cankles what?

a quickie post to satiate the needs of my readers. and to those four people that read this on a regular basis, please accept my most sincere apologies. i didn't know you existed, lol.

so here we go - in no order of importance, just as they come to me - one paragraph (or less) on the things that are happening in my life.

pootie: so despite all our best efforts, kingsley did not win the cutest canine contest. i appreciate all (one) of you that voted with me. he missed the mark by about 6,300 votes, give or take. i think the whole thing was rigged but i'm not clamoring for a recount. he was disappointed, momentarily, and then i gave him a new chew bone and now all is well in the world of the pootie. we've moved on to more important things, like trying to teach him that the big bed is for mommy and daddy and the floor (complete with pillows and a blanket, he's hardly suffering) is for kingsley. now, just so you don't leave here thinking that i've suddenly decided to walk the hard line with the dog, this was 100 percent the bee's idea. but when we woke up this morning, there was the pootie, wedged in between us in the bed, his blanky abandoned on the floor. score: pootie 1, bee 0.

work: it's no secret that i hate my job. i'm pretty open about my discontent with giant conglomerate bank and their policies on this and that, namely their policy that requires me to show up on a regular basis. it's also no secret that i've pushed my boss to his limit as far as my absences and his patience are concerned. so when it was suggested to me that "i should just quit" yesterday, i wasn't really that shocked. however, i was left wondering what exactly i had to do to get fired. i've never known anyone with an attendance record or even a performance record such as mine that wasn't fired. but me - can i get canned? oh heck no. when i went in for my exit interview with the center manager, not only was i encouraged to stay - he approved my short term personal leave, my short term disability leave, my fmla leave and pretty much said "come back when you want to." you've got to be kidding me. um, okay. sign me up. :) so now, i don't have to go back to work at giant conglomerate bank until the end of the summer - if i decide to go back at all.

bwahahahaha... sometimes it is good to be the janel.

the bee: oh the bee. the bee, the bee, the bee. some days i love him, some days i hate him. some days i want to run him over with the car. since our last quarrel, which has been about four days, things have been okay. we've been to baby school a couple more times, we survived the holiday (although that meant not communicating over the easter weekend while we ate dinner with our respective families). last night he was talking in his sleep and told me to "move over, cankles." what a peach. i have noticed, much to my chagrin, that if i pacify the bee with niceties that i'm more successful in getting what i want. now don't misunderstand - these aren't over the top niceties i'm providing here. we're talking about my not arguing, not having the last word, making dinner on a regular basis and pretty much just being a nice person. why do i find this so demoralizing? i'm not sure. it's hard for me to be nice sometimes. and then i remember that *i* picked *him* and i'm the only one responsible for my happiness in life. so if i can do little things that make life easier and happier i'd be stupid not to, right? right. i find that when i'm nice to him - SHOCKER! - he's nicer to me and the world continues to turn, just at a far less dramatic angle.

my mom: once again, my mom has been right about several things. she knows what they are and you already know she's smart. but i should take her advice on a more regular basis; day to day life would be easier.

the ice cream store: i don't talk about the ice cream store here often, except to say that 1) i heart ice cream and 2) i heart ice cream from the ice cream store. what i've not told you here is that i've always wanted to try my hand at running (or in this case, co-running) the ice cream store. remember what i told you about giant conglomerate bank and my leaves of absence? do you see where this is going? yup, it's headed to pella. it's in the works that prior to arrival of baby brodie and after my period of recuperation i'll be (partly) in charge of the ice cream store, along with my bestie nigel. i'm way excited about this, and not just in terms of the amount of ice cream i'll be consuming (lots!). a week from tomorrow is our opening day, just in time for the big tulip festivus for the rest of us and there's a lot to do but i'm looking forward to the challenge.

baby brodie: we're only 29 days out, ladies and gents. can you believe that? do you remember when i first broke this news last september? that seems so far away now, it's unbelievable that it's nearly may now. at this point, whenever i go into labor they're not going to stop it. so he could come tomorrow, he could come a month from now. and while i'm huge (seriously, a barn) and i'm uncomfortable (not back of a volkswagon uncomfortable, but pretty freaking close), i want this kiddo to take all the time he wants to bake to perfection. (ask me about this in two weeks and especially while i'm slinging ice cream at tulip time; my answer may be different.) but all the doctors i've seen have said that things are progressing as they should and in the words of one doctor, "this is gonna be a big baby."

and that's about it, that's all i've got for now. i'm gonna go start some dinner (chicken parmigiana, YUM!) and get cleaned up - we have more baby school tonight. this class is all about diapers - cloth diapers and the diaper service we're signing up for. it's not that we don't already know how diapers work but going to class gets us two free weeks of diaper service and if it's free, it's for me. i've been feeling especially crafty today - beyond making a big italian dinner and growing a person, i've also made my own laundry detergent. laugh if you want to (mom) but it smells really good. i might just start doing laundry for the fun of it.

right.

playing catch up. again.

and so begins another one of those posts where i relate the last nearly two weeks of my life to you in retrospect. if i were a good blogger, which i used to be, i would have kept you up to date and i wouldn't have to have such a long-winded post. but since i know that many of the people that come here go to see what my mom has to say if there's nothing new written, i feel like you're all pretty much up-to-date. that said, maybe i can turn this into an espn-like highlights (or low lights, really) post and we can all move on with the now.

know what i mean? here we go... (and these are in chronological order, not at all an order of importance.)

the bee came back last sunday, october 26. it started out as him coming over to talk. just talk. then he was going to stay the night but i made him sleep on the sofa. and at 4am i found him in bed and i was cuddled up next to him. it was one of those things that just happened.

we had our nt scan and our first trimester screening on monday, october 27. the ultrasound was incredible - it looks like baby is doing well. (we're still calling it wal-mart because i refuse to assign a gender just yet.) wal-mart measured well - the doctor said that there was nothing to be seen on the u/s images that concerned her. and hearing her say that made me feel so much better, i can't explain the relief that gave me. i was so stressed about that appointment that when we got home i just fell asleep. it was barely 6pm and i was in bed.

same day, i'm still in bed but it's 11pm and the phone is ringing. this is never good. my mom calls to tell me that my grandma has passed. this is one of those things that you think you're prepared for - you think you've got it under control - and then it happens and you realize that control is a fallacy and you've really got nothing under your thumb but air. because on some level i thought i was ready for this to happen but it turns out i was wrong.

now i'm a pretty cognizant 28-year-old. i was aware of the pain and the suffering that she was going through and i knew she was ready to go. but it dawned on me that there would be no more holidays, no more birthdays, no more phone calls or text messages or trips to grandma's house, in fact it won't even be grandma's house anymore - as soon as i realized that this was it - it was final and it was over and she was gone - i wanted her back. i wanted more time, more of everything. i wanted to go back and appreciate her more, appreciate what i'd had more and it just couldn't happen. i really felt like i'd missed out - i felt bad for not going to see her or calling her or just being more of a good grand kid.

the whole week was hard - family was in town and sometimes the family dynamics get in the way of the real purpose that we're together. but for the most part we pulled it together and had a beautiful memorial service to celebrate the incredible woman that my grandma was. and not only did the majority of the family make it down for the service, but so many of my grandma's friends and acquaintances did too - and there were so many people that i hadn't seen in years or i'd never met at all - to think that the woman that i loved so much was also loved by so many people was amazing. i was still sad - i'm still sad now - but it made me feel good to know that i wasn't the only one who was going to miss her.

the most difficult part of the week was not being able to help my momma. she was so close to my grandma, in spite of the distance from one home to another and the illness that had left my grandma just a shell of her former self. i can't imagine the pain of losing a parent. i've not experienced it and i wish i didn't have to. i understand the whole "circle of life" thing and i know that chances are, i'll bury my parents. it's what kids do. it's how life works, or how it's supposed to work. but it doesn't make it any easier. just like my mom is my rock, my grandma was solid for my mom when things got hard. and even though gram was sick and mom knew it would happen someday, it didn't soften the blow when the time arrived. i don't know what it's like to not be able to talk to my mom or be able to go see her or call her for advice or just know that she's there. all i could do was tell her i was sorry, that i missed grandma too and that i loved her. and it didn't feel like enough. it still doesn't feel like enough.

my grandma was a great lady and i loved her a lot. i still do. in my mind, she's 53 years old. she makes pizza meatballs and grilled cheese and loves her country music and my grandpa. she lets me come over and eat nothing but pillsbury cinnamon rolls and frosted mini wheats all weekend long and i get to stay up late and watch tv and color all over every blank sheet of paper in her house. it's okay when i spill bright pink nail polish on the floor (even though the stain never came out). when my grandpa was out of town, i used to sleep in her bedroom and fall asleep to reruns of newhart and coach. and as i got older, she didn't seem to age. she was still the same to me - and even now, that's how i'm going to remember her.

i miss her.

that was pretty much all of last week. i tried to get back into the my necessary routine of sleep and awake, work and home and doing it again the next day but i feel like i'm still getting back into that routine and i haven't mastered it yet.

the bee is still here and we're doing a lot better. i know that he loves me and i know that i love him but sometimes we can't communicate and we're working on that. but i do know we're on the same page as far as the baby is concerned and after the last few days, that's a good thing.

remember that nt scan and first trimester screening i had done? the doctor's office called on monday morning with the news that it came back positive - which is abnormal - and that i was at high-risk for having a baby with Down syndrome. instead of 1:1053, which is normal for my age, and instead of 1:220, which is the normal risk cutoff, i came back at 1:23, which is definitely concerning. so concerning that i, of course, was in hysterics and call the bee home from work and call my mom to have her calm me down. all the pregnancy books i have don't have a lot of positive information on first trimester screening or Down syndrome and this puts me in more of a funk than before, so for the moment they're all tucked away under the bed.

my first thought is "why me? why again? why can't things be easy or normal?" and as if that wasn't bad enough, i started thinking about all the things i know about Down syndrome, which isn't a lot at all, and they're all stereotypes anyway and this gets me even more upset. but the one thing i do know - and there was never a doubt about this in my mind - is that this doesn't change my mind about the fact that WE ARE HAVING A BABY. it may not be perfect (but what baby is?) and it may be harder than i thought (but i know that was going to be the case regardless) but this is still OUR BABY and it's going to be loved, no matter what.

the bee and i met with a perinatolgist last night that discussed our options for us. and since terminating this pregnancy is not an option for me and the idea of hurting or harming wal-mart doesn't turn me on either, we've decided against the cvs testing (which can be harmful to the baby and painful for me) and we're going to take a less invasive route. we're going with a series of ultrasounds to look for soft markers (or physical characteristics) of Down syndrome.

and the rest, i've decided, is up to God. it's either there or it's not, you know? and while having the invasive testing done would give us a definitive yes, there is D/S or no, there is not D/S, it's not a guarantee that there wouldn't be other things wrong that we hadn't prepared for. so in my eyes, any way we go is a surprise. there could be nothing, there could be lots of things. it could be less severe than D/S, it could be worse. but in the end, it's still a baby. it's still our baby. and it's still a miracle.

before i had a piece of paper in front of me that told me that i was high-risk, i was still high-risk. but i didn't know and therefore didn't care. i'm still going to be excited about this baby and this pregnancy and try to soak it all in because it won't be that long before it's over. yup, i'm getting fat and my momma had to take me shopping for new clothes because none of mine fit anymore. and that's okay with me. this journey is amazing and i wouldn't give it up for the world.

so right now, i'm a little sad, a little scared and a lot excited. this friday is 13 weeks and we're almost out of the first trimester. go wal-mart go! and i'm hungry for convenience store nachos with lots of jalepenos and cheese and a cherry coke. but that's for later.

so much for an espn-like post, huh?

and that is the end of that.

i purposely avoided saying anything yesterday, but i heard from the bee. phone calls and text messages. apparently the idea of my leaving finally got to him - he felt compelled to contact me, for whatever reason. so 2am on sunday morning, there he was. luckily for me, i was sleeping. but i woke up to "u don't know what you mean 2 me" and "i know you think i'm an asshole, but you don't have any idea what that loss, and your leaving, is doing to me. i had it good and i didn't know it..."

i texted back: "who is this?"

we talked last night. we talked about all the reasons he didn't come through for me, which really, he gave me none. his excuses were paltry and pathetic - he stammered and hemmed and hawwed and i know nothing more than i knew a week ago - but i feel better because he knows that i suffered. and i am suffering. he knows that i don't need him to get through this, because i'm recovering, and i can't say the same for him.

he claims he never said the awful and horrible things that i was told he said. i let him tell me that without arguing to the contrary. he is notorious for saying things and then "forgetting" that he said them. whatever makes him feel better. obviously those words weren't meant for my ears, but that's beside the point.

i came clean about a lot of things, and childish or not, it's a load off my shoulders. he replied with hateful words, which i knew that he would, and i didn't let it bother me. because a) i know the truth and i know he knows the truth and b) there was no good to come out of this conversation in the first place. i wasn't looking for some miracle reconciliation, in fact, i was really hoping it wouldn't turn into that. i guess i was just looking for civility, which i got for a while, but ended when he turned vulgar and hung up.

some things will never change. but at least they won't be my issues to deal with in the future. i'm washing my hands of the situation and it feels good to do so.

and so that is that. coming back next month and moving out of the apartment, i'll have to decide whether or not to contact him - he left a couple of things there that i know he still really wants. i could be a bitch and let him buy them back on ebay. or i could just leave them on his parent's porch. we'll see.

today i'm headed to the big city with my momma for some lunch and some shopping. apparently in order to shop we have to get her half schnockered, which she says actually works to my advantage. i'll let you know how this works out. but i need a few things from my apartment, and i'd like to clean out some baby-related items as well, to add to the collection mom is keeping for me. i don't know where any of it is, but i've asked that she keep all my momentos in one spot. one day i'll want them, i'll be able to look at them. i just can't do it right now.

have a good day. thanks for looking in on me. i'm still here. :)