Scott was working late, which is typical for him, and was about to go home at 8-something.  He called me and told me the car had been broken into and that he was waiting for security.  I counseled him to call 911, too, while he was at it and then we hung up.  The car gets parked in a special part of a parking deck that’s for employees only.  You have to swipe your badge at the barrier to get up to the level.  You can walk up, but can’t get a car up.

I sat here thinking that, “Damn, we canceled the insurance coverage for theft” and how every time we save up a little money to do something (in this case, fix our master bathroom) some shit happens.  I imagined that the car window was shattered and the car was a mess.

Fortunately that wasn’t the case.  When Scott got home he explained that the window got jimmied, not broken.  Which, duh, would make sense given you don’t want to draw attention to yourself in a building that has security guards and cameras.  Oh.  Did I mention the car was parked in front of a security camera?  Anyway, the thief uninstalled the after-market stereo and found the faceplate under the seat.  So, yeah.  They’re going to be able to sell it.  They got it out without damaging the console so it was obviously a pro (it wasn’t one of the ones popular in the 80s/90s with the handle that you can pull out - it was an actual installed radio).

Meanwhile, they also popped the trunk to search around.  They lucked out and found a pair of boxed sneakers Scott was going to drop off at Goodwill (they left the bags of clothes, though.  Guess they’re not so desperate afterall.  *sucks teeth*).

Anyway.  We’re glad the car is basically intact.  Scott’s not going to bother replacing the radio again.  Basically, the thief got away with free money.  They’ll get to take the radio (and sneakers) to the pawn shop or sell it on Craigslist and earn a profit off zero investment.  The thief probably thinks that we’ll just file an insurance claim and get our stuff out and everyone is cool.  (NO, douchebag.  You screwed us out of a radio.  Thanks for making it harder for us to sell or trade that car, you lemon-sucker.)

And just an FYI - when you’re buying shit like this from pawn shops or Craigslist or eBay and it doesn’t come in the original boxes?  That’s probably why - stolen.  It’s up to you to decide if you’re okay with that or if you believe the excuse the seller makes for the documentation and box not being available.

Posted by Tiffany on 02/19 at 11:52 AM
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Mm hmm.

6:30 -  Dinner is served: Rosco came upstairs, looked at his plate (tempura shrimp, baked zucchini chips, and buttered rice), and said “It’s too hot.  I’m going to wait.”  Then he went downstairs to watch “Yo, Gabba Gabba!”

6:45 - I yelled down to the t.v. room that the food wasn’t that hot to start with: Rosco came upstairs, sat down, stared at the food again, and said, “Ew, what’s that smell?  Something stinks.”  Of course by that point I was finished.  I flicked off the television.  Normally if it’s early and he finishes he can go back into the t.v. room to watch Dora or whatever.  If he revolts, t.v. goes off.

6:55: Rosco was still complaining of food stink.  So, I took his untouched food away and put it on the counter.  My usual reaction is to just throw the whole kit-and-kaboodle in the trash can, but I wasn’t feeling that dramatic.  He walked off.

6:57: Rosco: “I’m going to go throw up in the toilet.”

7:05: Still no throw-up in the toilet.

Scott would normally spoon-feed him if he were home, but that’s not my style.  I have no problem with sending a kid to bed without having dinner especially when I know that everything on their dinner plate is something they actually eat.  I don’t do that much experimentation when it comes to food that goes on his plate.  He has no excuse.  He’ll wake up pleading for food early in the morning and I’ll remind him, “Oh, you know - you wouldn’t be so hungry if you tried to eat your dinner.”

Do I think Rosco needs to throw up?  No.  He’s trying to blow waves in the toilet bowl right now. 

Is he going to bed early tonight?

Yes.  Yes he is.

7:09: Still no throw-up in the toilet.

Posted by Tiffany on 02/18 at 08:00 PM
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ManCave go bye-bye.

I never thought it would happen.

I just assumed that we’d move before Scott gave up his home office.  It’s his little den of collectibles: basketball shoes and Star Wars ...er… “stuff.”  Up until a couple of weekends ago there were huge plastic crates and cardboard shoe boxes stacked in front of three walls.  (His huge stainless steel desk and a couple of bookcases made up the fourth wall.)  Now, although he said in the past that he would *never* put that stuff in the attic - guess what?  Stuff is in the attic.  Not the shoes, of course.

That picture is of Scott’s legs as he’s pushing crap around at the attic entrance.  I’m so happy he didn’t ask me to help.  For one thing, there are mice up there.  I hear them.  For another thing, those freaking crates are heavy - even more so when you’re trying to push/drag/shove/pull them up a ladder.

The plan is that Rosco will move into the room Scott is evacuating, and that’s pretty lucky for him.  It’s the bedroom that gets the most light.  We decided that having a newborn sleep in a room that bright is courting disaster, so Rosco gets dibs…for now, anyway.  Darling fetus will get Rosco’s old room…for now, anyway.

I think we still want to move sooner than later.  This house really wasn’t designed with young families in mind.  We really can’t be in the kitchen without being on top of each other, and noise travels way too well.  I can hear Rosco and Scott cutting up way on the other end of the house from the master bedroom on weekend mornings.  I can literally hear every word they’re saying.  Part of that is due to my supersonic hearing…the rest is due to the nature of hardwoods bouncing sound around.

No clue when we would move.  Neither of us is really paying attention to the housing market right now.  We just know that what we’re looking for in a piece of property is hard to come by at an affordable price around Chapel Hill and South Durham.  Rosco starts kindergarten in 2012 (he missed the cut-off for next year), so we have to make the next move *count.*

Anyway.  I’m going to go do some work now.

(Not really.)

Posted by Tiffany on 02/18 at 01:16 PM
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That doesn’t work on me.

Rosco: “Can you get my truck for me, Momma?  Pleeeeeeeease?  Please-please-please?”

Snarky Momma: “Not right now.”  [I was busy beating my syndication feeds into submission.]

Rosco: “Please get me another truck, Momma?  Pleeeeease?”

Snarky Momma: “I don’t want to get your truck.”

Rosco: “Oh.  Okay.  Have a nice day.”  *backs away*

Posted by Tiffany on 02/17 at 01:31 PM
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oopsie.

I forgot that my site doesn’t have a newsreader feed.  My bad…

After the Great Crash, it was one of those things I didn’t bother to troubleshoot.  I mean, I don’t read my own blog through a feed engine, so why didn’t y’all say something?  Sheesh.

I’m going to work on that.

ETA: nevermind.  The site *has* feeds (RSS here, Atom here) but if you go into your reader and just type in “http://www.snarkymomma.com” they aren’t findable on the index page.  I really don’t feel like fixing that right now.  If someone knows the ExpressionEngine coding off the top of their head and would like to share, feel free.  I don’t even know if that’s fixable, but it’s something that worked in previous versions of this site.

Posted by Tiffany on 02/17 at 12:39 PM
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Cough in that direction, please.

For the past couple of months Rosco and I have been mostly house-bound because of H1N1 making its rounds and whatnot.  I didn’t get vaccinated for H1N1 until my first prenatal appointment in…when was that?  December?  H1N1 is something pregnant women, especially, need to avoid because it settles into your lungs and takes for-fucking-ever to get rid of.  Obviously not something you want when you have compressed lungs during the third trimester, but when your fetus is still developing major body systems you sort of don’t want to get it then, either.  That’s why when Scott and Rosco got H1N1 I barricaded myself in the bedroom for a week. 

Well, that’s passed now for the most part.  There’s still a risk of seasonal flu (they ran out of vaccine for that), but as March creeps closer and since I’m well into my second trimester, the risks are minimal at this point.

Now I’m housebound because our cruise is coming up and THEY WON’T LET US ON THE BOAT IF WE’RE SHOWING SIGNS OF ILLNESS.  Now, if Scott brings something home from work and spreads it around we might be screwed because we didn’t buy trip insurance.  That would be the only thing preventing us from making this trip.  That, and if the cost of gas went up to $7/gallon between now and then.

Would it be rude if Scott wore a germ mask to work for the next couple of weeks?

Posted by Tiffany on 02/16 at 12:49 PM
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20 Weeks

Halfway there. 

-Net weight gain so far of around 15 pounds, which is just enough weight to make me look like a Weeble rather than a pregnant person when viewed from the front.

-Scott claims that [so far] I only have one chin.  There aren’t too many pictures of me from this stage in my pregnancy with Rosco, but I do remember the feeling of “Shit, I don’t even look like myself” that set in around the midway point.  My face got kind of fat.  As of right now, I think I still look like “me.”  Lets see if I change my mind in the next couple of weeks, though.

-I think my mother knows I’m pregnant now.  I just got a congratulatory text message.  (Oops, I didn’t tell her?  My bad.)

-Rosco still doesn’t know that being an only child isn’t in his future.  He was driving cars on my belly the other day, and he “gets” that it’s bigger, but we haven’t really hammered home the “Hey, Bud, you’re going to have a sister” fact.  He hasn’t really asked any questions about my changing shape, either, which is odd for him.  I guess he doesn’t care.  Or is pretending not to.

-My hair is still shedding at the same rate it was pre-pregnancy.  Perhaps this means that I won’t have to deal with all that postpartum hair loss that gave me a receding hairline last go-round.

-I really dislike my cat. (Singular.  Right now I basically just tolerate the other one and her razor-sharp claws.)

-Girl has a name.  I’ll give you a hint: it’s a girl name - definitely not gender-neutral and has definitely been around a while.

-Girl is most active in late afternoon and late night.  She takes after her momma.  At this stage sometimes she’ll go all day without thumping me and then at 11 PM she’ll start having a party.

Posted by Tiffany on 02/12 at 04:53 PM
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On Brain Fog.

Do you know what brain fog is?  Basically, it’s a state of not being able to do what you need to do because your thoughts are so fragmented.  It’s bothersome for people whose jobs require them to make sense.  I do freelance writing for spare change, and my productivity level is down in the pits.  Some of the topics I write about are sort of technical, and to be able to combine fifty years of research into a 200-word overview is not the easiest thing to do (even when you DON’T have placenta brain). 

Gosh, I could be making so much more money, but I really can’t get my head cleared until ...

HEY!  It’s Wednesday!  It’s free Durham resident day at the museum!  Nah, I’m not showering today.  I could go for some Chick-fil-A, though.  They have drive-through.  I wouldn’t even have to brush my teeth.

Wait.  What?

Shit.

Oh.

Yeah—nighttime.  Usually at around the time most people want to start winding down for the night is when my head finally clears.  By that time I’m ready to plop on the sofa and watch the Duggars.

To make matters worse, I *still* haven’t experienced my second-trimester energy rebound, so not only am I a zombie in the intellect department, but I walk like one, too, ‘cause my body is still carrying the strain of the previous day’s shenanigans.  With Rosco I definitely had a surge of energy after all that yucky sickness cleared away (not that I got anything done, but still).  I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that around this time with Rosco I was drinking coffee (in moderation)... 

Coffee might be my friend again soon or else I’ll be driving to Florida in a few weeks sleeping with my eyes open.

Posted by Tiffany on 02/10 at 01:18 PM
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Woo, boy.

You know, I mentioned before that the dreams I had early on in this pregnancy were downright whimsical.  Well, there seems to be a hormonal shift happening and that’s all changing.

Now I’m finding that I wake up feeling like I haven’t slept because I wake up during the night to end nightmares.  I won’t elaborate much because they’re basically about the worst thing a pregnant woman could dream about.  I wake up clutching my belly and poking myself to make the baby move.

July 2nd can’t come soon enough.

Posted by Tiffany on 02/08 at 12:06 PM
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Preggo musings.

You know, this go-round I’m generally a lot less stressed about having a baby.  It may be that we don’t need to make that many major purchases between now and July (Who am I kidding?  I bet it’ll be June.), or it might just be that I’m carrying a different kind of stress and don’t feel like worrying about other stuff.

Whereas before I worried about not getting everything done before Rosco’s arrival, now I worry about this little girl’s health.  I know right now she’s fine, active, and measuring ahead of schedule, but it’s still hard not to worry.  I didn’t have pregnancy losses before Rosco, so I didn’t have to carry that around with me.

Part of what aggravates my worry is this farking fibroid I have.  I didn’t even know I had it until I went in for my first OB appointment at around 10 weeks and they did the viability ultrasound.  Clear as day (to the doctor, anyway), there was a pretty sizable fibroid.  (That fibroid may have been why my period prior to getting preggo was like Hell on Earth.)

I’ve done some research on this (because I’m that type of patient) and asked the docs a few questions about what it would mean if it got larger.  Basically, it’s far enough from the placenta that it’s not affecting the girl, but if it outgrows its blood supply I’m in for a lot of pain.  Like, need to go to the E.R.-type pain.  The doctors don’t think that’ll happen, but that’s the worse-case scenario.  It’s not situated in a place where it would cause me any hemorrhaging problems during labor, but what it does do is give me annoying aches whenever my uterus stretches (which is pretty often, obviously).  Whenever it starts to ache on that side I start clutching and thinking “Oh shit, is this going to be an E.R. day?”

The other thing that sort of freaks me out is that the bicornuate uterus I thought I had is actually a septate uterus.  See, I was never officially told that it was bicornuate, that was just some info I gleaned off a radiology report before I went into surgery for my ectopic last year.  The doctor at my ultrasound week before last actually made a point of coming into the room after the tech left to take a look at “the septate.”  I was like “Do what?”  What this means is that there’s a flap at the top that divides my uterus.  These vary in severity and can cause miscarriages (if the embryo tries to implant on that flap) and fetal growth restriction.  Mine just dips down a bit - it doesn’t create two chambers, it just makes it cozy in there (which is probably why at around 38 weeks with Rosco I felt like he was trying to kill me with his feet).

Now, Rosco was a bit shy of 8 pounds and was born at basically 40 weeks (shy one day).  I don’t think growth restriction is going to be a problem with this little girl, but now that I know that I have abnormal anatomy I’m going to freak out for the rest of this pregnancy.  I mean, how much bigger could Rosco have potentially been?

I’m supposed to go back for another detailed ultrasound at around 26 weeks just to ease their minds that she has enough room.

So…that’s what’s up.

Posted by Tiffany on 02/05 at 07:00 AM
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Review: I can see!

Looking for contact lenses?  I did a review of my new favorite online contact lens dealer at my much-neglected review blog.  Check it out, yo.

Posted by Tiffany on 02/04 at 11:16 PM
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