Thunder Down Under

Please pardon the recent hiatus in bloggering. The truth is, I got disheartened because I tried to upload a video of the baby moving around under my skin...but the video somehow cannot be uploaded. The "somehow" has to do with my failure to learn tecnhology/embrace magic in the 21st century. I knew this blogging was going to beat me at my own game eventually.

But I will press on, because there is a paper I should be writing and no technical setback is going to prevent me from procrastinating. Plus, there is other marginally entertaining material I could be sharing. For example:

As a result of the recent economic downturn, Willie and I and the Bun decided to join a gang of banditos. We have been spending a lot of time drinking tequila, polishing ammunition and robbing rural banks in preparation for the arrival of Baby Bandito. Willie was a little reticent about the whole "life of crime in funny outfits" thing before, but let me tell you something--nothing is cuter or more practical than a teeny poncho. One look at the little getup I have been...weaving...on my poncho loom...and he was sold. Just look at that face and tell me that he hasn't found his calling. Only one downside so far: After a pow-wow with Jose Cuervo, Willie invented the baby name Lucindarita and is insisting that we use it on our baby. I am having a hard time convincing him that squishing two appealing names together does not merely create a longer, more appealing name. I could use a little backup on this.

In other baby-related news:

My ankles recently swelled up to mammoth proportions. I mean, the leg flowed into the foot with no tapering whatsoever. And I didn't have really dainty ankles to start with. You guys know the legs on the cartoon mom from the beginning scene of Who Framed Rodger Rabbit? That's what I couldn't stop thinking about. Her and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. I relate to him a lot these days.

Bonafide Kankles.

Also, I am 32 weeks pregnant, which sounds like 8 months, right? Well, it turns out that there is a bermuda triangle month in gestation that they don't tell you about. Pregnancy is 40 weeks long, which as I recently discovered, is 10 months. Not nine. I recently discovered it by performing simple division. Why do culture and the media insist on offering us false hope/why has the public education system failed me so badly? This baby has a while yet to cook.

I have been to the Del Mar Fair twice since it opened. That means that on two separate occasions I have visited the Mini Donut concession in O'Brien Hall. Never had a mini donut? Allow me to entice you: First, you get to watch dough balls fall into a vat of oil, then watch them travel through the bubbly oil river, browning as they go, later to be launched out of the oil and into a tray of cinnamon and sugar, out of which the expert donut tossers count you a dozen perfect donuts. All this for the bargain price of $4.50. The joy-to-dollar ratio is heavily skewed toward joy. And you don't have to be pregnant to line up for these little beauties. What you eat at the fair stays at the fair. Except for the KrispyKreme donut-sandwiched chicken breast that Willie ordered. That came home with us in a mean way.

Miraculously, the Blog is Not Defunct Yet!

Apropos of nothing: I have just conducted a one-subject, one-person poll and have come to the whole-hearted conclusion that Sunday is worse than Monday. Does anyone else feel this way? Sundays all I do is lament the coming of Monday. All the thinking about the approaching work week really gets in the way of me enjoying the second and final day of the weekend. Sunday is such a waste for me. I think I need a perspective-shift. Has anyone come up with good coping mechanisms for a case of the Sundays? (Patently worse as an affliction than the infamous "Mondays".)

And now back to more relevant topics. Namely, why won't anyone go to Disneyland with me? This is a question to which I already know the answer, and I'm really going to blow it for myself by broadcasting it here, but I consider it sort of a public service to let people in on a little something I like to call:

REASON #27* YOU SHOULD RETHINK LETTING SOMEONE GET YOU PREGNANT

And here it is: Due to (malicious, possibly ill-conceived) liability concerns, Disney warns that pregnant women should not enjoy the vast majority of their excellent rides because the experience may imperil the unborn baby and/or mother. For those of you who don't know, I am a big Disneyland fan. One day, earlier in the pregnancy (approx 12 weeks along), I decided that I was going to pay a visit to the "Happiest Place on Earth". Once there, I discovered that there are indeed certain rides that are perfectly safe for pregnant people. And then I discovered that Disney is on a mission to punish women for being pregnant by reducing their choice of attractions to an abysmal little array that includes such wastes of time as Storybook Land, It's a Small World, The Tiki Room**, Snow White, The Dumbo Ride and Honey I Shrunk the Audience**.

* Denotes a number from an imaginary list. I am willing to take your suggestions to compile the list.

** Denotes an attraction that may not be characterized as a ride, but that you still have to wait in line for. Behind other suckers. Suckers with kids. And pregnant suckers.

Have any of you been on Storybook Land recently? I thought I had a pretty unconditional love for Disneyland, but then I sat in slow-moving rowboat, floating past miniature versions of the houses where Disney characters supposedly live. Every passenger in the boat knew that there was no way that the actual characters could fit in those houses. The kids were bored, I was bored and the lederhosened "cast member" guiding the excursion was boredest of all. She HATED the whole trip. I didn't blame her. You could just HEAR people enjoying other rides in the distance. Right over the crest of Aladdin's teeny, unrealistic palace, people were squealing with delight, possibly sustaining permanent whiplash damage on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

So the answer--which i now realize could have been provided in a single sentence or less--is that no one will go to Disneyland with me because being there with a pregnant person basically turns a theme park into the DMV. A garden of perpetual sadness, with lines.

Topic#2:

My Mom's Birthday was Saturday and Why that is Disturbingly Relevant

I was conceived on my mom's birthday. TMI? I thought so too.

Also...fascinating because it's my firm understanding that my mother has never had sex.

Nevertheless...HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM! I LOVE YOU LIKE I LOVE NECTARINES THESE DAYS: MORE THAN IS PROBABLY HEALTHY FOR AN ADULT.

My mom is the main reason that I decided to have the baby at home. (We are! We are having the baby in a birthing tub that we are going to set up in the car port.) She's a doula and a childbirth educator and my whole life, she never once told me anything about birth that would scare me. I feel really lucky about it. As a child you overhear war stories from kids and in the media about childbirth and how it epitomizes the depths of pain and misery. When I would hear stuff like that and go home ask my mom if it was true, she would say, "It's just like running a marathon. You get more tired than anything." And when I would ask, as lots of normal little girls do, about what happens if you (whisper) poop on the delivery table from pushing so hard? She would say, "You usually don't, but if they do, they just clean it up."

Yes, it has occurred to me that she may have been painting the whole situation a little rosier than is strictly accurate. I'll let you guys know how that all pans out in real life. But I still feel that when it comes to fear in life, less has to be more. Right?

My unborn child was conceived on November 28th, 2008. TMI? What are you going to do about it now, you prude?

This has been a pleasant diversion from reading for Tax Law. I hope you also enjoyed it more than you enjoy Tax Law. (I like to set the bar low. That way, no one is disappointed.)

And now for a gratuitous, endearing babydaddy shot.

Pictures for my Ex-Landlord

I couldn't help myself.

So here is installment deux, AKA proof of how rustic and hardworking I am.

And how much I deserve to have my security deposit returned. With interest.

The Coolest Thing I Ever Made

I really admire my friends (you know who you are) who create blogs and update them regularly. Especially those of you who are parents. I can still carry this kid around with me wherever I go without it being able to voice any protest, (other than a swift punt to the ribs) but people with real live babies who blog... you are an elite fighting machine. I salute you. I am creating this pregnancy and post-partum blog as I enter my 30th week of growing a kid. That's about my pace. Late is my pace. Flaky and inconsistent is also my pace. But I flake with heart.

Why blog now? Now that I resemble a dirigible; (both in the sense that I am roundish and in the sense that I am gas-filled) only now, after the surprise of finding one's self pregnant has faded; now when it is truly least convenient to try and get anything done because my every attempt at productivity is interrupted by pee-breaks...

There are a few reasons why. If you are not interested in them, please enjoy the scroll-bar for your convenience.

Reason One: I just started summer school and I immediately need something that will facilitate procrastination. YOU try taking Tax Law when your little tax-deduction is making you feeble minded and feeble-bladdered. (PS, is anyone else really upset by the word "bladder"? Just wondering.)

Reason Two: The baby has a lot of family in Kansas and they don't get to spend any time watching subcutaneous undulations and watching me waddle around like one of those geese from the Aristocats. (Please, God, let that reference strike a chord for someone.) So I thought a blog might be one way to update the far-flung family. Although, I don't know if these are really things they want to experience. But the pictures! At least there will be pictures!

Reason Three: Lots of women keep journals about pregnancy that they say they read later or save for their kids to read. Blogging about this period is slightly less repugnant to me than journaling about it. Unfortunately, I think any willingness to "journal" (which I really resent as a verb) was deflated for me when I was dumb enough to crack and review one of my tween-aged diaries as an adult. I don't know if any of you have had this experience, but revisiting myself at that age was really scarring and sort of nauseating. I thought it might be safer to never record one's innermost thoughts, ever, ever. Or they should make those little locks harder to pick. One or the other.

And now a disclaimer. I have tried blogging before... and failed. I am going to make a concerted effort to keep this one alive for longer than a month. I hope I can rely on the rigors of Tax Law to keep me motivated.

Since I am launching this thing at 7.5 months, I suppose a little review is in order. Again... there is nothing wrong with scrolling down. I will never find out. Feel free to treat this blog as one of those boring books with glossy picture inserts.

To start, a few images of pregnant me, taken before I knew there was any kind of baby inside me. And yet, there was. Which I now reflect on as being sort of creepy. This section also be titled, "Questionable Things You Can Do While Pregnant and Still Enjoy Your Healthy Baby (I hope)".

That hand could be anyones, so why don't you stop judging me.

At least this child has a parent who has been to Disneyland often enough to know where all the ride-cameras are. That counts as a parenting skill. Look it up.

And to provide proof that I did not stunt the growth of our child by riding rollercoasters and (allegedly) enjoying innocuous glasses of white wine I bought in Disney's California Adventure:

This concludes my first installment. Frankly I am bushed from trying to figure out how to format this stuff. If any of you succesful/prolific bloggers want to help me learn how to insert pictures in a less haphazard way, I (and anyone else who has the misfortune to stumble upon this blog) would really appreciate the tips.

Thanks for your kind attention.