Category Archives: Uncategorized

We hit the 28 week milestone yesterday. That’s a good one to hit, since it means that Hoss will most likely be OK if he/she decides to be born at any point from now on. Of course, it also means that, you know, um, that due date is getting pretty close! I mean … whoa. Other fun things about the third trimester so far:

– The peeing. Is getting. Out. Of. Control. How can there be that much pee?

– Mood swings are back in full force. I can now burst into tears not only at the slightest provocation, but at no provocation whatsoever! It’s like a really damn annoying magical power.

– Appetite: still not there. Which is not to say that I’m not hungry, like, all the time, just that the only thing that sounds good to eat is cereal. Which, with the gestational diabetes and all, I can’t have so much. So that’s awesome.

– Hoss can now kick back – i.e., if I press down on my tummy when he/she is awake, often I’ll get a little nudge from the inside, as if to say “Hey! it’s crowded enough in here without that kind of messing around! Back off!” I find this amusing, if disconcertingly strong-minded.

– Just got my Rhogam shot so my antibodies don’t attack the baby during labor (sounds like a really lame low-budget action film: Attack of the Antibodies). The nurse, in describing where the shot had to go, first said “gluteous,” then tried “you know, hip area” and looked distinctly relieved when I said “in the ass, huh?” (One of these days I’m going to get a nurse with a sense of propriety, and then I’ll be in trouble.)

So now I just need to know when that whole nesting instinct is supposed to kick in. Because I have a shitload of boxes to pack up, not to mention a bunch of rooms to paint and clean and a house to settle into, and I’m thinking the nesting thing would come in real handy right about now.

Are you kidding me right now? Pinch-nose Pouty-lips gets a freaking Oscar nod?! Gag me with a Smurf. I mean, there’s no way she’ll win, but gross. (And no, I haven’t seen her performance in that movie, and no, that IN NO WAY disqualifies me from judging it and her, thankyouverymuch.)

We’ve joined the bourgeoisie; we’re home-owners. (Or, as my sister said on the phone: “you’re homos!”) Although the owners took about 6 hours longer than they were supposed to to actually get all of their stuff out, overall the closing was blissfully uneventful. All the papers are signed; all the money is allocated; it’s really ours. Now we have about a month to clean (and oh, BOY does it need cleaning!), paint, and mess with it before we move in. These are the times when I’m frickin’ relieved I have family near by. Chicks who are 7 months pregs can’t do as much as they would otherwise like to do when it comes to fixing up houses, but thankfully Mr. Squab won’t be left to do it all on his own. We’ll post some before and after pix as we proceed. I’m excited to see it all come together … and even MORE excited not to be sharing walls!!!!!! I’m less excited about the mortgage payment that will come due in March … but c’est la vie.

On Average, You Would Sell Out For

$1,084,347

Via Activist Monkey, who is MUCH cheaper than I am.

Minneapolis is the #3 city in the country when it comes to having a baby, according to Fit Parenting (Portland and Boston are #1 and 2). Affordability is high, mortality and c-section rates are low, and breastfeeding statutes are progressive. The bad news: we have especially high hospital rates … so that will be something to look forward to. Anyway, go check out the site and see where your city ranks.

This post is about the best statement I’ve ever read as to why “mommy blogging” is important:

“… I started blogging partly out of a need to construct a new public identity for my self now that I was a mother. A blog can be like a mirror and I needed to see a reflection of a person I still recognized there after all the changes I’d been through. Because I wasn’t finding myself anywhere else. All the media representations of moms that I saw made us look like simpleminded, coupon-hoarding, minivan-driving, sexless, suburban freaks. Yet somehow I cherished a spark of hope that even if you were a white middle-class stroller pusher that didn’t mean that you were incapable of constructing a nuanced opinion on a topic focused beyond the confines of your own ass.”

My mom just used the term “LOL” in a comment on another blog.

For some reason, this makes me feel old.

Discuss.

So here’s my question: why is it that, for the most part, I don’t feel like I have to pee as long as I’m sitting down, but as soon as I stand up – even if I’ve just gone to the bathroom – whammo! pee city? This is leaving aside the issue of how Hoss can aim his or her kicks directly into the center of my bladder on a repeated basis while apparently having little to no actual limb control. But the sitting/standing thing I don’t get. It’s fricking annoying! I’ll be all like, yeah, I don’t have to pee, so I can just sit here until my meeting/lunch date/appointment, and then when I stand up and am, like, PEEEEEE! I’m already running late and don’t have time to run to the bathroom. Stupid bladders.

But I am REALLY waddling now. This is what I look like walking around, only with a smaller nose and a cuter butt:

Work is kicking my ass today, so I may not get around to posting. Just thought you’d enjoy the visual.

Today is the 33rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and between Dear Leader declaring the day “National Sanctity of Human Life Day” and the seemingly inevitable appointment of Samuel Alito to the supreme court, these are dark days for choice in the US. We’ve had less than a generation of reproductive choice being guaranteed by law, and even that right is being slowly eroded in many states by anti-choice lawmakers creating so many restrictions that the “choice” is really only available to the most priveleged of women. I strongly, passionately believe that we can never have true gender equality – we can never have gender equality of any kind, in fact – without total reproductive freedom. It saddens me beyond description that my future children, nieces and nephews, students and friends, could very well grow up in a country where safe abortions are not available. Maybe we deserve this. Maybe, as a society, we have to go back to the days of back-alley abortions, of losing our sisters’ and daughters’ lives in the most brutal of ways, before we can remember once again how critical this right is to a free, open and equal society. Maybe. But it really pisses me the fuck off that we women are the ones that have to pay that price.

(See Bush v. Choice for more blogging on the anniversary.)