Comatose dog, comatose mom

So I'm a little nervous. Our last ultrasound guesstimated the baby would be 8.5-9 pounds, if he arrives on time. That's a big baby to have to push out. I'm also a little nervous because these last few weeks home with Buddy have made me realize something - I hate sitting home alone. I am so bored. My mood is starting to plummet, my energy is gone. I have work that I could be doing but the thought of doing academic writing is really no more exciting than the reruns of 90210 I could be watching. I think today Buddy's bladder is at the point where I could go out for a couple of hours, which I am SO looking forward to. But the whole experience has me more than a little nervous about what life at home with the baby is going to be like. Now mind you, I'm assuming the baby will be a little more engrossing than Buddy, who has taken to lying on the floor semi-comatose for up to three hours at a time. But still, I'm missing talking to people, the change of scenery, spending money!! I want to go downtown and toss my green paper around! I want to go out for lunch and converse with other human beings!!

Otherwise, all goes fine with the pregnancy. The little one is currently all smooshed up on the left side of my body so the left half of my stomach sticks out an inch farther than the right. It's pretty funny to look at actually. I alternate, sometimes very rapidly, between being in an absolute panic that I will be a parent in 6 weeks and wanting this kid out of me TODAY. Man, I'm going to eat so much sushi after little BenFinnCoen comes. I can't wait for some fresh yummy tuna roll!

Practice parenting

So our poor Buddy has developed a serious case of seasonal allergies. After several weeks of itching himself nuts and several visits to the vet, we finally got to the bottom of it. Poor little one was covered in scabs and sores from his constant scratching. Anyway, Buddy has been put on steroids and the itching virtually stopped overnight which is fantastic. The only downside is that he has to pee every 3 hours! We discovered this the first night when Buddy woke us up before 5 a.m. whining and then peed in the hallway. So now we get up a couple of times in the night to take him out. And during the day, he goes every couple of hours. And such monster pees. Sometimes he'll pee for almost a full minute (and that's usually in the afternoon only 1.5-2 hours after his last pee). The funniest part is that Buddy is as unhappy about having to go out so often as we are. We often have to coax him out with treats and happy voices. He'll glare at us and drag his feet but then he'll pee for 45 seconds - he must have wanted to go but you wouldn't guess if from his behaviour.

Anyway, everyone seems to think that this is good practice for parenting but I tend to differ. I mean, do you know any 7-month pregnant women who set their alarms for 3 a.m. to practice what it's like to get up in the middle of the night? Mostly I'm just irritated about losing my last few weeks of decent sleep! But I am encouraged at how I am holding up. Mark has his ups and downs, which isn't a surprise as he tends to wilt if he misses sleep several nights in a row. Overall, though, he's been awesome, especially considering he's working all day. And while I've had a couple of days with afternoon naps and one headache, mostly I've been holding up well. I'm just cranky and SO BORED!!! I can't really leave the house, since I'm taking Buddy out to pee every couple of hours. I've been finishing up my internship paperwork from home, watching a lot of tv, playing online, going for walks with Buddy when I'm not too exhausted, and generally just going stir-crazy. I'm realizing that I'm going to have to find a bunch of mommy and me type activities to take part in. I just am not an alone at home kind of girl.

Of course, things brings me face to face with the part of parenting I'm most stressed about - making friends with other parents. Over the past few years, I've discovered that while I'm good at socializing, I'm not so good at making friends. I go through phases of social anxiety and withdrawal as my depression waxes and wanes and generally don't feel as confident about meeting new people as I used to. But if I don't make friends with other parents, then I can't arrange play dates for my son and then he'll have no friends. No one to come to his little birthday parties, no one to play in the park with, no one to take cute playing in the sandbox pictures with. Not making it any easier is that all the parents in my neighbourhood are perfect thin, fashionable, rich parents or nannies. There don't seem to be many messy, regular type parents. But hopefully they'll turn up in some of these community classes. My sister suggested I check out Dufferin Grove park where more hippy parents hang out but we decided I couldn't show up there with my Bugaboo! lol We finally settled on Trinity Bellwoods - hip downtown parents, probably a little too cool for me but at least a little more messy.

Oh my aching ... something in my lower abdomen

So the baby has recently turned (yeah!). This is great news as it means that another obstacle to vaginal birth is out of the way (the first being the potential placenta previa). The only downside is that since turning, the baby has lodged himself against some organ or tissue or something in my lower abdomen and I now have stabbing pain when I roll over, stand, or walk. So if I sit or lay perfectly still, I'm okay but basically anything more than that and it HURTS! To date, the pregnancy has gone pretty smoothly so I really can't complain but I'm hoping the baby just shifts his weight or something because it really sucks. Plus Buddy is getting crappy walks because I can only shuffle along at the speed of a racing turtle. And I feel extra bad about this because Buddy is currently suffering from some allergies and spends his whole day itching and being miserable. Poor little guy.

The other baby development is that I found out today that I am "measuring large" and have to go in for an ultrasound to find out how big the baby actually is. This frightens me more than a little. Labour is scary enough imagining a 7 pound baby, never mind a 10 pound baby. But it makes me extra glad I didn't spend much money on newborn clothing. But hopefully the ultrasound will show a little wee baby that will slide through the birth canal just fine. I have to say though, I'm getting more than a little nervous about the whole labour thing. I mean, have you looked at how small a 10 cm opening is? I have a hard time imagining a baby, even a little small one fitting through a 10 cm opening. It's just not very big. Not very big at all...

The cervix is when you do the pushing, right?

So next week marks seven months pregnant. The end is in sight. And as we get closer to our big day, a lot more baby related things are happening. We continue to add to our nursery, having now bought a change table and heading out this weekend to get a glider. We also started prenatal classes. This has been a frightening experience, let me tell you. Now I know that not everyone is as neurotic as I am. I know many women do not run out and buy every pregnancy book on the market as soon as they start thinking about getting pregnant. Many women do not even bother with this once they are pregnant. Many women do not belong to 7 different baby sites and do not have stacks of pregnancy magazines. But surely, surely people come across an itsy bitsy bit of information somewhere on their nine month journey. Sadly, most of these people are not in our prenatal class.

There have been many fine, informed, thoughtful questions, such as:
** Why is the baby blue when it comes out? Aren't they supposed to be flesh coloured?
** The woman in the video was squatting when she gave birth to the baby. Can you do that? Why would you do that? Do you have to arrange that with your doctor ahead of time?
** What do you mean by "waste products" in the bloodstream?

There is also the woman who confused the definition of the cervix with the definition of stage two labour, the one who "doesn't believe" in diaper rash, and the guy who was amazed when his friend had a caesarian and was conscious the next day (I think he expected her to be in a coma).

And then there's our labour nurse instructor (who teaches the course continuously throughout the year and has been for several years) who says such fabulous things as:

** Where is Edmonton anyway? Is that in Manitoba?
** I don't know that rate of caesarians/epidurals/episiotomies for this hospital even though I work here.
** I don't actually know much about pain relief medications used in labour. I didn't do so well on this part in school.
** You'll have to ask your doctor about that.
** I was asked to leave the room while a patient was having an epidural because I was stressing her out so much.

Anyway, after getting the hospital tour and finding out what happens to our baby after birth, Mark and I decided that we had had enough and aren't going back to our last class. We're just going to wing it on the missing elements. But we did meet one nice couple and exchange emails so maybe I'll have a pregnancy buddy.

I've also been enjoying a pleasant amount of sharp, intense back pain that radiates down to my butt. I think this was brought on by a lot of driving over the course of a few days followed by hours sitting in my computer or therapy chair. Needless to say I am looking forward to my internship ending next week so I can rest my body a little. But there's also been lots of fun stuff. My belly has grown huge and the baby is kicking constantly. He's like a little companion that talks to me all day through morse code. I'm getting very anxious to meet him. I didn't really enjoy the first five months of pregnancy but have been liking this later part a lot more. Still, it's the baby I'm after. October can't come fast enough.

One step closer

So Mark and I went shopping this weekend and I finally got to buy something for the baby!! Those of you who have heard my constant whining will know that I've been waiting since before the pregnancy test came back positive to buy things for the baby. In fact, I had a secret drawer full of baby toys for the last year that only my sister Kelly knew about until very recently. But mostly I have only bought a few onesies and a mini-mobile. So this weekend we bought real things for the baby. We got this beautiful crib and an awesome swing for the baby, both second hand. We are feeling very good about our awesome second-hand savvy. We were all set to buy everything brand new but honestly, some of it, there's just no point. It reminds me a lot of our wedding - things are overpriced just because people are spending emotionally.

Anyway, it took the entire long weekend to change my messy, dirty, cluttered office into the baby's room. There's still a few things in there to go and a few things to add but the basic shape of the room is there, which is very exciting. I even got to take some of the toys out of the drawer and put them on the bookshelf. Honestly, it was all I could do not to run out and buy everything we need for the baby RIGHT AWAY, it just felt so good to do some actual baby planning. Plus, we got stacks and stacks of old papers out of the corners and into the recycling bin - Mark is excited to actually see the floor in that room for the first time in over a year. I feel a little more wary of where all the new papers will go now that I've lost my study... :)

Not looking for a peanut gallery

Well, I have decided to turn off the comments option on my blog. For a while I was being irritated by this person who kept arguing with my interpretations of sexism in the world at large. And that is this person's prerogative but it is my prerogative not to engage in such conversations on my blog. I have to defend myself enough in real life, I have no patience for doing it on my blog. And I just don't get people who find blogs that piss them off and read them and argue with the author. Just move on to the next blog if you don't like it. I don't spend my time reading ultra-conservative blogs and writing scathing comments. If you don't like my politics, don't read my blog. Simple. Plus it pisses me off because the people leaving these sorts of comments always do it anonymously. So irritating. Let me see your name so I can go to your blog and see what it is you believe in.

Anyway, after that I moved comments onto moderation, which allowed me to preview them before allowing them to appear on my blog. And it's been quiet for a while so I turned moderation off, thinking that it would be okay. And within three days I got a snotty comment, anonymously posted of course. So I've just turned them off altogether. If you want to leave comments, let me know, and I'll put you on my allowed commentators list. Otherwise, you'll just have to keep your witty responses to yourself.

In other news, poor Buddy got stung by a bee. It was the first time he's ever been stung. He was walking through some longish grass and a bee got caught up in his leg fur. He got stung on his ankle. Of course he promptly ate the bee and then pulled out all the hair around the sting so that he has a little bald patch. But he wasn't allergic and recovered within a few minutes. But I was having a very stressful couple of days and it was just one too many things for me to be able to handle and I had a little bit of a meltdown. It took me longer to recover than it did Buddy but we're both okay now.

Finally, a little recognition

So today, for the first time, it finally happened. A total stranger noticed I was pregnant. Now, to be fair, I was holding a pamphlet on caring for children, so if she was looking at me and thinking "Is she or isn't she?" she had a little help. Still, it was very exciting for me. It was also funny because up until she said something, I had been secretly hating her and this other woman that she was with. I was waiting for the streetcar on Spadina and it was about 35 degrees. I had my choice of waiting in the shade provided by the streetcar shelter where there was zero breeze or standing in the blistering sun where there was a nice bit of air flow. The streetcar was nowhere in sight and took at least 10 minutes to come. I seriously thought I was going to faint. But I was first in line so I knew I'd be getting on the next one so I was toughing it out (well, actually I was debating whether or not I could justify the cost of a cab but I decided I needed to be at least 8 months pregnant for that).

Then this 100-year-old lady with a cane came and stood in front of me. Well, I was irritated but she did look very old and she did have a cane and a little shopping cart (or bundle buggy as my mom likes to call them) so I thought that her case was definitely solid for getting on ahead of someone who was 6 months pregnant. But then these other two women came up near the front and I was annoyed with them. I don't know what it is with Spadina but people do not obey the basic structure of the line. Everywhere else in the city, people line up. Spadina, the just walk past a line of 30 people to stand in the front. Yesterday someone cut in front of me with a frickin cooler during rush hour. Not cool. It's also the only station where they have to have TTC staff in the subway station to control people as they get on the streetcar. Every other station, people line up unsupervised but in Spadina, they have to have people babysit us otherwise it can get pretty ugly as people swarm the streetcars. I have my own theories as to why this happens on Spadina but they are too boring to expand on here.

Anyway, the streetcar came and I, of course, let the old lady on first. Meanwhile, these two women tried to muscle their way around her while she struggled with her shopping cart. The streetcar was packed and I was not sure that all four of us would get on, never mind the other 20 or so people in line. So I totally cut them off, thank you very much, and was feeling very indignant about it until one of them asked me if I wanted her to guilt someone into giving me a seat. We then had a very nice chat about how people in Toronto never give their seats to pregnant women anymore and really hardly even give their seats to elderly people or those with disabilities. I was so pleased to have strangers acknowledge my pregnancy that I didn't even care that these women had butt in front of a whole line and tried to force their way in front of me to get onto the streetcar.

For the record, I'm 25 weeks pregnant so only 2 weeks away from my third trimester before someone finally noticed that I was pregnant. Sometimes I think I'm going to actually have to have a baby coming out of me before someone gives me their seat on the streetcar.

Ads that piss me off: Nokia

So while Mark and I were in Vancouver, I spotted this ad on the ceiling of a city bus.




I think you can guess what pisses me off about it. The ad itself is for a phone that lets you copy an image from the world and have it appear as the skin on your phone. Which, okay, is pretty cool but come on. Where do I even start with this? I mean the most obvious is the boob thing. Of course, of course, it has to be a woman in a skin tight dress and of course the sample is going to come from her cleavage. And of course it's going to be big enough that we can see a bit of her sexy bra and the perfect globes of her boobs. Seriously? Breasts don't look like that. That is not a shape that nature created. That shape only results from silicone or push-up bras. And just once, just once I would love to see breasts with moles, scars, or even an uneven skin tone. Cause in real life, they just ain't so perfect. But whatever, realistic breasts in advertising only seem to appear in Dove ads and even then they look pretty good.

But back to the exposed cleavage - I mean, really, there is just no subtlety left. Let's use boobs to sell a cell phone. You might as well just have her stuff it in her cleavage and walk around like that instead. And I love the look on her face as she looks down at her own suddenly exposed cleavage. She's shocked but turned on. Her breasts are so gorgeous and she finds being exposed so sexy. The hand pulling at the hip/groin region of the dress down in the bottom corner lets you know how sexy she really finds the whole situation. I mean, if they have to use sex to sell phones (and really, don't they always have to?), they could be sensual and provocative and have the sample come from her shoulder or her back. It doesn't always have to be breasts and bums, you know.

And of course we have to use an animal print dress. That just sexes it up even more. Let's make her look primal and animal, associate her with basic instincts cause that's so hot. Women who wear animal prints are only after one thing. Especially women who wear skin tight animal print dresses.

But the thing that bugs me most about this ad is the thing that bugs me about the majority of print ads for camera phones - they always refer, either directly or obliquely, to taking sexy pictures of women. TV ads don't often go this route because I think it is hard to do without being really fricking obvious in a TV commercial but print ads always seem to have women in bikinis or bending over and pouting or things like this, where the women's picture isn't actually on the cell phone but still the her sex and the phone are linked. And it bugs me because of all the incidents where women's pictures are taken without their knowledge, the way girls are cyber-bullied with pictures taken of them in change rooms. The whole business of camera phones frankly reeks of sexual exploitation to me and that advertisers capitalize on that just really makes me sick. And this ad totally plays on it. The sexiness of the model, the cleavage, plus her own reaction to the exposure of the cleavage - which suggests it wasn't her that removed the sample from her dress - it just all presents the picture of "playful" and oh so disturbing sexual victimization and exploitation.

When I see ads like this, I just get really really angry. Because it's a fucking cell phone. Stress the communication functions. Stress the appearance if you want. But stop linking it with sex - especially non-voluntary exploitative sex. It's just a further example of how women's bodies are taken out of their own control and become objectified public property. The subtext of this ad and the actuality of what happens with camera phones underscore our society's totally lax attitude about women's rights to privacy and ownership of their own bodies. You may see this as a big stretch, but I don't. It's all the same thing. When women's bodies are objectified, sexualized, and treated without dignity, then women themselves are objectified, sexualized, and treated without dignity. And that opens the door for a whole range of negative outcomes from low self-esteem to rape and domestic violence.

And while here in North America these attitudes have enough negative impact (think rape, sexual harassment, the $11 billion diet industry, girls who are afraid to quit smoking for fear of getting fat, girls who can't go to school because of bullying and harassment) these attitudes have far more horrifying outcomes in other parts of the world, like the Congo where 8 year old girls are raped so violently they have to been sewn back together. And we just let it happen because we don't value women. So don't tell me ads like this don't mean anything. They signal an implicit approval of the poor treatment of women around the world and a devaluing of women here at home.

The Budman

So in all the pregnancy excitement and vacation excitement, I realize it's been a while since I've posted about our sweet Buddy. Poor Buddy's been having a hard time lately. While we were in Vancouver, he stayed with an awesome dogsitter but the day before we got back he seemed to lose hope that we were going to come get him and stopped eating, which I didn't think was possible for Buddy. We've been back for a month now and he still hasn't sprung back to his old self. He no longer eats his breakfast, though he will eat kibble as treat on his morning and afternoon walk. He's also started drinking twice the amount of water, irrespective of the weather. And he's extra clingy with me but also often irritated - we never seem to be petting him right (though in all honesty, this was an issue before we left too, we just never seem to get it).

And then last week he had to go to the vet - here's a picture of Buddy at the vet from this spring -




twice in four days, once to get his anal sacs done (ouch!) and then two days later he burst out with a massive ear infection and had to go back. The infection was quite inflamed and painful and having it cleaned out was not pleasant for Buddy. After the vet cleaned out Buddy's ear, he brought him into the waiting room to show me how to put the medicine in his ear. Poor Buddy had had enough though and ran two circles around the vet trying to get away from him and then hid underneath the bench I was sitting on and looking balefully at the vet from behind my legs. Mark and I have had better luck but it's still rough on poor Buddy. We bribe him with milkbones, which worked at first but then he decided even the milkbones weren't worth it so now we just tag-team him, hold him down, pour medicine in his ear, and ply him with milkbones after. Unfortunately, he isn't 100% responding to the medicine so it's back to the vet on Thursday.

It breaks my heart, poor little guy. If only there was some way to let them know why you're doing this to them. Overall, it's been a hard month for our sweet Buddy. And in a few more months, it's going to get even worse.

On the plus side though, Buddy flushed three rabbits while at the cottage this weekend - major score for our little hunter. He also saw a mama skunk with two babies in the back yard on Friday night. We was looking out the screen door and started getting excited. Mark went to see what it was and, spotting the skunks, quickly closed the door. But Buddy remained really excited. We decided to take him in another room in case he started barking and scared the skunks. Only problem was my sister's cat, Simon, was sitting in the doorway and had become very agitated at Buddy's level of excitement. Simon refused to move, being unresponsive to shooing and too scary to pick up (he's a bit of an attack cat). In all the jockeying about, Simon suddenly lunged at Buddy and followed him around for about 30 seconds, hissing and biting at him. This was very upsetting as they had been enjoying a peaceful coexistence for many months now. But it was over quickly, no one was hurt, and the next day it was as if nothing happened. Frankly, I think Buddy felt it was worth it to see the skunks. He didn't calm down again until we left the cottage a day later. Silly Buddy! :)

The perfect frickin mother

So as Mark and I get ready for parenthood, I am trying to hold on to the values I went into the pregnancy with - that kids don't need a tonne of material things to be happy and have a life of abundance, that kids don't need perfect parents to grow up strong and healthy and that really, somehow you are going to inevitably mess up your kids so you can't put the pressure on yourself to be perfect at all times. But of course as the pregnancy progresses, I feel guilty about all the ways that I am not the perfect parent. And I see lots of pretty, slim, glowing pregnant women on the street and in stores who seem serene and fashionable and probably do not require large doses of psychiatric medications to get through their days and I start to feel insecure. Don't get me wrong, I know enough to know that in actuality these women have their problems too but from the outside, they look like they have their shit together.

Anyway, a couple of days ago, I had an experience that just seemed to be the perfect expression of this whole dilemma. I was coming home from work, having worked a long day and feeling tired and cranky. I was starving, too hungry to make the walk from the subway station to my apartment without eating so I bought a snack at the kiosk in the subway station. I picked the second healthiest snack, a bag of Smartfood popcorn (the healthiest was probably the pretzels) and headed home, achy, snarly, sweaty, disheveled and eating cheddar cheese popcorn. As I was plodding down the sidewalk, I saw a lovely pregnant woman, maybe seven months along or so in a pretty maternity outfit and glowing suntanned skin and pretty flowing hair. As I watched, she stopped suddenly in her tracks. About three inches away from her toe was a little earth toned butterfly. She tripped prettily around the butterfly and then it fluttered prettily away. And I just thought "good god, that is the perfect mother." I mean seriously, she might as well be feeding a baby dear while woodland creatures gather at her feet and birds sit on her shoulder.

It also made me think of a story Mark told me the other day about how he squished a dragonfly with his bike wheel. It had been buzzing all around him while he was setting up a trials line and just didn't get out of the way fast enough. Draw from this comparison what you will...

Mathemagician!

I have a recurring dream that I am back in high school and cannot remember either my locker location, my locker combination, or sometimes both. In this dream, I am always at first with some people and casually trying to look like I'm not desperately looking around trying to scrounge up some glimpse of a memory that would tell me where my locker is. Eventually they go off and then I slink from locker bank to locker bank trying to find mine. It's often in a sunny corner, though I never had a locker in a sunny corner in actuality. Then I must open my combination lock. Generally I have more luck with this part. I think this is because I'm decent at memorizing number strings. Not in that "you say 15 numbers and I'll say them back perfectly right away" kind of way. More in that I memorize my everyday numbers fairly easily kind of way. I know my credit card number, my bank card number, my old bank card number, my student number for U of T, my student number for York, my social insurance number, my library card number, and a bunch of phone numbers of people I haven't called in years.

Though really, I'm not as good with phone numbers. The other day I totally spaced on my friend's phone number, which she's had for over a year and which I never bothered writing down because I had it memorized. I was reduced to pressing buttons on my touch tone phone trying to produce a familiar sounding tune. I got it eventually. I'm chalking it up to pregnancy brain. I have been waaaaaay more flighty since being pregnant and since I'm not used to it, have not yet devised clever organizational scheme like oh, writing things in my planner and then checking it later.

I have been irritated with pregnancy issues a lot this week. In particular, I am tired of people giving their seats on the subway to women who I believe to be the same or less far along in their pregnancy than me. Being a larger person, I think people are afraid to assume I am pregnant. So little skinny women with their cute but tiny little 4 month bumps get to sit down and I am left standing with my back stabbing with pain, my shoulders aching, and my stomach nauseous as the driver lurches the subway or streetcar along. I often feel like screaming "I'm pregnant too you know. Asshole!" Not to mention the cuteness of maternity wear for skinny women and the floral/animal print nightmare that is maternity wear for plus-size women. I'm really not sure what I'll do when I outgrow my two-sizes-to-big normal clothes and have to really move into maternity clothes.

On the plus side, I feel the baby kicking often these days, which is pretty cool. The first time it happened I was excited. Then later it was kind of creepy - there is a creature not just living inside of me but moving around inside of me. Strange. But now it's pretty comforting. I'll feel him moving around when I'm in a meeting, or watching tv, or going to bed and it makes me feel good to know he's still there and still growing. You go, little baby. You go!

i robot

So a couple of years ago Mark and I got our first air conditioner - an awesome and much needed early wedding present from my parents. Those of you who live in Toronto with the summertime humidex of 40 degrees know what I'm talking about. Sadly, because of the shape of our apartment, the lovely coolness has never reached our bedroom. And absolutely no cross-breeze reaches our bedroom. No matter how comfortable the rest of the apartment is, the bedroom has remained a hot sweaty sauna of misery.

So this year, with being pregnant, I decided enough was enough. Last summer it would take an hour or more to fall asleep just because of being so hot and if you woke up in the night, you'd have to go through it all over again. And I anticipate waking up frequently in the night this summer. Plus, in order to ensure the correct sleeping position, I am surrounded by a little cage of pillows that keeps me from rolling onto my back. Not exactly conducive to airflow. So after playing the "for the good of our baby" card with Mark, we decided to get a portable air conditioner for the bedroom (we can't have a window one in the bedroom). Mark's dad got wind of this and was awesome enough to give us the cash for it - yeah Al and Kathy!

So we wasted no time and went off shopping. Behold our frosty beauty.




Mark just finished installing it and I'm loving it. Could it look anymore like a robot? The little exhaust tubes look like arms and everything. It reminds me of a cross between Rosie on the Jetson's and some of the less than stellar droids that the Jawas had on that huge transport in Star Wars, especially the one that was just a brown trash can with feet. Now as long as it doesn't try to kill me in my sleep, it will all be good.

Can you return from the dead twice?

Ha. As I was typing in the title I started thinking of Days of Our Lives where Hope has returned from the dead no less than 4 times. So I guess the answer is yes. Anyway, it has been almost a month since my last entry, which is just inexcusable. But lots has happened. I was away in the lovely British Columbia for 10 days and also I have been struggling a lot with my mood and motivation as it has been over six months since I went off my antidepressants and I'm starting to feel it. The last few days have been especially bad but today things were a little better so I'm feeling hopeful.

BC was awesome. Went out for a family wedding - spent a day in Victoria, three in Tofino and three in Vancouver and a couple of days traveling from Victoria to Tofino to Vancouver. My family and I encountered many weird, wondrous, and beautiful things on our trip such as these:

Miniature World in Victoria - a little museum made up of miniature scenes. Except instead of being handcrafted art pieces, the scenes are just made up of dollar store toys slapped together with model kit buildings.



In some cases, they ran out of even these toys and substituted home-made crocheted dolls or ceramic figurines that had nothing to do with the scene represented. There was also a surprising amount of nudity!





The giant trees of Cathedral Grove (there were also giant slugs in Cathedral Grove):





The market between Victoria and Tofino where goats graze on the thatched roof. They also had amazing wooden toys and I would have bought a tonne if I had had a bigger suitcase. As it was I was very restrained on the whole trip - go me!




The beautiful Tofino, where there is a man named Turtle who laughs so loud that they have placed an 11:30 p.m. curfew on laughing (this is not a picture of Turtle, this is Mark, who laughs like a normal person, though he generally calls "quiet times" on laughing after 11:30 p.m. too).




And finally, perhaps the strangest thing on our trip, our hotel door. We stayed in the Sheraton Wall Centre in Vancouver, a fancy conference hotel downtown. Anyway, their guests must have a lot of security issues because the doors each had six peep-holes and none of them were at head level. You can make them out in this picture but it's blurry because the people in the room started to open the door as I was taking the picture so I had to run away and never bothered getting another pic later. lol

Crazy crooked eye

Well, I've kind of been sucking with the blogging. It seems like since I've been pregnant, my creativity has flown the coop. This is mostly just cause I'm tired and headachy a lot of the time. I'm heading for a massage this week that I'm hoping will help. I also have some pictures to scan for some good feminist ranting but my scanner is busted at the moment so they are back logging, waiting to be released into the world, enhanced by the genius of my analysis!

In the meantime, I have been watching the May sweeps. And what a sweeps it has not been. My regular shows got so sucky, I stopped tuning into them several weeks before they actually ended. And the soaps! So bad! In part, I think this is partly because I've largely stopped watching soap operas and so when I catch them once every couple of weeks, I'm not very invested. But even still, they've been horrible. I can't believe how boring a sweeps month it is. A couple of my shows had good endings, mostly because of awesome romantic subplots coming to fruition. Gilmore Girls, which has had the worst season ever (read in Comic Book Guy voice) redeemed itself by Lorelei hooking up with Christopher at the very end. And the Office, which has rocked all season, also ended with a good romantic hook-up between Jim and Pam. Oh and Veronica and Logan finally figured it out on Veronica Mars. I guess I should have put a spoiler warning on this but oh well.

The worst of the worst thought, had to be the "series finale" (apparently the series isn't actually ending) of 7th Heaven. Now I hear what you're saying. If I'm going to watch 7th Heaven, I have to expect a great deal of suckage and cheesiness. But honestly, all of the married kids all being pregnant and all having twins? Vomitous. Seriously. It was impressive that they got Jessica Biel to come back though. I had thought she was all Shannon Doherty and would never set foot on the set again. But given how her movie career has failed to flourish, she really can't afford to say no. Besides, she never had that Doherty edge to her. Not cold crazy enough. Shannon Doherty, man, she'll cut you.

Falcons triumphant!!!

So yesterday, my sisters and I completed our yearly good deed - the Bell Walk for Kids in support of Kids Help Phone. This year I kicked ass by raising the most money (thanks Theresa, Mae, and Cor!) and got a gift t-shirt as a reward. But let me tell you, we worked for our sponsored dollars this year. Due to poor signage we, and half of the other walkers, completely missed the 2.5 km checkpoint where we were supposed to turn around for the 5 km charity WALK and walked all the way to the 5km checkpoint that the 10 km RUNNERS use. 10k! I would feel bad for myself but others were doing it hauling wagons of kids or wearing babies on their backs. Fortunately, it was a beautiful day and I had good company (after all, the Falcons is the team for people who are cool), so it was an enjoyable walk anyway.

And fortunately, my first trimester fatigue is well and truly passed. Three or four weeks ago, I wouldn't have been able to walk 2km without lying down for a long nap in the dirt. However, yesterday I was able to troop like a champ. Though my butt did get sore. It's been an interesting part of pregnancy that my hips and side butt muscles tire out much more quickly than before. By the 9th k, my butt was aching. But I persevered, such is my dedication to the children. Other, non-pregnant people, turned around before hitting the checkpoint. Not so dedicated....

And this year, the organizers figured out the treat situation. Last year, they didn't have enough treats so only the first third of the walkers got incentive mini chocolate bars en route. This year, lest my team be disappointed, I took it upon myself to bring a secret stash of treats that I would surprise my sisters with when the Bell Walk came up short. Alas, they did not come up short. There were piles and piles of left over treats. I didn't need any of my extra treats, so now they're just sitting around my house like the day after Halloween, taunting me with their chocolatey goodness.

My teammates also kicked ass, despite the fact that Jill did not dress properly for such a strenuous athletic event and lacked a backpack of the proper size. They set a brisk stride and were not deterred by the extra kms. Kelly suffered through with a blister that set in by the 2nd k and braved very scary porta-potties. Despite these hardships, she enjoyed it so much that she announced her desire to walk a half-marathon. I however, will not be joining her. If I walked more than 20 km right now, I think my butt would seize entirely, leaving me to pull myself along the ground with my hands, dragging my frozen lower half along behind me. And that just can't be good for the baby. :)

Trash talkin' comes back to bite my ass

So for the last few years I've been trash talking one of my professors. There has been plenty to complain about - she hides from her students (literally, leaves the scene if she sees them coming), never returns phone calls or messages even from her thesis students, doesn't seem to actually teach any classes, and most recently kept a bunch of exams for over a year - they were marked, she just "forgot" to give them back. I pretty much stand by my trash talking - I mean if you don't want to teach, talk to students, or attend to school administrative tasks, don't be a professor. If you're going to take the salary, then do your job.

Alas, my thesis supervisor has recently suggested this person should maybe be on my thesis committee. Ack! Now, I can only assume that the fact that my supervisor thinks this means that my trash talking is not general knowledge among the faculty. However, since some of my trash talking involved actually complaining to the department chair about this person, I can't really be sure.

You may think that the moral here is don't trash talk people but the real moral is don't get involved with departmental politics. I only complained about this woman because I was embroiled in some drama about inappropriate faculty behaviour and frankly, the whole thing was so disheartening, I just gave up and promised myself to never again try to create change within my department. Better just to graduate and get out and get on with my life. I'll tell you, my school really does wonders in terms of tempering my cynical streak. lol

We are the Falcons - super cool

So in a couple of weeks, my sisters and I are going to undertake our yearly charity walk, raising money for Kids Help Phone. I got into a few years ago because I could see the adolescent girls in my research studies using the service and really believe it is important. The downside, of course, is that Bell has umbrella'd this service and I hate Bell and there's no way to support Kids Help Phone without Bell being involved. Hence, the walk is called the Bell Walk for Kids. But I'm not going to let Bell's corporate bullshit keep me from feeling good about the cause and my efforts.

Here is a picture of me and my sisters at last year's walk with our team tees.




Notice our awesome mascot - a ferocious tiger. It's a sister thing. Anyway, the really exciting news is that my mom may join team Falcon this year as she is in town on the day of the walk! Yeah MOM!!!!

Anyway, copying my sister's idea, feel free to click the link below to sponsor me on my walk. Remember, I'll be pregnant and dragging my tired ass along the 5km trail. I know, it's not that long, but considering I have been unable to walk Buddy for more than 45 minutes without resting, it could be trouble. Plus last year we missed out on all the treats so I may not even have sugary sustenance to help me through!! See how I suffer?? Don't you want to donate???

https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/StartUp.aspx?SID=878168


Plus I have to thank my friend Theresa for her pledge and my aunt Mae and cousin Corinne who not only pledged me but I hit them up first so I get the score over my sisters - awesome!

If you're still seeing double, it's only cause you're drunk

Oh, one more thing about the ultrasound. Some of you may have heard that at the first ultrasound the technician found a second, but empty, sac. This means that a fraternal twin had been conceived but had never been developed. In addition to first trimester screening, my doctor wanted the latest ultrasound to make EXTRA sure that there was nothing in that second sac and that my body was reabsorbing it. Anyway, the tech found no sign of it, said it had completely reabsorbed. So sorry for you hopeful ones but there are NO TWINS. Maybe next time though! :)

Our jumping baby!

Behold our ultrasound photos! Not really much to look at - it was much cooler on the screen where she could show us all the parts. Overall it was an awesome experience. I thought the baby would have little t-rex arms but it had real, long arms with elbows and fingers and the whole shebang. The baby also moved around a lot, arching its back and even mooning us! So far so good - all the parts are where they should be. The test was to detect down syndrome and of course the tech won't tell you that kind of stuff so we'll find out at my doc's on Tuesday but frankly, all I cared about was seeing that it was still in there and moving. The tech had me cough and jiggled her sensor against my belly to make it move - it's pretty crazy that the baby can be stimulated to respond, like a real person already! Anyway, very cool.

The blog that returned from the dead

Sooooooooo, it's been a while since I've been blogging. But I have good reasons: 1) I had a conference that required every scrap of my mental energy for the past few weeks 2) I have much less mental energy than usual because of being pregnant. But I am hoping that as the first trimester draws to a close my energy will return and in the spirit of optimism I am putting out this first post and boldly stating that it is the first of many.

Now as part of this new plan, I am cancelling my baby blog, Our Sticky Baby and moving all baby news to this blog, Luminous Multitudes. Maintaining multiple blogs is just too much for me. This is a move that contains some risk however. It means that those of you who read my blog for baby news will be exposed to my feminist ranting. And those who read my feminist ranting will be exposed to my sappy baby news which include non-feminist issues like desperately wanting $1000 stroller and having angst about not being able to dress my baby in brand-name labels. For those of you upset by this contradiction, I invite you to read my byline - I contain multitudes. I also advise you to only read those posts which interest you and skip the others. Though the Buddy posts are generally safe for everyone! lol

Anyway, we have our next ultrasound in a week and I will post the pics so check back!