Saturday, September 29, 2007

I don't care

I am so happy right now. It's not a hormonal fluctuation. I am at peace, I am calm. All is well with the world; the earth is no longer in danger of spinning off its axis and hurtling through space because Bill came out this morning.
Bill is a general contractor who can install the drywall, prime and texture the drywall, install the bathroom tile then hang the doors and as a bonus he can even find us a person to prime the entire basement (prime with paint, not the drywall primer).
Sure there are lots of people who can do the same things that Bill says he can do. BUT what sets Bill apart is that he can start next week and it will only take him 10 days to do all of the work. Even better is his rough estimate. Sure, his rough estimate could go up but it's low enough that I don't care.
Yes, we know that you shouldn't go with the lowest bid - we haven't had all of the bids come in yet but I know his will still be the lowest. Know what else I know?
I don't care that his bid is the going to be the lowest. I don't care if his work is probably not going to be that of a master craftsman. That is what texture on the walls is for. His mistakes will probably the same as Ryan and I would make. I can live with our mistakes and since he's cheap enough I can live with his mistakes.
Happy, happy, joy, joy!
I should probably wait until we get the official bid tonight or tomorrow before celebrating but like I've been saying, "I don't care!"

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Fighting Nature (Is a Losing Battle)

How does one know when nesting kicks in? I'm putting it forth the question for you to think about. I found out last night. I know nesting kicked in because it kicked me. Hard. Just ask Ryan.

In my previous post I said I was kind of sad about the possibility of the basement not being finished in time but I was not going to tell Ryan how I felt because what good would that do?

It turns out that holding your feelings in - putting them in the proverbial box, pushing them down, bottling them up, etc., doesn't work out in the long run. Who knew? It really doesn't work for a woman a month away from giving birth when nesting sneaks up behind her and cracks her across the head with a 2x4.

The conversation with my beloved started out like any normal, rational conversation would. I approached him while he relaxed on the couch after a long days work and doing some more work in the basement after he got home. I simply stated I was concerned about the basement and being able to get the baby's room done. Poor Ryan; he is not Mary Poppins. He can snap his fingers all day long but nothing is going to magically happen. He would just look like a snappin' fool. He let me know he too, is stressed too about the whole situation but reminded me that if the basement didn't get finished and the baby's room remained as is the world wouldn't end, no one would die. Everything he said was logical and rational.

Everything I felt went against reason and logic. The world was going to come to a crashing halt if the baby's room wasn't finished. At one point I told Ryan I wanted to rent a moving truck and take everything we moved into storage (so we could finish the basement) and in the soon to be baby's room, load it up and take it to the dump and just get rid of it.

We talked a little while longer and I said I was going to start calling contractors tomorrow to get bids on finishing the drywall, getting doors hung and the bathroom tiled. Thinking that I let it all out - tears and the hyperventilating and hiccoughing and the arm gesticulations of a wild woman - I went into the baby's room to "see what I can throw away."

Standing in front of the 7' tall Ikea boxy shelving unit I froze. All I saw was stuff. Stuff I couldn't get rid of. It was all stuff that we needed, paperwork from the purchase of the house, curtains to use in the basement, Ryan's sheet music, baby gifts.

A single tear welled up in my eyes then was immediately followed by a river. The river was met with a sniffle then a sob. Poor, poor Ryan. He came in and gave me a hug. What else could he do? Talk sense into me?

Nature waged a battle against me last night and it won. I hate knowing full well the reason I'm a basket case is because nature is trying to get me to physically prepare my space for our child and I can't do anything about it.

Well, I did do something about it today. I lined up three contractors to come out and give us bids on the work we want done. I have two appointments tomorrow and one on Friday. Hopefully their prices are reasonable.

Oh, and Ryan gave me a boost in spirits when he told me Ed will be in next week to finish installing the drywall (he still won't have time to do the mudding and taping - that is where the other contractors come in).

I feel so much better. Nature is bossing me around and I can't physically do anything about it but I can hire someone who can do something about it.

Today after work I picked up Ryan and we went to the local home improvement warehouse and picked out a bathroom vanity, faucet and other accessories like, the toilet paper holder and towel rack. Ah. Well, we have to actually purchase them but before we do we are going to look on e-bay and try and find a better deal on the faucet.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Excused

Nothing big to post today but I started training my replacement. She gets two full weeks of training. We all know it's overkill - I'm a receptionist and as great as I am at my job and as much as everyone loves me (they do, they really really do) it's not rocket science. Everyone agreed that it is better to have two weeks of training than none because if something happened, like I had to go on bed rest or Monster Jr. decided to come a month early then the office would be up a creek.

My replacement is nice. She has a cat that looks just like Gwen (fat, fluffy and white) - I have 'My Pictures' rotate on my computer monitor as a screen saver so she got to see a lot of my family and animals. Lucky her.

This may come as a shock but I'm actually a bit sad about my time in my office coming to an end. Sure, I grumble about my job and how boring it can be but I've been going to that office day in a and day out for over 2 years. When I joined it was a lot smaller and I was able to make a difference in the day to day operations since there are only 3 full time employees.

I'm going to miss seeing the agents everyday although I'm keeping my license there I know I'm not going to be anywhere near as much as when I was trying to make a go of it selling real estate. By the way, my license is active. If anyone knows someone buying or selling real estate I can do the footwork of finding the agent for you. What's in it for you? I interview the agents and try to find someone that would be a good fit for you based on your needs and personality. I know tons of agents in the Seattle and Portland/Vancouver Metro area. Outside of the area I can do a lot of the ground work for you. What's in it for me? Since half the work of being a real estate agent is finding clients when someone offers you up a ready buyer or seller they are so appreciative they will give you a referral fee. See, win-win.

******
Ryan doesn't think the basement is going to be finished in time for the baby. I'm really sad about this but am trying to keep it to myself (well, except for publishing how I feel about it on the world wide web - he doesn't read this blog so no fear of him finding out about it here). He works so hard at his day job then he comes home to work on the basement in the evenings and on the weekends that I don't want to nag him or make him feel bad because he has nothing to feel bad about. He should be really proud of all of the work he has done since he had to learn as he went along.

Once the insulation is in then he wants to find someone to come in and knock the rest of it out. It seems like there isn't much left to do but in reality there is a lot. Before carpet can be installed the doors have to be hung which is a time consuming process then before the bathroom can be completed the tile needs to go in and since the floor is smooth but not exactly level (it's in an old basement so everything is kind of sloped) we had to buy small tile which takes longer to put in because there are more tiles and therefore more cuts and more tiling and more grouting. Once the tile goes in then the toilet and sink can go in but not a moment earlier. Then the wet bar area has to go in and the cabinets and counter top and sink installed. Once all of that is done then we need to put in the trim, putty the trim then paint the trim then paint the walls THEN put in the carpet then pull everything from storage and give it a home in the basement.

It's kind of sad that I'm going to have so much time off next month but won't be able to help out in the basement. I tried to some work yesterday but after 5 minutes of vacuuming up dry wall dust (I was wearing a mask) my back was screaming at me to stop. I'm a useless lump right now. The only thing I can do is play the part of incubator. I thought I could do the insulation because I insulated the whole kitchen one night in just a couple of hours last Spring - I really thought I could do the same in the basement but no such luck. : (

We are going to have to figure out something to do with the stuff in the baby's room if we don't finish the basement because I will FREAK OUT if I don't have adequate time to make the baby's room into a cutesy nursery. FREAK OUT, you hear me? FREAK OUT! We can't have it's closet jam packed full o' crap and have the computer and random sporting equipment in there and filing cabinets and the bookshelf full of stuff that is there by default because it gets it off the floor.

Oh, boy. Need to find my happy place.

Before I go find my happy place - the whole reason I started this post: being excused. A letter came from the King County Superior court today. My heart actually sank a little when I saw it because you are notified of an accepted request for an excuse by lack of response (kind of scary if you think about it. What if your request for an excuse was lost in the mail)? So, I read it fully expecting a statement along the lines of, "We don't care that you may deliver your baby in our grand courtroom; excuse denied." Instead it said the case was dismissed for which I had been summoned and was for that reason excused.

Third summons, third time off the hook. Now watch when I'm retired and have all the time in the world there will not be a summons.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Moo

Our second all about baby class was yesterday. We arrived a few minutes early so we walked across the street from the hospital and grabbed a cup of coffee for me and cocoa for Ryan. I only felt mildly guilty for walking in to a room full of pregnant women with my hand wrapped around a cup of warm caffeinated goodness. Only slightly. I saw a couple of other women with the juice, too.

To take away all caffeine from a pregnant woman is wrong. It should be a crime. For the woman who consumes caffeinated beverages before she is pregnant it would be doubly hard to give it up cold turkey during pregnancy.

Why, the first 12-14 weeks kick off your pregnancy with out of this world fatigue. Alcohol is easy to give up during this period. It is a depressant and while the woman is (usually) thrilled to be beginning her journey into motherhood there is no energy to even lift a glass of the spirits to your tired lips. The woman does manage to eek out just enough strength to put her one daily allowance of coffee to her lips and sip the rich bitter-sweet nectar that will give her just enough energy to keep her worried co-workers from calling the paramedics. The co-workers are sweet to be so concerned about your health and the death-warmed-over look on your pale face with droopy eyelids.

The second trimester alcohol is still easy to not partake of. The I-never-want-to-get-out-of-bed fatigue from the first Trimester is usually gone and replaced with I-want-to-get-back-in-bed-at-4-in-the-afternoon fatigue. You feel like a new person because you can hold your head up at your desk - it's weird how your head weighs 30 pounds in the first tri and goes back to normal after that.

Alcohol starts calling back to the mother-to-be during the third trimester. It's not the fatigue, the aches and pains but the ADVICE. All of the advice that drives mom-to-be to want to drink her Bailey's Irish Cream straight from the bottle.

If I was less civilized I would sum up how I feel about that with a big fat juicy curse.

It's not all advice from all women that drive me, er, the pregnant woman mad. Advice from your new mom girlfriends, great. They tell you what did and did not work for them. It's from the moms (and worse, childless woman and men) who tell you what to do.

First, I'm on edge at all times. I'm a wee bit of a wench. So back off! If I have a question I will ask. If you want to offer a suggestion, great. Give it as a suggestion and not as the Gospel truth.

Second, if you ask me how I'm doing and I say, "Fine." Take it. If you say, "Really? I don't believe you." Then I will tell you how I really am: tired, grumpy and in pain. IF you pulled that out of me do NOT proceed to tell me how good I have it compared to your pregnancy and say that I have nothing to complain about.

Insert cursing here.

Third, if you are the person who drags out of me how I'm feeling and you ask how I am the very next day don't be surprised if my answer is, "Does it really matter?"

Grr.

Well, that rant went on long enough.

After reviewing my posts I realized I haven't written a lot that is positive about pregnancy.

Here are April's highlights of carrying the miracle of life inside her abdominal cavity:

1. I wanted a baby and God gave me one.
2. People let me cross the street at a snails pace and still smile at me.
3. I get to take as many naps as I want to when visiting family and on the weekends, no questions asked.
4. I get to put my feet up while other people fuss over me (it does take some getting used to but once you get used to it...)
5. You get to feel your baby move inside of you.
6. I have a cute belly.
7. I get to wear white canvas shoes with every piece of clothing I have, dresses included because nothing else fits my feet.
8. I'm the hot one now. (My built in furnace keeps me toasty).
9. People tell me I make a cute pregnant woman (it's nice to hear because I see a bloated version of my old self when I look in the mirror).
10. I get to meet my baby soon! I'm so excited to meet the little guy.
11. I am so blessed that I get to stay at home and raise my baby.

*******
I think I like the Korean way of age determination. When a baby is born it is already one year old. In our society you are born and are zero days old. After carrying the baby around for almost a year you realize it is alive and developing and when it enters the world it is new to the outside but it has still been alive for 9 1/2 months.

************
Ryan was able to attend the class yesterday. Ed couldn't work on Saturday so I didn't have to be the sad woman by myself.

Class was good. The first half was all about breastfeeding. Good times. There was a lot to be learned but it still made me feel like a cow. I have offspring which gets its nourishment from my body. Moo.

The instructor told a very funny story about her own experience with breast feeding. She and her husband were at a restaurant celebrating their wedding anniversary and their 2 month old daughter was at home with a sitter. Somewhere in the restaurant a baby started crying. Poor woman, she knew the baby in the restaurant wasn't hers but her brain didn't know so it sent some milk down for her to feed the stranger's crying baby. She had to two big wet spots on her silk blouse. She put her napkin over her chest and that too got wet.

I would be mortified. I think the morale of that story is to leave a clean shirt in your car at all times.

The second half of the class dragged. It was all about caring for the newborn. Bathing, diapering, keeping it safe. Blah, blah, blah. We learned when you should call the baby's doctor (anytime you have a question) and some funny ways of soothing a crying baby if nothing else works. Hopefully I'll remember their techniques because that one segment was probably worth coming for the whole day.

I made a funny in class. We were all given a sticky note with a 'problem' on it. We went around the room and said if we were supposed to call the doctor or not. No wet diaper for 7 hours, call the doctor. Temperature of 101, call the doctor. Mine was, "should you call the doctor if your baby has vaginal discharge." I said it's normal because of the mother's hormones being passed to baby. The instructor said, "Would you call the doctor?" Me: "Yes, I would call the doctor if my son had vaginal discharge."

Everyone laughed and the instructor said that was a good ending point. Woo-hoo. We didn't want class to run long since it was a 6 1/2 hour class.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

So much to learn - so much I don't need to see

We took our first childbirth class last Saturday. It covered just about everything except conception - if anyone needed help with that then they are in serious trouble. We got to learn all about the stages of labor and saw lots of fun charts showing how often contractions are and how intense they are at each of the four stages of labor. Each stage of labor had a woman's face to show her emotional state. The face starts out with a big smile - she's happy because labor has started and, hey! It's not that bad. Then the faces become more and more disconcerting. The last face is shows a woman who looks like Satan incarnate; she is obviously not enjoying labor.

The instructor also showed some old videos; so old they were on cassette. Hm, I remember watching film in class on the old film reel. That dates me. Anyway, the video. It was an old tape that had been played many times and had some wear and tear on it. The instructor forewarned us that the beginning of the video was shaky but it was not the tape it was a problem with the TV.

Let me see, if the problem always occurs at the same time during video I don't think it is a problem with the TV. The video started and the picture starting shaking and doing all sorts of things that made me kind of nauseous but it was brief. I turned to Ryan and whispered, "Remember, it's not the tape, it's the TV. There must be a little man behind the TV shaking it." We quietly snickered trying to not draw attention to ourselves.

We saw video of women during each stage of labor. The first ones we watched were of women who were having a natural vaginal birth. We saw the fun loving oohs and ahhs of the first stage of labor then saw the women in pain in the final throes of labor. Its funny they don't show video of women who scream and swear. I would not be a good candidate for the video as I imagine I would not be one of the women who quietly groan while pushing a watermelon out of her body.

My favorite part of the video was the segment they showed of the women who had epidurals. They went through the first two stages of labor and experienced enough pain for them to realize they didn't want to experience more pain so they had an epidural. The transformation is amazing. They felt enough to push but not enough to push them over the edge of sanity. That is what I want. I don't mind some pain. I just don't want pain that will make me cry and ask God to kill me, kill me now!

My least favorite part, even worse than the women in all of the pain was actually watching the baby be born. Gross. I've seen 2 'normal' births and one Cesarean. I thought those were gross, too. But, April! You say. It is a miracle. I agree, the whole process of a new life being created and carried around in your belly IS a miracle. It just so happens that the end part of the miracle is GROSS.

I don't need to see a human come out of a human. I certainly don't need to see a placenta come out of a human. Ryan really didn't appreciate that part of the video. I'm surprised he didn't close his eyes.

The funniest part of the video occurred right after the grossest part. The seconds old newborn was placed on his mother's chest and she looked down at the new center of her universe and said in a sweet, breathy voice, "Oh, Rodger! (pause) He doesn't look like a human." The whole class cracked up. Her baby was one ugly creature - all blue and white and covered in yuck.

Oh, boy! I can't wait for my turn!

I'm sure the mail readership is not so happy with this post right now.

Tough cookies.

If the woman is in pain the man can at least stomach some of the gory details because, as the saying goes, it takes two to tango.

We have another all day class this Saturday, "Preparing for Postpartum" (meaning the time after you deliver the baby). Unfortunately Ryan may not be able to attend this class. Ed, Ryan's soccer buddy who is a contractor by day and was going to do the drywall in our basement, fell ill the week he had set aside time to work in our basement. Fortunately Ed is able to come on Friday and Ryan is going to take the day off to help Ed as Ryan picked 5/8" drywall for the ceiling in an effort to minimize sagging and to help reduce noise transmission between the two floors. 5/8" drywall is SUPER heavy. Super. Duper. I think one sheet weighs 200 pounds. Ryan is going to be super duper sore on Sunday. He'll probably be really sore on Saturday but he's going to stick around to help Ed do more work on the basement so he'll just have to wait until Sunday to decompress. I was really upset when I realized he was going to miss the class on Saturday. I think this is the one that is all about bringing baby home. Kind of an important class.
I threw a small fit when I realized I had to choose between Ryan taking the class and work being done on the basement (most all of my fits are small and involve whining and a few tears - the bigger the fit the more the tears).

I'm going to be all by my lonesome in class. I'll get the conspicuous but trying to be inconspicuous stares from the other couples. Oh, well.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Summons!

Today I received a notice of Jury Summons. This summons makes my total Jury Duty summons three. I'm to report to Jury Duty on October 31st. I think that just maybe I will be granted an excuse from service since my due date is November 5th. If they don't grant me an excuse I will waddle down to the courthouse in person on the 31st (if I haven't given birth at that point) and see what they do. I imagine it would be quite amusing.

The first time I was called to jury duty I was in school so I had a great excuse; I would flunk my classes if I had to serve. Two years ago I was called to serve on a grand jury. That would have been quite the experience. The term of service calls for 2 days every other week for 18 months and since it is in a Federal Court the jurors are called from all over the state. There were people from Vancouver, east of the Cascades and as far north as Bellingham that were compelled to serve; fortunately for me the Federal courthouse in Washington is in downtown Seattle - it's just a short bus ride away. I was really hoping I would be a juror but I wasn't called - it was a random draw of the 50 or so jurors called. I was alternate #30 or 40 something.

If I was a lawyer I wouldn't pick me to be a juror, though. I watch entirely too many crime shows for my good. What they show on TV about the processes of gathering and processing evidence like blood, fibers, etc. can't be how the process really works. It doesn't seem likely that a fingerprint can be matched in minutes and a complete DNA report be run while coworkers share witty banter for 30 seconds.

I'm kind of disappointed in TiVo right now. It knows I like the crime shows but does it record them? No. What does it record instead? Lame decorating shows from HGTV which has to one of the most boring stations out there; it's up there with the station that airs live feed from the House and Senate. Snoozefest.

I should read a baby related book instead of watching TV but they are so boring. Labor positions, pain management, blah, blah, blah. Ooh, I need to fill out my birth plan. All I care is that my baby is healthy and well cared for and that I experience as little pain as possible.

Hmph. I am so grumpy right now. I'm bored but there is plenty to do, like read about how painful labor is going to be or about how exhausting the first 6 weeks after birth are. There is a messy kitchen and dining room table but I don't want to clean because I'm tired but not tired enough to go to bed; besides, reflux has kicked in and we had Mexican food for dinner so I couldn't lay down even if I wanted too. There is nothing good on the boob tube, I've already read Swell and Sheepie's updated blog; Gilda's not updating her blog but once a month and Matt and Crina aren't updating theirs because they are new parents and have better things to do than entertain me. Ryan is reading the last Harry Potter book because he's too tired to do anything else after working 12+ hour days this week, Gwen is meowing at our bedroom door so she can eat Bob's food and the dog sleeping on her bed. My usual entertainment is otherwise occupied.

And to make matters even worse, I want ice cream and we only have one lousy orange Otter Pop in the freezer that I missed during the June heatwave. Lame.

I should go to bed and get lots of rest for our day long childbirth class tomorrow. Hmm, I should probably pack snacks since I don't think they are provided. Who holds a class for a group of hungry, hungry preggos and doesn't provide snacks? That's crazy talk. Oh, boy. I hope nesting doesn't kick in this weekend because Sunday I go to Vancouver for a baby shower and come back Monday then back to work on Tuesday.

How are we going to finish everything that has to be done before the baby comes?! How? I have mountains of papers go through and sort before my last day of work and before the basement has walls because once the basement has walls we have to clean up all of the construction mess, dismantle the pool table, paint walls, install carpet, move everything from storage into the basement and put it in it's rightful place THEN we can start on the baby's room.

OK. I'm officially freaking out, now! I feel like the house has to be completely spotless and put together before the baby comes because once he comes I will have zero time to do it. Besides our moms are going to be coming up to help with the baby and it gives me an ulcer to think about them cleaning my house - aside from helping with 'normal' household stuff. I don't want to freak out everytime they go to the linen closet or try to find a trash bag under the kitchen sink.

Then the holiday blitz will be here within weeks of Juniors' birth. There will be cards to send out, office parties to attend, birth announcements to be sent out, presents to be bought and wrapped. Yikes!

I could really go for a cold Bailey's on the rocks right now. Sounds like it's time for April to find her happy place.

Goodnight.





Monday, September 03, 2007

Monster

Here I am at 31 weeks pregnant:


I had an appointment with my midwife last week when I was 30 and a half weeks pregnant. She measured me (from pubic bone to the top of the uterus - for those of you who care about the measurements). From about 25 or so weeks on the measurement, in centimeters, should be the same as the number of weeks pregnant you are so 25 weeks = 25 cm, 28 weeks = 28 cm. At my last appointment the tyke was a smidge over the number of weeks I was preggo. On Wednesday he was 4-5 cm over where he should have been!

Do you know what this means? My baby is HUGE. Sure, I'm kind of huge right now, too but nothing to make him a MONTH bigger than he should be. In fact, I lost 2 pounds between appointments. This was a good thing and cause for much celebration as I had been gaining too much weight. If I maintain my weight now I will end up at the desired weight gain for my pregnancy.

So, we know it is not something that I'm doing. I'm not feeding him steroids although I still eat too many carbs but not so much as to make him a little monster. My midwife wants to know exactly how big he is so I'm going in for an ultrasound next Tuesday. I'm kind of anxious to know how big he's going to be.

I've been told by a number of people, after I tell them that I'm growing a ginormous baby, "Well, maybe he'll sleep through the night earlier" or my favorite, "So, you're planning on having an epidural, right?"

Let's get something straight. The epidural will be wonderful for the labor and delivery but it ain't gonna help me one bit after I deliver a frickin' watermelon!

Oh! And since I'm doing a good job getting myself worked up let me lay into the people who loathe a woman who uses an epidural for pain management during labor. An argument I hear coming from this camp quite often is that is a perfectly natural life experience and women have been doing it for centuries without pain medicine, why look at all the women in Africa who give birth naturally all the time.

Well! Just this very afternoon I was talking to a Kenyan woman who gave birth to two children in Kenya. She was telling me how painful and horrible labor was when I told her I was going to have an epidural. She asked me what that was. I told her they stick a needle in your spine that essentially paralyzes you from the waist down. Her eyes got big and she said, "Really?" She said she wished she could have had an epidural.

Take that epidural haters! Just because women in third world countries deliver without the aid of drugs doesn't mean they don't want the drugs.

A pain free April = happy April. Happy April = happy Ryan. Happy April = happy nurses. April in pain = unhappy everyone else. I know everyone expects the laboring mother to be testy but I really think my mouth would get the better of me if I was in agony.

We discovered at my previous appointment that I was anemic. I got to add another iron pill to my daily regime of prenatal vitamin, fish oil and iron. Now I'm up to 3 iron pills a day. At the most recent appointment I complained that it felt like was breathing soup. My midwife did a 'peak flow' test to check out my lung capacity. It was pretty darn low. It was 85 points below normal but when taking into consideration pregnancy it was the at the absolute bottom of normal. So she prescribed an inhaler for me. It dilates my bronchioles (or something like that).
It is a miracle! I can breath again! I still get tired throughout the day but not so tired that typing is a chore.

Seriously. The day before I got the inhaler I was sitting at my computer at work typing something one-handed. My left arm was lying useless in my lap; it was too much effort and energy to have both arms resting on the desk and typing. There was a lot of work I had that could have been doing. It has been sitting on my desk for over a week. I would spend the first half of the day working on stuff that had to be done today and planned the second half of the day for work that needed to be done but not urgently. Well, once lunch time rolled around I would get so tired everything lost all sense of urgency. The day after I got my inhaler I tackled the pile of work that was sitting on my desk for over a week and got through all of it in one afternoon. It's amazing what oxygen can do for the body. Oxygen, it does a body good. And baby, too. His activity level picked up after I started taking the inhaler. When Mom's not getting enough O2 neither is baby.

The inhaler has not turned me into a woman of boundless energy. It has merely brought me from exhausted sloth level to a fatigued level.

Last night we spent at my mother's-in-law and I woke up every 90 to 120 minutes. After each waking I stay up longer and longer. Once I paddle to the bathroom after 4:30 it's all over; I'm guaranteed to be up for at least an hour. So I laid there last night playing Solitaire on Ryan's Nintendo DS at 4:30 in the absolute silence one can only experience in the country. The only thing that kept the room from feeling too foreign was the light my mother-in-law left on in the hall let enough light in our room to make it bright like the street light does to our room at home.

Solitaire is the only game I play at night because it doesn't stimulate my brain - it gives me something to do so I don't fixate on sleep and thereby chase it away. It eventually bores me back to sleep. I drifted off for another hour before crawling out of bed to join everyone else in the kitchen.

After scarfing down a plum, banana, some grapes, orange juice and two sourdough waffles (these waffles are so light and fluffy that two are as filling as one - really - they are light as air) I took my dishes to the sink and went back to bed for 2 1/2 hours. The only reason I got out of bed when I did was because company was due to arrive at 11:00 and I had to pee. Of course. It always comes down to the bladder.
No work for me tomorrow! I took Friday and Tuesday off to give me 5 days off in a row. : ) I'm not going to leave one minute of vacation time unused before I leave. I thought about just leaving 4 days earlier but why do that when I can make my last couple of weeks as short as possible? Last week was 4 days, this week will be 3 days and the following will be 4 as I'm taking next Monday off, too. I still have 4 hours of vacation time to schedule.
My office still hasn't hired anyone for my position. They have a candidate that they want to offer the job to but she has to meet one more person before they make her an offer but the person she needs to meet with has been out of town on business trips. They had better hurry and offer her the job before she takes another position elsewhere and they have to start over from scratch.
I shouldn't be too concerned because come October 5th it is none of my concern. If they want it to be of my concern it will cost them. : )