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.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

It's summer again and, just like last year, you don't need a thermometer to tell. Just take a glance at Bunny and you'll see the unsightly tufts of winter undercoat working their way out. He looks awful... There is no way he can impress the ladies looking like that, so I went to the pet supply store and bought a couple different grooming tools in an attempt to combat the mass of shedding fur that has accumulated all over his back and hind quarters. I bought a rubber brush with short stubby rubber bristles and a menacing looking metal loop with teeth then I went home and spent as much time as Bunny would tolerate grooming out a bunny-size pile of fur. I thought he was going to go bald! By the time he was fed up with the fur removal, he looked about 90% better and I was content with that degree of progress. Well, the next day I got home from work and Bunny looked worse than he did the day before! This fur removal business is like swimming upstream!


Not only is The Bunny a solid indication of summer, but my car is too. I'm still driving around in a black car in hundred degree weather, nearly 6 months pregnant, on the verge of passing out in a fit of heat exhaustion. We completely expected to be able to save enough money over the winter to install air conditioning in our car until the tax pickle foiled all our plans. I have been talking to Art about selling his parked '89 Camaro to finance the AC installation, because I don't see any other way that we can save a thousand dollars before the end of summer, his car is worth just about $1,500 and my tolerance for heat is quickly diminishing due to my pregnant state. Now, you must understand that asking Art to sell his Camaro is like asking him to put his child up for adoption. I have never before witnessed such a strong emotional attachment between a human and an inanimate object (let alone a beastly, worthless hunk of metal), and the fact that he was considering selling it showed a lot of sacrifice. I was really proud of him, and ready to start the selling process when Art tells me that suddenly he believes we can come up with a thousand dollars without selling his car. OMG. There is no way that is going to happen. The baby will boil to death in my amniotic fluids before we come up with that kind of money! I thought the end of the tunnel was in sight with the thought of selling his Camaro, and now I don't know what to do.

Art and I have been trying to clear space in the bedroom for the crib and dresser so we brought the boxes out into the living room and he went through them and reduced two boxes down to one. I bought a couple large storage bins so that we could store the remainder on the patio, then discovered a note on our front door informing us that we had to bring everything from the patio inside the house because they were repainting the apartments. Just as soon as we made some progress inside the house, in came two bikes, a barbecue, garden bench, ice chest, and an assortment of other things.

Then I haven't been able to finish painting my crib and dresser because it's been too hot and windy and you can't spray paint when it's hot and windy and I found out my ladybug knobs that I was so excited about are on backorder until the end of July, but I guess it doesn't matter since there isn't space in the bedroom yet and I can't finish painting the furniture! ARG! All this frustration is making me resort to run-on sentences!

I have desperately been trying to find a name for Baby Martinez, and thought I was onto something when I told Art I like the name Kyra (pronounced like Tyra) and he agreed. So for the past couple weeks, I have gotten pretty comfortable with that name. Then Art said he wanted to buy another baby name book and I said, "Well, what about Kyra?" and he said, "No, I like it pronounced KEERA better." DOH!!! Every time I think I'm getting somewhere, I find out I'm back to square one.

That's how I feel about a lot of aspects of my life right now, like I'm taking one step forward and two steps back, and truthfully my patience is just about maxed out. And just to push my buttons, another roach appeared on my kitchen floor last night! I am just feeling very stressed and overwhelmed, and for once in my lifetime, I would just like for something... ANYTHING... to be easy. I wish I could say it was downhill from here, but I know this is only beginning of many challenges to come.

Teddy Graham Memories

Bunny has been stock full of surprises lately! This weekend I discovered his love of Teddy Grahams! Usually when you give Bunny a new food, it has to pass a thorough examination process. He first sniffs and inspects the food, then he leaves, comes back later, inspects the new food some more, leaves again, then comes back and eats it when I'm not looking. But not this time. The moment that Teddy Graham hit the floor, all it took was one sniff and that cute little cookie was history! Of course, Teddy Grahams will not be a regular treat for Bunny, but it's good to know there's a snack we can share every once in a while.

For the past couple weeks I had been checking the Fresno Craigslist for a used crib and dresser. I figure that no one I'm inviting to my baby shower can afford to buy me a new crib and dresser and I can't afford the new furniture myself. My secret motive for getting the furniture was so that Art would be forced to go through his boxes of crap and make room for the baby. Otherwise I fear he would procrastinate beyond the reach of my patience. I ended up buying a pine crib and dresser from a lady in Clovis for $200. I was thrilled because that same crib and dresser are still for sale online from Target for $350 for the crib and another $350 for the dresser. I saved $500! But if you know me, you know that I am not a fan of light colored wood- everything in my house is dark cherry finish, but since I got such a good deal on the furniture I figured it would be worth refinishing. I decided to paint it all black. Yes, black.

I fell in love with black cribs the moment I fell in love with this adorable lady bug bedding. I am not of the belief that babies should be limited to pastels, and I was drawn to the brighter colors in this bedding. But my vision wouldn't be complete without these indescribably cute lady bug knobs to go on the dresser. I was very nervous about spending even $200 for the furniture and knew it would cost about $50 to refinish it, then the very next day I received an unexpected generous donation if $250 to the Baby Martinez Fund from an individual who wishes to remain anonymous. The fact that I received exactly how much money I was worried about spending is a witness to me that God is still lookin' out for me. There's no such thing as luck, just LOVE.

By the way of a baby update, Art was able to feel the baby kick last week. She was in the midst of a karate routine so I told him to put his hand on my belly and sure enough he got to feel a couple karate chops or roundhouse kicks! It figures that she would be so skilled in martial arts. She got it from her big brother, The Bunny.