Email from Scott:
getting the bathroom reno started has been extremely painful.
the shower door hasn’t arrived at ferguson’s yet.
this might not be done by the time you’re due.
...
...
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*runs in circles shrieking like a woman possessed*
Posted by Tiffany on 05/28 at 11:21 AM
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Last night I was in bed reading. I had already put the cats away so as not to have them scratching the bedroom door. Rosco was already asleep so there shouldn’t have been any noise in the house (Scott was at work).
I heard something going scritchy-scratchy. I got off the bed four or five times, unable to find the source of the sound. I checked Rosco’s room, wasn’t him. I went and looked at the cats, and they were basically comatose. I even checked the faucet in the master bathroom to see if it was dripping and looked at the air vent to see if there was a critter in it. Nothing.
I got back in the bed thinking maybe some animal had gotten into the crawlspace.
More scritchy-scratchy. I thought, “Hmm, maybe it’s one of those gross camel cricket things stuck in the shower,” so I went in the bathroom again to check. (Keep in mind that we’re talking about a hugely pregnant woman getting on and off the bed multiple times. Yeah.) Nothing in the shower.
Suddenly I saw something move on the wall in my periphery.
GIANT FREAKIN’ ROACH (of the North Carolinian “water bug” sort)! It had been going back and forth over a flap where the paper was loose resulting in the scritchy-scratchy sound. I turned the light off so that it would crawl down a little lower ‘cause I’m short and then swatted it with a wad of toilet paper. It bounced off my hand.
I shrieked.
Then I regained my composure, caught the thing, and flicked it into the toilet.
No more scritchy-scratchy.
I know it’s the rain, but DAMN. In the past two weeks a colony of giant ants has taken up residence in our house, we’ve got spiders galore, and now a giant roach heralding the start of a new season.
I don’t have the mental strength for this.
Posted by Tiffany on 05/25 at 12:20 PM
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Rosco bruised my ribs pretty badly during the last trimester of my pregnancy with him. He was occiput posterior, which means the back of his head was facing my spine. About 5% of babies still face this way by the time labor starts (I know - I’m just a magnet for rare and weird stuff happening to me). Babies facing that way can be born vaginally, as Rosco was, but they sometimes get a li’l bit stuck.
Back to the rib issue. Because of his presentation, Rosco had his feet wedged up right inside of my rib cage. Here, I’ll draw you a slightly-exaggerated picture:
As you can see, it was very easy for him to go bang-bang-bang against my ribs. The doctor couldn’t really do anything about that. Even if he had cracked my ribs, there’s no treatment protocol for that (except delivering him if I was truly miserable and his lungs were developed enough for delivery).
I’ve been waiting for that rib bruising to happen with Em, and while there are some bumps and nudges here and there, she’s not tearing me up from the inside-out. Just now, I remembered why.
BECAUSE SHE’S FACING THE RIGHT WAY.
DUHHHHH.
Em doesn’t have the same accessibility to my ribs. She can scrape against them, but not ram into them.
And all that time with Rosco I just thought I was a whiny punk. Nope. I was justified in my whining.
One thing about Em’s position (it’s called occiput anterior, by the way), is that because of her size (and mine) I can only lay on one side of my body to sleep. Her feet protrude from the right just under my ribs, and laying there hurts like a bitch because the muscle is being pulled. Didn’t have that issue with Rosco because he was contained up in my rib cage (he simply kept me awake by kicking the breath out of me). I bet my labor with her will be faster and a hell of a lot less painful, though.
Brief Anatomy Interlude: When a baby is working it’s way through the birth canal, he or she has to turn his or her head and twist it and their shoulders through that wedge of pelvis space. Babies who are occiput anterior are ideally positioned for this. They’re basically flat on their backs and it’s not all that traumatic (well, just traumatic enough to squeeze the yuck out of their lungs). Babies who are occiput posterior, though, aren’t at a good angle to meet the pelvis. They sometimes need intervention (vacuums, forceps, yada yada) to clear that bony area. Interlude over.
This is exactly why I always say that women shouldn’t try to compare their pregnancies and labors to each others’. Unless your delivery is not “normal” you don’t know shit about what pain is natural and what pain isn’t. You can go crunchy Earth-momma all you want, but it’s a lot easier to refuse pain management when you’re contracting normally than when your body is trying to squeeze something out that’s not at the right angle. If you’re in that occiput posterior 5% and happen to end up with back labor (meaning your back is bearing the pain, not your abdomen), I guarantee you’ll never talk shit about women who need pain management. It’s hard to trust your body when it feels like daggers are in your back. And don’t give me that shit about “My friend had back labor and she delivered without pain management.” Well, whoopee-damn-doo for her. Just because it can be done, doesn’t mean it always needs to be. Personally, I like to avoid mental trauma.
Wait…how did this turn into a rant?
Posted by Tiffany on 05/21 at 10:28 AM
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I usually try to post here every weekday, but sometimes I get distracted or I just don’t have anything to say. (I’m like that in person, too. I can go all day without saying anything interesting to you - doesn’t matter if you’re right in my face.)
I just wanted to make sure that nobody assumes that me not posting means I’m busy with a newborn. I’m not so self-centered to think you’d care if I don’t post, but nosy hag that I am—when my pregnant peers go MIA from the internet for a day or so I start getting all “Hmmmmmm…..” I assume others do the same.
So, me not posting doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve missed something. It just means I’m temporarily lazy/boring. I’ve got six weeks left. Or three. Or five. Who knows? I’ll be full-term in about three weeks. Theoretically I can go any time after that and they won’t try to stop labor. Chances are, though, I’ll go right up to my due date. Rosco was born the day before his due date…and I don’t think this kid is cooking any faster than her brother. You’d think a kid would be scrambling to get out of me, right? I mean, it’s got to be cramped in there. My belly is becoming cone-shaped rather than round. (No, I won’t be having any maternity pictures taken.)
When I do go into labor, I’ll probably tweet some super-cryptic message like “Oh, shit. I forgot to brush my teeth before coming to the hospital.” (‘Cause last time? I did forget to brush my teeth. Oops. It was pre-dawn, though, so that’s my excuse.)
Posted by Tiffany on 05/20 at 05:27 PM
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Those of you who are my friend on that thing I’m trying to wean myself off of may have read a little bit about Rosco’s Saturday night incident. Well, I’ll elaborate here.
Most of our household drama happens at two times of day: dinner and bedtime. Dinner was okay. Most of the bedtime routine was okay. Then it was time for Rosco to put his book away turn off the light. The book made it to the shelf, and then he went into panic mode. You know - he had the “Oh shit, what can I do to stall?” moment. I’m not really sure what he was thinking, but I was sitting here at the desk and Rosco raced past me and ran down the hall to his room. I think he was going to try to hide under the covers before Scott made it back there to tuck him in. (I don’t know why. It’s just something he does.)
The next thing I heard was a thump and the sound of a whimpering child.
I was all “What the hell?!” It sounded like he had made a flying leap onto the bed (and perhaps missed). He does that often but usually all he hurts are his shins.
I waddled myself back there and saw he had blood on his arm and on his clothes. The arm wasn’t flopping around and there weren’t any bones poking out of it, so it wasn’t the arm. Next I noticed there was blood coming from his mouth.
[Where was Scott during all this? Well, he was there. He wanted to hug and soothe Rosco, and I wanted to see where the blood was coming from. Hugs don’t heal holes in your body. (Priorities, man!) Rosco wasn’t freaking out, just whimpering, so it was a perfectly calm situation. (Because we have completely different parenting styles, it was like a unspoken battle to see who would be the dominant caregiver. This happens a lot. I guess I can’t complain about it. If he were like me we wouldn’t get along…ever. You only need one spouse to be right most/all of the time. That’s my role. Okaythanks. I suppose I’d be a bit less of a hard-ass if Rosco was some scrawny little waif of a kid, but for a 3 1/2-year-old he’s pretty sturdy. He has the perfect combination of genetics: a tendency towards not following rules and a hard head to protect him from the consequences.)]
Went through the litany of questions.
“Did you bite your tongue?”
“No.”
“Did you bite your cheek?”
“No.”
...and so on.
It looked like he had split his lip pretty bad so I took him into the bathroom to put a rag on it (Scott gave up at this point and went to take off his blood-splattered clothes). I checked his teeth while in there and they looked okay. There wasn’t a whole lot of blood flowing at that point, but his lip was starting to swell up. Then I noticed that the gums over his incisors were kind of bloody and I pulled his lip back a little.
Ew.
Okay. Pull your top lip out. Stick your finger up underneath the opening you’ve made and feel around until you hit a little bridge of tissue. That little flap is called a frenulum. Specifically, it’s the frenulum labii superioris. (You also have a frenulum behind the bottom lip and one under your tongue.)
Well, R tore that.
It was about 8:30, and since urgent care was closed I declared that we should take him to the emergency room. I knew it wasn’t an “emergency” situation, but most of the time I prefer letting professionals make judgments about things I don’t know shit about. If it needed stitches, I didn’t want to wait until morning, you know?
Well, we got to the E.R., were triaged, and settled in to wait a while.
Three hours later a doctor took a look at him and explain that they actually can’t fix frenulums…or won’t. Either way.
You see, the frenulums in your mouth don’t actually do anything. They’re like your appendix. If they get hurt, yeah, you’ll feel it, but otherwise they don’t have a use. His frenulum being ripped isn’t going to affect his speech or anything else. It’ll just be…ripped forever.
The doc wrote us a prescription for prophylactic antibiotics. I think that was a consolation prize for being there so long. I’m not getting the ‘script filled. (He’s going to need a boatload of amoxicillin come this fall when he’s in preschool, so no need to help him build a resistance to it now.)
I’m glad that’s the entire extent of his injury. He doesn’t have any visible scars and no other damage in his mouth. We’ve been treating that part of his mouth like a giant mouth sore (don’t act like you’ve never had one) and he hasn’t really messed with it, so it’ll heal on its own. Since the mouth is so vascular and moist it won’t take all that long.
Am I glad we went to the emergency room? Yes. Obviously, taking him to see his own pediatrician (for a $15 copay) would have been preferable, but you don’t have those options on weekend evenings. As a parent you make the best choice with the options you have. If the choice is “try to sleep wondering what that thing bleeding in your kid’s mouth is” and “go to the E.R.,” you go to the E.R.
I gotta say, though, that the entire time we were waiting I was sure some social worker was going to show up and start questioning us about Rosco’s injury. When you wait that long, your mind takes you to really paranoid places.
Posted by Tiffany on 05/18 at 10:51 AM
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1) I just found a sharpened pencil in my hair. I put it in there last night when I was knitting and forgot to take it out, I guess. Still has its point.
2) Rosco woke me up at around 6:45 this morning, yanking on his door and pleading to get out of his room. Those of you who know me very well know that I don’t roll of the bed until about half an hour before Sesame Street comes on. I got up, pissed because at this stage in pregnancy you really don’t sleep so therefore I was tired, and asked him what he wanted. He said “nothing” and then darted into the bathroom to pee and then into our room to jump on our bed.
Fine. I got in his bed. Didn’t work out so well because he spent the next 2 hours or so telling Scott that “It’s morning” and to “Wake up, silly.” Since our rooms are adjacent, I couldn’t really block out the noise. Then Rosco started to beg for some cheap-ass toy car that fell under his bed. Scott came into the room to get it, not knowing I was *in* Rosco’s bed. He squashed me half to death when trying to find the car and then claimed that he didn’t know I was in the bed.
Okay, I know I’m small, but come on.
After that, who could sleep? So, I’m up now, trying to wake up the fetus with coffee and get her kicking for the day. (She’s up now, too.)
3) I’ve got a couple of cakes to make for the Triangle Mommies Yard Sale/Bake Sale that’s happening tomorrow morning. I won’t be there (starts at 7 - see item #2 above), but I’m delivering my cake to a proxy this afternoon. I’m making a chocolate pound cake and some glazed lemon cake. The chocolate is really good with milk. The lemon is really good all the time. I’ve got to get those made and delivered in addition to meeting my own work quota for the day. Hopefully Rosco isn’t going to be in one of “those moods” so I can really get churning.
4) I’m at the stage of pregnancy where all I want to do is whine and moan. I don’t know how it is for people who are taller than me, but my back is pretty bad off right now. The fetus, obviously, is causing my spine to bend. Since I’m short it’s going to bend more than someone who’s of average height because they have more room in there. I don’t want to be one of those women who people want to tell to “shut up” so I’ll keep my blubbering to a minimum, but I can’t remember when the back issues started with Rosco. Yesterday I was sitting on the sofa, eyes watering, thinking:
“Wow, 7 more weeks. There’s no more room under my ribs. Where’s she going to go?” She’ll find somewhere. Just like Rosco did. And I’ll be here whimpering like a dog.
Posted by Tiffany on 05/14 at 09:07 AM
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Doc: “I’m Doctor E. I don’t think we’ve met before?”
Me: “Sure we have.”
Doc: *squints* “Please don’t tell me I’ve seen you like three times already.”
Me: “Today is the third time, I think.”
Doc: “...man.”
You know - I don’t really care who shows up for my prenatal appointments at this point. Just don’t ask me to pee in any plastic receptacles or tell me you need to swab me for something and we’re all good. Now that my appointments are two weeks or less apart and scheduled at such short notice, chances are I’m not going to be on any doctor’s radar. I guess I’m not all that memorable.
And I don’t care! Wheeeeeeeeee!
Posted by Tiffany on 05/12 at 08:00 AM
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Finally got some response back from the water people about that crazy-ass bill we got.
I got a one-sentence email telling me that they re-read meter and that yes, it was incorrect, and that they issued a new bill. That’s it. No apology, just that they mailed us a new bill.
(I went to the water management website and looked at it. They gave us a $1,715.20 credit so the bill is now $111.86.)
They are so awesome at customer service. I tingle at their efficiency. Really, I do.
Why do I still feel dissatisfied?
Posted by Tiffany on 05/11 at 12:40 PM
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I’m not sharing this kiddo’s name. I don’t even mean that in the “this is a blog so my kids have code names” sense [“Rosco” is a code name, if you hadn’t guessed]. I mean it in the “I don’t want to hear your opinions about what this kid’ll be named” sense. And by “your” I’m referring to certain members of my family. I’ve already been told what not to name her.
Why is it okay for people to opine about what you’re naming your kid, anyway? I’m a fairly reasonable woman who usually considers the long-term implications of most things I do. Certainly I can be trusted to name my child something tasteful. (I don’t find my own name to be all that great, actually. I think it was a bad decision, but I won’t get into that.)
With Rosco, people would give me opinions like “You should name him Jamal. It means such and such” and I’d get pissed off. First of all, I don’t have any Jamals in my immediate or extended family. Scott certainly doesn’t. There is no Jamal legacy to keep alive. Secondly, I resent the implication that I should pick names from a specific world culture. The only culture I know is the South, ok y’all? Third, I feel like unless a person asks for suggestions, child naming is a private, intimate activity between mom and dad (or mom and mom or dad and dad or whoever).
I hate, hate, HATE it when people tell me “I like the name ____” and then wait for me to write it down on some list for further reference.
At no point have I said “I need help coming up with names.” I may have said “I’m deciding between two names,” but that was never an invitation for suggestions.
Changing the subject rapidly, here’s a nice picture of my belly contorting. I can’t remember if it was a Braxton-Hicks or if Em was trying to break free. Enjoy.
Posted by Tiffany on 05/07 at 12:25 PM
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I have a confession to make.
I don’t like going out into the yard. So, that means Rosco doesn’t get much outdoor playtime.
I have a multitude of excuses (of course).
1) I have an irrational fear of harmless snakes and lizards.
2) I’m a mosquito magnet. Seriously. Put five people in a cluster outside and wait ten minutes. At the end of ten minutes, if I’m in that group, I’ll have the most mosquito bites.
3) I’m attached to the internet.
4) I don’t want to have to take a shower if I’m not planning on going anywhere. If I put on bug repellent, I’ll have to shower.
5) I don’t want to have conversations with the entire neighborhood every time I go out. They’re nice people - really, they are - but I’m allergic to chit-chat (exception being people I haven’t seen in a while).
6) The threat of ticks scares the bejesus out of me. Never had a tick attached to me (that I know of) and I don’t want one.
7) I have a skin allergy to grass.
I feel bad that Rosco doesn’t go outside much, especially given how I grew up. My sister and I played outside pretty much every day. We’d roll in the grass (I had the grass allergy even then - just didn’t know what was making me itch), get stung by yellow-jackets and biting flies, and carry on until dinnertime. When we took baths there’d always be a dirty foamy ring around the tub. I guess I’ve turned into a lazy snob of an adult.
The only reason I’m thinking about this at all was because I felt a little guilty after listening to one of the recent Manic Mommies podcasts where Jaime Matyas from the National Wildlife Federation was talking about the new Be Out There campaign. Basically, it’s activism to get kids outdoors instead of in front of screens.
*blink*blink*blink*
I’d like to get Rosco outdoors more. Truly, I would. But…but…but that means I’d have to peel myself away from my electronic devices to take him outside. And then I’d have to deal with the tantrum he’ll certainly throw when it’s time to come back in.
*sigh*
There’s a Be Out There pledge that I could sign to state that, “Yeah, I’m going to do more to get my kid outside into the fresh air.”
Maybe I’ll sign it. I need to do some creative thinking about what we can do that guarantees minimal interaction with creepy-crawlies.
Posted by Tiffany on 05/06 at 11:36 AM
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So, it looks like my uterine septum isn’t posing too much of a problem to the yet-to-be-born girl fetus. (Yes, she is still a girl - no penis development in the past 14 weeks.) Today’s ultrasound showed that Em is of average weight and size: right in the 50th percentile. At 31 weeks + 5 days she weighs about 4 1/2 pounds. (If you’re not sure how heavy that is, go pick up a bag of sugar.) She’s positioned straight up and down with her spine facing front (right now, anyway).
And she has hair! Newborns with hair are 40% more cute than bald ones, so that makes me happy. (What? It’s true. Don’t deny it.) Hers was sticking up, so that’s why we could see it.
She has big puffy cheeks and extra folds of skin on her chest…she might end up being a bit jiggly. On average, fetuses at this point will gain about half a pound per week, so by delivery she and R will probably be within a half-pound of each other’s birth weight. I could probably push that out without too much drama. I hope.
We couldn’t get that great of a look at her face because the umbilical cord was right in front and she was also putting up a block with her hand. So…I couldn’t really tell what/who she looks like. I don’t know if she’s going to be a Rosco doppelganger. Rosco came out looking pretty much exactly like his 3D ultrasound image. Em’s picture was a little distorted because she wouldn’t cooperate by staying still for three seconds, so it looks like she has Elvis Presley lips. Can’t see her nose that well. From the profile it looks pointy, but from the front it looks stubby. She might have R’s chin, though. The ultrasound tech thought Em looked a bit grumpy because she pouting, but, yeah, like her mother she’s not a morning person. I would have been pouting, too, if I had to wait 30 extra minutes for a taste of coffee in the morning. Poor kid. She wanted her half-caff.
Posted by Tiffany on 05/05 at 10:26 AM
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So.
(Hi, Scott.)
A couple of years ago I went on the Manic Mommies Escape ‘08. It was a Carnival cruise to the Bahamas, and although I was a little turned off of Carnival (my pillow stank!), it was truly a hoot. It was hilarious to sit around and watch people, decent self-respecting mommies at that, who were much drunker than you.
I didn’t register for last year’s retreat to Napa because I had pregnancy/un-pregnancy emergencies going on. Besides, that one was really far for a long weekend trip. (If you haven’t caught on, I live in North Carolina, so the simple act of flying there would haven eaten up a lot of the weekend).
This year’s Escape is in San Antonio, Texas. Well, I’ve never been to Texas, and it’s probably somewhere I’ve never considered going for a getaway. But, the flight wouldn’t be that bad and the cost of the escape itself (hotel + events) ain’t a kick in the head.
I’d like to go. I want to see my friends who’ve moved away (or who are about to move away), and explore someplace new. I’d like to be able to say, “Hey, I’ve been to Texas” and maybe even buy a t-shirt saying as much.
Problem is…how am I going to make this work with a 4-month-old and with the fact that I’ll be nursing (could I get a room with a freezer?)? Rosco can pretty much take care of himself as far as entertainment goes and Scott would only have to take November 5 off work to handle childcare duties. Em will be the handful. Scott would probably have to call in reinforcements if she’s not sleeping through the night at that point. Rosco will certainly try to take advantage of any weaknesses Scott exhibits.
Or maybe I could just take them with me? (Well, they could stay at the hotel, but not do the mommy-stuff.)
Hmm. Let’s think about this (Scott).
Posted by Tiffany on 05/04 at 11:44 AM
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Sometime last week I got a water from the city’s water/sewer billing department about how some meters on certain routes had been misread resulting in unusually high bills. I remember raising an eyebrow and thinking, “Hmm, maybe I’ll hold on to that just in case.” Then I think I accidentally threw it out. Usually when we get supplemental correspondence from the water department it’s stuff that’s safe to toss into the recycling bin with no further thought.
Well.
Saturday afternoon I went out to get the mail and found the bi-monthly water bill in it. I didn’t open it immediately. I think it sat around on the kitchen table for a few hours, and then I opened it just to log the due date.
WELL. Guess who owes $1,827.06 by May 25th. Go ahead. Guess.
Bingo. We do. (I promise we didn’t fill a swimming pool in the past month.)
Last bill? $59.94.
So, since I’d thrown away that letter I went surfing the net to see if there was a press release or other public notice about those misread meters. If you go to the main utilities page there isn’t a *peep* there about it. Then on a whim I clicked to the Water Management site and found some information.
It’s sort of convoluted. They say “A significant number of these readings have been corrected already and bills were adjusted accordingly; however, some may have been missed” but the very next line is “Current readings for affected customers are correct; staff have conducted re-reads to confirm the recent meter readings. In many cases the most recent bill reflects a “catch-up” reading for water used but under-recorded in previous bills.”
So, That extra $1,750 is a catch-up? How many fucking years of catching up is that?
Next it says “CBS staff will work with customers to determine if the high bills reflect usage billed in higher tiers – if so, these accounts will be adjusted for the amount in the higher tiers.”
Higher tiers, huh?
Of course I called the billing department this morning and of course they tried to find a way to blame me/us for the situation. The rep asked me if we had any plumbing leaks. Really? $1,750 worth of leaks? That must be a big honkin’ pipe somewhere. It’s obviously not *in* the house since we neither have a sudden mold problem nor are there any new water-loving creatures flocking to our yard.
Basically, the CSR was useless and smug. She told me that they would send someone out to re-read the meter within a week and if it was incorrect they would make an adjustment. If not, we need to “find a plumber” and that we’ll be “responsible for the bill.”
I did that water consumption calculator thing they mention and at that rate it *does* look like they’re billing us at a higher tier.
...
So…I don’t know what’s fucked up right now, but something is. If this is the city’s way of balancing their budget I’d like to thank them for doing NOW two months before I have a baby. Really: thanks. Not that my newborn is going to need stuff or anything.
Posted by Tiffany on 05/03 at 02:34 PM
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