The state of Kenny, the sequel

As of late, everybody asks me how Kenny is doing. I think he should get some weekly pictures too perhaps. This is Kenny two weeks after having been let go:

He has a tendency to do this when he's unemployed. And by this, I mean grow facial hair and cut back on showering. See exhibit A. I am not a fan of facial hair on him. It hurts to kiss him and he's just so pretty clean shaven. Luckily, a day or two after this picture was taken he got an interview with a design temp agency.

Couldn't you just eat him up? He looks just like Darren from Bewitched only cuter. He's been very busy networking and applying and signing up with agencies and working on his self-promotion campaign--not to mention all of the work involved in taking care of me. I am a handful.

Speaking of me, this is 31 weeks--I call it the bumblebee picture.

We're in the single-digit-week countdown now. The baby has shut down all normal operation of my stomach. I can now eat bland food in small quantities dispersed throughout the day. It's like the first trimester is back only with less vomitting and more pain and difficulty sleeping.

This whole birth thing is coming so soon and there is still so much reading and preparing yet to do. I have entire books on infant sleep and breastfeeding to read not to mention another one on birth. Oh, and we need to start weening affection from the dogs. We'll start that any day now I'm sure. At least we have a place for the baby to sleep and way to bring the baby home. I'm sure we'll work the other details out.

The theme is..Swedish

In other words, the nursery is about 75% from Ikea. We finished putting together the nursery last night. The room just makes me smile when I'm in it.

In this picture you'll see our previously featured crib. I contacted the designer, retailer, and manufacturer of said crib to find a mattress that was not too small and thus hazardous (as the first one we got was). I finally got a voicemail last night from the manufacturer who said that the (Target) crib is designed to be upscale and therefore needs and upscale mattress. She suggested I try Babies R Us to find said upscale mattress. Oddly, we went to Babies R Us two days ago and brought home what we determined to be the largest mattress there after taking each one out and comparing them to each other. We bought the fattest mattress pad we could find and voila! A crib that will hopefully not kill our baby.

Also featured in this picture are a set of blocks glued together by Megan to read Kodner Bun in the Oven and baby's first piece of Packer propaganda--a Packer piggy bank courtesy of his/her grandparents of course. The white dresser will be a changing table once we get a changing pad to put on it.


In the picture below, you will see curtains that feature frogs, elephants, and I think mice dressed in clothes. Also, we've installed a picture ledge which is temporarily housing artwork abandoned by our ex (deadbeat) tenant.

And me at 30 weeks in a festive red scarf since we're having a holiday party at work today. I'm not sure I can really tell a difference from week to week now. I think once the belly is a certain size it just keeps being big.

Mish mosh

I would like to be assembling furniture and hanging things up in the baby's room right now (or at least hovering over Kenny's shoulder while he does so), but I have been banished and told to go blog. So here I am. It's mostly Kenny's fault that I didn't get to write last week. I've become accustomed to him uploading the pictures and sending them to me, but he didn't do that this week. Apparently he was busy trying to find a job or something silly like that.

We spent most of Saturday at baby class. The class was just like they are on TV. We got to bring in pillows and blankets, we watched graphic videos, and we practiced saying "hee hee hee." My favorite part of the class was this one woman who kept asking questions about the placenta and how she could go about taking it home with her.

When we got home Kenny knew something was up when he spotted a wrapper for a dog treat on the floor. You see, we keep a bunch of treats in a jar on the window sill in the kitchen. The lid to said jar was on the floor in the kitchen. The jar itself? Was in the living room, empty, sitting on the couch.

This means that not only had Leroy gotten the lid off the jar, he had also carried it somewhere else more comfortable to gorge himself. He'd eaten about 20 days worth of treats in one afternoon. His belly was huge. After careful questioning and examining of the stomach, it was determined that Jack played no part in the heist and refused to partake in devouring the spoils.

When we were little my brother and I used to put up the Christmas tree on November 1 (as that was safely after Halloween and we never had Thanksgiving decorations). Since sharing a home with somebody not quite so into Christmas, I now hold off all the way until after Thanksgiving. My tree is about 4 feet tall. Putting the lights on required a moving squatting position. After I tried and fell over twice, Kenny kindly took over. For a Jewish boy, he's amazingly good at decorating a tree.


And, as always, the belly picture. This is me at 29 weeks in what must be an embiggening shirt. I frightened many people the day I wore it.

Green

As an anniversary present to us last Wednesday, Kenny’s company decided they’d take away his job. I must say, I have gotten better anniversary presents. As crappy as the timing is, I do think this will all be for the best though, and he’ll get a job he loves. Let us know if you hear of anybody who needs a fabulous graphic designer...

Because of the unfortunateness, Kenny was home on Friday to help my mom paint the nursery. I was terrified that the color was going to end up being too neon, but I think it turned out lovely. It may even appear neon-ish in these pictures, but that’s just the camera’s fault.

On Saturday, we hung these fun lights which provide the only overhead lighting in the room. The grown-up bed will have to stay for a year or so because we'll continue to need a place for guests to sleep. Afterall, somebody is going to need to take care of that baby.

Last night we assembled the crib. Kenny and I did it together and I don't think anybody called anybody names or got up and stormed off. It was quite the success. The quilt was made for me by my grandma when I was a wee one. Of course we had to test out the sturdiness of the bed with a series of puppy tests. We tried to put Jack in the bed. That lasted .5 seconds. He jumped out with terror almost breaking himself the moment his feet touched the mattress. Leroy, on the other hand, was quite content and might have stayed all night if we had let him.

And whoops. Looks like I'm wearing this shirt again for the 3rd or 4th time in these pictures. Apparently it is a very Tuesday shirt. This is what 28 weeks (definitely 3rd trimester) looks like on Emo. I can still see my feet and don't quite understand how one gets to the point where they can't. So many things to still look forward to. Baby has become quite movey lately. As I am writing this it feels like somebody is running on an eliptical inside my belly. I also continue to confuse the kicking with tummy growling causing me to think I'm hungry. Hmm.

5-point Friday

Laziness has gotten the better of me this week. For that reason, you get a hastily written 5 point post.

1) Jack turned 5 years old on Sunday. To celebrate, Kenny gave him a Leroy portion of food and we got a new sweater for him out of the dollar bin at Target. People can tell me that dogs don’t need clothes all they want, but my little guy gets cold and appreciates a little something. He shivers and helps put his legs through arm holes like a pro.

2) Leroy got an expensive yet clean bill of health on Tuesday. A week before he was diagnosed with an intestinal infection--the kind of infection you get when you treat the neighborhood sidewalks like a buffet table.

3) On Wednesday, Kenny and I celebrated 3 years of wedded bliss. He gave me coupons for 10 minute back massages, dog walkings, and clean ____. I've given these to people before and they haven't used them. That will not be me. I will use every coupon and I will probably use them too quickly and then be sad I didn't spread them out.

4) I am 27 weeks as of Tuesday and this picture. According to 2 out of 4 sites I looked at, I am now in my third trimester. Ahhh! I finally got my hair cut but have not figured out how to style it yet.




5) My mother and stepfather, Jack, arrived for a visit last night. This is to be a visit-Kenny-and-Emo-and-help-nest visit more than a site seeing visit. By the end of the weekend we shall have a disturbingly green nursery with an assembled crib and everything. We've pretty much decided to not look at the contents of The Envelope and are thus committed to a gender neutral room. Do you think there's anything wrong with putting bright pink stars in what might be a boy's room? I, more than most people, think pink can go either way. For some reason, I really feel like some big pink stars will tie the room together though. We'll see.

Our lives in the new condo, quantitatively speaking

Every now and then I like to go through my Google calendar and count up things that have happened. This is probably only interesting to me and maybe Kenny, but this blog is where I record stuff so it gets posted. These counts are pretty similar to the ones here I did last year.

We have lived in our new home for 203 days or 29 weeks.

During that time...

We have had 12 visits from
15 unique people (3 have come twice)

They have spent
29 nights and
36 days with us

I have spent 13 nights and 17 days out of town on 5 trips
2 to St. Louis
1 to St. Louis, Hermann, and Kansas City
1 to DC
1 to Seattle and San Juan Island

Kenny has spent 15 nights and 20 days out of town on 7 trips
3 to St. Louis and
1 to St. Louis, Herman, and Kansas City
1 to DC
1 to Seattle and San Juan Island
1 to Green Bay

Meaning that about 27% of our days have been spent with visitors or visiting others

We have painted 6 rooms (one of those rooms we painted twice)

We have purchased 10 pieces of new furniture of which 4 were only new to us

We have treated 8 puppy eye infections (all 4 puppy eyes have gotten infected twice)

And I have posted to this blog 23 times.

She promises they don't just boil water.

I am suddenly feeling very behind. I have just 1 or 2 weeks left of the 2nd trimester depending on who you ask and we have not selected a pediatrician, signed up for birthing classes, found a daycare, or created the nursery. Ahhh! I tried signing up for some classes yesterday only to find that they were already full. Fail.

We did cross one important thing off the list and that is finally getting the nerve to break up with my doctors and switch to a midwife practice. The doctors had been either patronizing or defensive with every question I had asked about the birth. I’m fairly confident that I could have maybe succeeded at having the birth I wanted with them, but it would have been a lot more stressful and non-automatic.

Several weeks ago Kenny told me he would end my bagel in bed service until I finally made a decision about all of this. He followed through with his threat, and I’ve had the hardship of making my own bagel for several weeks now. We did some research (i.e. read several online reviews) and found a midwife practice within a hospital (see Dad? It’s in a hospital!). I had a consultation with the director of the practice last week and it was amazing. I had a mental list of questions for her, but by the time she finished describing their prenatal and birth philosophy and process I was in love. Every “silly” thing I had asked my doctors about is just how they do things at this practice. It was as if I had written down a description of my ideal environment and care ahead of time and given it to her to read. She said she would do the breaking up with my current doctors for me, so I even got to skip that awkward step.

And finally, me at 26 weeks still in need of a haircut and this time with a really weird smile. That giant thing in front there? Makes my back hurt lots.