Wax On Wax Off

It's time to say goodbye to the second trimester and bring on the third. I have been trying to harness my second trimester energy to get things done before I am completely huge and miserable. So, Art and I spent the better part of Sunday washing and waxing our car to restore its beauty after Art's Woodward Park off-road adventure. I was quite impressed with how shiny it looked, especially with our new "chrome" hubcaps, so I said we should take pictures of it. Then I remembered that people have been nagging me for pictures of me where I actually look pregnant and it occurred to me that I could kill two birds with one stone and take pictures of my pregnant self in front of the shiny car. What better way to commemorate my transition into the third trimester than with my very own photo shoot with professional photographer Art "Baby Cakes" Martinez?

Art quickly realized why I never became a model- I am horrible at posing and facial expressions. Try as he may, he couldn't get me to make that "thoughtful" expression or that "fierce" look, but in the end I think we came out with a few decent pictures despite my lack of modeling talent. I modified the background to get rid of the Hostess store sign. Here I am at 27 weeks...

Here is a quick recapitulation of the second trimester:

> Gaining 20+ pounds does feel as heavy on my feet as I thought it would and it is possible to put on 4+ pounds of water in one day. I am now the heaviest I have ever been in my life at 127 pounds.

> I have "small animal dreams" almost every night. It usually involves the appearance or unusual involvement of a cat, dog, or more frequently a bunny.

> Strangers can now tell that I am pregnant, but I still get surprised when people ask how far along I am. I think, "How did they know..." Then I look down and at my belly and realize it's quite obvious.

> Art can hear the baby's heartbeat through my belly and likes to talk to her saying, "Baby!!! It's your daddy!" He also makes random noises to freak her out.

> I still can't wrap my head around the fact that I'm going to have a baby in less than 3 months and I try not to think to hard about it because I have small panic attacks. Not that I'm not happy about it, I just get worked up about the whole thing.

Lastly, I have a new hero. Keira Knightley has refused to allow the producers of her new movie, The Duchess, to digitally enhance her breasts in publicity photos for the film. Way to go, Keira! It's nice to have another representative for the A-Cup Crew. She's an inspiration. Heck, maybe I will even name my daughter after her.

Only My Baby Cakes

This has been an especially eventful week... in a bad way. You should know by now that my dear husband has a knack for wrecking cars in one way or another, so it was inevitable that he would one day wreck our new car sooner or later. That day came sooner than later.

Yesterday Art called me at 5:15 when I was just about to get off work and he was huffing and puffing and sounded all worked up. He told me that he was at Woodward Park and as he was leaving he took a turn too fast, hit the curb, launched off the road, blew a tire, and caught the grass on fire! Thankfully a bystander helped him extinguish the flames which were quickly spreading in the dead grass toward the car, then helped him put the spare tire on so he could drive to the shop. My mom picked me up from work and we met Art at Pep Boys to assess the damage and see if they could fix it. We discovered that he ruined 2 tires, 2 wheels, 2 hubcaps, and knocked the side of the bumper loose. Including a new 4 wheel alignment, we're looking at approximately $350 in damage.

Only my Baby Cakes could find some way to wreck the car all by himself AND set a fire while he is at it... I couldn't even work up the energy to be mad at him. You have to admit, that was a pretty impressive stunt! I have come to accept the fact that he is accident prone, has an attention deficiency, and he just can't help it. I have learned by experience that me yelling at him and getting upset won't help. I'm just so grateful that he didn't smack into a tree, a person, a bench, or land in one of the ponds. My husband is a high maintenance guy, just not in the normal way.

6 Quirks and Fruit Punch

Oh joy, I was tagged by Allyson to list of quirks about myself. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), it was fairly easy.

1. I get more upset than the average person when people don't check Snopes before forwarding something ridiculous.

2. I will not sit down in a bathtub. Period.

3. I am scared to death of heights, but not rollercoasters.

4. I have a house rabbit named "Bunny". That's unusual on 2 levels.

5. I won't eat certain foods because of their texure. For example, I'm not fond of angel hair or regular spaghetti noodles but I will eat penne, shells, or the like. I won't eat lettuce on my food- only salad and only iceberg lettuce. I like the taste of onions and peppers but won't eat them because of their texture unless they are finely chopped in a salsa which I will only eat with chips because the crunchiness of the chips masks the crunchiness of the onions and peppers.

6. I do not like buying things for myself and I have panic attacks at the cash register when paying for something $50 or more (which includes buying gas, these days).

Now that I got that out in the open... I tag Kathy, Chantel, and Michelle (since I haven't heard anything outta you three for a while).

Well, I had a pretty adventurous day. It all started yesterday evening when I started getting cramps in my lower belly and lower back. I figured it was likely ligament pain and figured if I still didn't feel good in the morning I would call the doctor. This morning I was still in a significant sum of pain so I called the doctor and they wanted to see me ASAP. I picked up Art on my way just in case something was wrong. When I got there, they asked me to give a urine sample before changing into the hospital gown. Much to my dismay, my urine sample looked more like a blood sample than pee. It looked like concentrated fruit punch! It suddenly became clear to me that I had a severe bladder infection. We later discovered that the infection was causing me to have contractions.

Thankfully the contractions didn't cause any dialation and they were able to give me a shot to stop them and a prescription for antibiotics to ward off the infection. I had read that pregnancy has a sneaky way of masking the symptoms of a bladder infection, but I guess I underestimated just how sneaky it could be! I have had at least half a dozen bladder infections in my short lifetime so I thought there was no way I could get one without noticing, but I was sadly mistaken.

Well, I'm home now... resting and recovering... occasionally yelling at The Bunny because he insists on putting teeth marks in the new storage bins I bought for under the coffee table!!! Looks like my beverage of choice for the next week will be cranberry juice so I stop producing fruit punch!

Fungus Among Us

I often feel guilty that Art and I make the same amount at our jobs, because he obviously works WAY harder for his money than I do. He literally puts his blood, sweat, and tears into his job at WinCo. Every night the freight crew has to RUN for 8 hours and he comes home every day drenched in sweat and barely able to stand. He often gets cuts from the blade he uses to open boxes and from the boxes themselves, and has sandpaper textured skin from his hard earned callouses. While others have the privilege of having holiday's off work, he and the rest of the crew are working their tails off so we can sit around and barbecue. He is a shining example of the hard work and self-sacrifice it takes just to make sure there is food on the shelves for us when we go grocery shopping.

This weekend he came home with a red rash on his hands. We thought it was a friction burn from his gloves and put no further thought into the matter until the next day when the rash was even worse. We realized it was most likely something like athlete's foot... on his hands! Is there a such thing as athlete's hand? Leave it to my Baby Cakes to contract something like that! We immediately started treatment on his fungus and he is not allowed to touch me until it clears up. I am already prone to ringworm myself and am not anxious to try out athlete's foot OR athlete's hand. I propose a moment of silence to reflect on the dutiful freight crew at WinCo who endure so much to make our lives better. I'm sure if my husband didn't work at a grocery store, I would never give it a second thought. I truly do appreciate everything he does to provide for our family while I sit on my butt all day making the same money.

Speaking of money, I always have to share my excitement when I land a really good deal. I have been checking the Fresno Craigslist regularly for baby stuff, maternity clothes, and what not and last week there was a lady selling 5 skirts for a dollar each, all of them a size bigger than I ever wear but I figured there was a good chance they would fit with all of the weight I'm gaining. So I bought the 5 skirts for 5 bucks, she even brought them by my office, and the best part is they all fit! Score! Another lady was selling her entire summer maternity wardrobe for $45 and I swooped up that offer too. It was a HUGE bag of small and medium maternity clothes, all name brand. I am quite content with my thrifty findings. I expanded my maternity wardrobe exponentially considering all you could get at a maternity store for $50 is 2 pairs of pants... if you're lucky.

By way of a baby update, we still haven't agreed upon a suitable name. I'm contemplating selling the naming rights on Ebay to finance our air conditioner installation since we can't agree anyway. It would be a win-win situation! Art was talking to the baby yesterday telling her, "Tell your mom you want to be named Juliet!" He just won't give up on that name! If he is nice enough, I might let it slide as a middle name, but certainly not as the first name. I haven't been able to make any progress on painting the baby furniture because of the wind and heat, but I did manage to finish my registries this weekend. I'm trying to get things done while I'm in my second trimester and I still have energy and I'm not too uncomfortable yet. I have a feeling that the next 3 months are going to pass faster than I'd like them to!

No Turning Back From Tide

A few weeks ago I ran out of my Melaleuca special order laundry detergent and instead of ordering more, I went to Walgreens and bought their store brand detergent since it was buy one get one free. Usually store brands aren't too disappointing, but this time I got what I paid for. That crap is awful! My clothes came out smelling like dirty-smoker-icky-white trash smell. I'm sure you know the scent. That week I saw a product test on the news where they tested a bunch of different laundry detergents on a myriad of stains in various circumstances, and Tide proved the best in every case. Even though Tide is expensive, I figure the results don't lie. I gave in and bought some Tide and washed my clothes with it last night. My clothes came out SOFT, and CLEAN, and smelled GOOD!!! Consider me converted. Now that I've seen the light, there is no turning back from Tide.