bustin' at the seams

no, literally.

i had to go buy a new bra today. the old ones just weren't cutting it anymore. i tried to get one last weekend at the maternity store, and silly me, i thought my regular (non-preggo) size at a maternity store would somehow be my size now.

as it turns out, those two numbers are not one and the same. in fact, i've gone from "just right" to "freaking obscene" and it's a little unnerving.

the one i bought today - i picked it out under the guise that i'd be returning it this weekend. there was no way this thing was going to fit, it's just not possible. when i put it in the cart, i was sure the checkout lady was going to mistake it for one of those green, eco-friendly shopping bags and try to put my gallon of milk in it.

apparently the preggo-boob fairy has other plans for me because that thing fit like a glove. a glove for giant preggo boobs. :(

and the one i bought last weekend? now i have a really nice maternity bra from the maternity store that i'll never wear - not because i don't want to wear it, it looks really comfy. i'll just never be able to wear it and not look like i have wrap-around back fat.

so even though i'm in an elastic waistband pant phase (which i may never leave, these are so comfortable!) i'll never ever be okay with wrap-around back fat.

and that's all i have to say about that.

parsley, unions, robert frost and tummy aches

this morning i drank milk out of a white plastic cup. i really dislike drinking milk out of a plastic cup but a white plastic cup is the worst - it makes my milk look yellow and sour and just generally unattractive. plus, this particular cup was really bad because once i drank enough milk to see the bottom of the cup, i realized that there's a big green thing stuck down there. yuck. i'm pretty sure it was parsley and not a booger, but it did kinda gross me out. and no, i don't make a habit out of drinking from dirty cups - my theory on this is that this is the result of the bee refusing to rinse dishes before he puts them in the dishwasher. so the spaghetti i had last week (with parsley in the sauce) probably found its way into my glass, which is why my milk wasn't really yellow-tinged this morning, but more of a greenish, mossy color.

yummy.

so the bee and i have done some discussing lately. most of our conversations have related to money and bills and preparing for the arrival of baby wal-mart. and we talk about my job and how i'm technically sort of overqualified for it and how i don't make enough money for the crap that i do and how i could be making more money if i'd just apply myself (those are all his words, not mine.) i talk mostly about how much i hate my job - and oh my goodness, i really do hate my job. the only challenge to my job anymore is either trying to find a good enough reason not to go or trying to find little things that i can do during the day to keep myself awake and presentable should the boss walk behind my cubicle.

basically that means that i'll stay home over something as exciting as tackling that dog puke stain on the steps with our new carpet cleaner. or if it happens that i've already used that excuse, then i'll see just how many people i can hang up on over the course of a day. i'll sign up for all the automatic dialer time that i can get during my shift and then not speak to a person, i'll just sit there and breathe into the phone.

anyway. i'm off track. so yeah, i hate what i do. the thing is - as it turns out, so does the bee. he's miserable in where he's working right now and somedays that boils down to a specific location and other days it means that he hates the company he works for.

have i ever told you that the bee is a union employee? (bring on the jokes about the breaks and the way long lunch hours - most of them are true.) yup, he's a union plumber and steamfitter. and he works for a good little company based in des moines. his benefits are awesome, his pay is awesome, and up until recently his job was pretty much the cat's pajamas. (i wanted to say the bee's knees but it's kind of overkill...)

but lately, he's been getting restless. the bee is a fifth-year apprentice in a union program and this is the year he "turns out" (to speak a little union-ese) and becomes a full-fledged journeyman in his trade (woohoo for raises!). and at that point he can pretty much work where ever he wants. for real. he could work in iowa and stay with the same local or he could move east or west, north or south and not have to worry about his rate of pay, benefits, what have you. its a pretty interesting thing they've got going, these union guys.

but the point of all this is that in a few months time, about the same time as the arrival of baby wal-mart, a whole new world of options is going to open up for him. almost literally. the timing isn't the greatest given that we'll have a brand new baby to contend with, but i can see in his face when we talk about this that he's really considering some changes.

i know what you're thinking. from the way i've carried on about the bee over the last year and a half, you think that he's never going to leave this place or his job or his mom. but to be perfectly honest, when i met the bee he informed me that we probably shouldn't get too involved as the time was coming when he was going to move to alaska and weld pipes in the great frozen tundra of the 49th state. and he was serious as hell, having completed most of the necessary paperwork and preparing to leave. (plans obviously changed last fall but there was talk of us moving to anchorage.) so i know he's got an itch to travel and to see and to experience things that he's never had a chance to do before.

and i think that's okay. it's never been my goal to live my life here. i've always wanted to live somewhere just a little bit warmer or maybe a little closer to a large body of water (saylorville lake just doesn't cut it for me anymore). and maybe i'm naive and stupid, but i truly don't think he's going to let us starve or live on the streets or have to panhandle to get milk for the little one. maybe moving would be good for us.

and then i reread all this and add in baby wal-mart and think that we've got to be crazy, to leave our support system and all our families and friends and the security we have here for the great unknown.

but it kind of seems like a wasted opportunity not to try, don't you think?

what's that quote? "two roads diverged in a wood and i-- i took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." but somehow i don't think asking myself what robert frost would do is going to solve this issue. (now maybe a solid "wwkd" - what would kathy do? that might work. sorry, inside joke.)

i really don't know. i don't know what will happen, i don't know where we'll end up. i guess having options can be a good thing.

but sometimes having too many options is like having too many cookies: it just gives me a stomachache.

this has got to be one of the cutest things ever...

now i know i'm hormonal and lots of things make me cry, but this really made me cry. this little girl is amazing.

i'm not eavesdropping, i have supersonic hearing

the bee and i had a late lunch at panera yesterday (and for anyone reading that *might* be a panera employee, it was the panera in [sp]ankeny and we need to coordinate on your schedule so i can get my bread stumps in a timely manner and we can all make the most of your employee discount...). but anyway. we were sitting at panera because even sick janel loves soup and bread and there was this adorable little family to the right of us - a mom and dad and two little girls. and the youngest was doing as young kids do, singing and talking loudly and trying to worm out of her seat. and you know what the mom turned to her and said?

(are you ready, because this cracks me up!)

"if you don't be good, i'm going to sell you to the gypsies."

what? for real? you just said that in public, lady? because that's awesome!

those are the kinds of things that kids remember when they're 28, almost 29-years-old. and those are the kinds of things they tell their friends after they're all grown up because they're so absurd and wrong (if not in a politically incorrect manner then just in a not-even-physically-possible manner) that they're just hilarious.

my mom was always telling me that "she brought me into this world and by god, she can take me out of it." yeah... NO. not without facing some serious consequences, lady. even as a kid, this used to make me giggle - long before i was aware of any legal consequences she might face but the idea of her trying to stuff me back in her tummy to take me out of this world was just funny to me.

and it still is.

my dad wasn't so much for empty threats. in fact, i don't remember my dad telling me anything really noteworthy over the years, beyond "don't wear purple shoes, they'll hurt your feet" or "save the whales: harpoon a fat chick." (i was in the 5th grade, you maroon! WTF?) i think my memories of my dad are a little warped.

now my grandma, my mom's mom? she was chock full of advice and quotes and other neat things that probably should have never been repeated outside of the house. like "a stiff penis has no conscience." that one has been in the family forever. she liked to give that advice before group dates and dances in the seventh grade.

nice, gram, thanks. now can you keep your voice down?

she was also known for "confucious say, man who stick hand in pocket feel silly. but man who stick two hands in pockets feel nuts." (you've got to imagine my grandma saying this with a fake asian accent. she did another accent too, a mexican accent, when she said that the only spanish she ever knew - or needed to know, thank you - "me llamo mickey." but she'd make this face and do this voice and "mickey" ended up sounding like "meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeckey." and it used to make me laugh.)

another quotable grandma moment? "it's okay to prick your finger but it's not okay to finger your prick." my brothers are still laughing about that one.

ahh, those were the days.

my mom's dad always used to call us kids "maynard" - as in "good stuff, maynard." (i say that all the time to the dog.) but his wife, our crazy cheese-sending grandma dorothy, had trouble with the basics, like names. she knew my name but for years called my brothers "greg and gordon." (their names are actually craig and jordan, but hey, grandma gets points for trying, right?)

anyway. all this is neat and fun but i was sitting there yesterday listening to this woman scar her children with threats of roaming, nomadic gypsies and i couldn't help but wonder what baby wal-mart will remember of me and the weird things that i say. if he could talk right now, i know he'd come out of the womb screaming at the dog to get down and asking if he got all his potties out. i tend to have serious conversations with the dog - i can hold his attention longer than i can hold the bee's... usually. especially when i'm holding food, but that tends to work on the bee too, so who knows. all i can say is that it's hard being the only female in this house sometimes. but whatever, boo hoo...

but i digress. it's just fascinating to me that this little person will be molded by the things that i say and that i do. and sometimes that gives me the heebie jeebies. like we need another superjanel around...

it's too cold for toast

it's too cold to blog. and i'm sick. i have the flu, i think. i'm fever-y and ache-y and all around uck-y. again, i'm home. my head would feel better if i weren't sitting here typing, staring at this screen, but i can't sleep and i have terrible heartburn. and so i sit. mom says this is what i get for playing hooky and she's probably right. but how was i supposed to know.

yesterday i had to take the bee to the er. he came home sick yesterday, complaining of a headache so bad he couldn't see. of course, hypochondriac that i am, my first thought was "oh holy hell, it's an aneurysm." my second thought: "do i have time to shower?"

as it turned out, his brain is fine (as fine as it's ever been) - it was a migraine that came out of nowhere and literally kicked his ass all the way to the doctor's office. the bee never wants to go to the doctor - it's too expensive, they don't know what they're talking about, they're crazy -blah, blah, blah - there's always some reason that he's smarter than anyone whose initials end in M.D. so when he came home yesterday, practically crying and screaming, "i'm dying, i need a doctor" i was definitely shocked.

and that was pretty much my day yesterday. between my general uckiness and his blinding headache, we were quite a pair, bundled up against the cold in the house of ills. even the dog seems to be suffering from a subtle malaise - i think because it's just too freaking cold for him to do anything outside - the poor thing freezes to the ground every time he goes to potty and what a miserable feeling that must be. he always looks back at me like, "do i really have to walk in all this snow and all this cold? come get me, don't make me go out here..."

breaks my heart every time, i tell ya. every time.

i was going to make toast but i'm cold. i'm going back to bed. it's too cold for toast

lucky for me, he LOVES snow

that was sarcasm.

but the bee does love him some snow. holy cow. we got like 5 inches at home overnight and i woke up this morning to quite a pleasant little winter wonderland. pleasant, if i didn't have to go out in it, i mean. but i have to work this morning and that means i have to get my no-tread tires out in the blizzard.

yay, fun.

so i ask the bee to get out of bed at a quarter to six and go start his truck so he can take me to work. i was expecting him to grunt and roll over and tell me to go back to sleep, it's saturday and what the hell am i thinking?

no such luck.

the bee was freaking gleeful my friends. he was happily taking the dog out and happily looking for snow scrapers and happily tracking through the drifts in front of the door.

i personally think he was just gleeful that i didn't pull my typical saturdays when i have to work and "accidentally" (i swear!) oversleep/forget to set the alarm/get sick/too tired/no clean underwear/the dog wants me to stay home stunt. but whatever.

so here i am, at work, on a saturday, and i was one of the first (and only!) ones here. apparently it was a great day for everyone else to call in because of the weather.

but lucky for me, the bee loves snow and we've got four-wheel drive.

woohoo...

low crap tolerance ahead

ever had one of those days where everything just sort of accumulated until you just couldn't take it anymore? did you ever just break down and get all emotional over every single little thing, even the stupid things, the unbelievable things and the downright absurd things? did your day ever turn into a night where you couldn't sleep at all, the events of the day just ran over and over in your head like a movie on a continuous loop - so bad you couldn't even sleep?

my day yesterday was like that. my night last night was like that. and so today i'm just zombie-ing my way through work and all the accompanying bs.

it wasn't anything new or even surprising, it was just a lot of crap all at once. and anymore i'm not even good at crap coming at me at a moderate pace.

i'm just frazzled about everything and i don't seem to have a lot of options for anything.

on to other topics...

baby wal-mart has been kicking the holy crap out of me lately. so much that last night i had a book balanced on my stomach and he kicked just under my belly button and made the whole book fall over. for real! i was shocked, i didn't think he was supposed to kick that hard already. i waited and watched as he moved his way up and down, back and forth - fascinating and freaky all at the same time. i thought maybe i was too chubby to see his movement from the outside but apparently that is not the case...

do you know anyone that wants to buy a giant maple entertainment center? it's sitting in my garage, lurking in my parking space. i have to park at an angle, which means i have to back out of the garage at an angle, which means pretty soon i'm going to take out our one tiny little tree in our tiny little "lawn" and we're going to be the only retards on the block with a smashed tree and it's all because of this stupid hunk of furniture in my way. i'm going to put it on craigslist this weekend; it needs to go away.

okay. i'm at work. i'm going to go be productive now. or not. i'm not sure yet.

i want my money!

we've only been here a week and it's already happened: the first "run-in" with our new landlord. let's call her pearl.

it's kind of like dating, sort of. you hear about somebody, you meet, you court and eventually you move in. (so it's not really like dating, unless you're me, but whatever.) our relationship with pearl is actually pretty similar. we responded to an ad on craigslist, we met, we applied and she checked our references and bam! we've got a place to live. (and yes, that was an emeril-type bam!)

sweet.

or is it? i'm not gonna lie, it's a little weird living in someone's house - i feel like it's not really our place to live, we just happen to be visiting and we brought ALL our stuff. i think it's because we got the tour while all her stuff was still here and then when we moved in we had to clean a bunch of her stuff out of it.

but anyway. moving on to the "run-in."

so this week being the holiday and all, we were late in getting the rent check out to pearl. the bee and i share the responsibility - he writes the check but i have to mail it. it was due on thursday and we didn't even mail it until friday.

whoops.

i need to add, it's not like we were purposely not paying the rent - it just slipped our minds. it's a bit of a change having to make sure that our rent is in chicago by the 1st of the month as opposed to having to make sure that our rent is down the street by the 4th. besides - the bee couldn't even find his checkbook until late thursday night.

so friday morning (morning!) pearl calls and is all "...i hope i'm not going to regret renting to you guys... the lease clearly states... there's going to be a late fee.. please call me immediately..."

so we call and the bee leaves a message: "we're sorry, it was mailed today, blah, blah, blah..."

done and over, right? nope.

we get another message: "eviction starts on the 5th day..."

WHAT? ARE YOU FOR REAL? EVICTION? lady, i just moved all my stuff in here and you think you're already moving us out, are you crazy?

so we call her back and (try to) smooth things over. at the end of the conversation she tells us she feels so much better after talking to us, it's not going to be a problem, yada, yada, yada...

until tonight, when i find that she's sent me a copy of the lease via email, highlihting the portions about late fees and due dates and eviction. mmmkay... this is going to be a swell year, i can see it already. :(

i think we might mail a check for next month sometime this week, just to be sure.

and in case you're not sure about the whole pearl reference, here you go:

do we really need 27 nipples?

get your minds out of the gutter...

it was a good day. i felt good today - i made pancakes for breakfast and the bee and i got some stuff done this morning. his mom was nice enough to send home about 8 huge garbage bags of his clothes - stuff that wasn't his, stuff that had never been worn, stuff that was his from the 8th grade, his high school football jerseys - all kinds of neat stuff. and after we sorted out the garbage and the stuff that needed to go to goodwill, the rest was carried upstairs so i could wash it. because i hate putting clothes of an unknown cleanliness status into the closet.

it's just one of the perks of being the janel...

then we went out and registered at target. oh buddy. that was a neat time. we got the "parent magazine approved" list of things you absolutely must have in order to raise a decent child (including the oh-so-necessary wipe warmer, wtf? who really needs that?) and the rockin' target scanner gun (which actually was kind of fun to use but i gave it to the bee because it looks like a gun and it has a scanning laser and therefore combines two things that all, or most, guys love: toy guns and lasers) and went to work.

but the point here is this: have any of you people been down the baby aisles at a big box store lately? we were at target but i imagine that it's pretty much the same at wal-mart or k-mart or where ever you happen to be. anyway. those aisles are lined with so much stuff - from bpa-free bottles to three levels of plastic nipples, some of which fit the 8 oz. bottles and others fitting the 4 oz. bottles, to surfboard playmats (which we did actually register for - it was cute, damn it) to teething rings shaped like people's heads (which we did not register for because i think it's weird to see a baby chewing on something that looks like a barbie face).

it's completely overwhelming. and most of that stuff is convenient, probably, but not really necessary for survival, you know?

that being said, i'm not saying that we weren't good first time parents and didn't register for all that crap anyway. because we like presents and we're americans - we like to have things that we don't necessarily need.

the most enlightening part of the entire trip was when the bee went to the bathroom and left me with the scanner gun and the list and the cart. i didn't think much about it until this couple walked by and i heard the lady comment on "how sad it is, that girl is all alone and pregnant and registering by herself..." i suppose that probably did look kind of sad. so i just browsed the baby clothes until the bee got back.

but we had a good time. and the bee picked out stuff he thought was fun and cute for little baby wal-mart. i was happy that he was at least interested. we thought about registering for a wii but didn't think that baby would put that to use for a while.

you can hold off on buying us a wii until his first birthday.

a fresh start

adios to 2008.

good things to come in 2009.

an alarm i didn't set

so where were you last night at 1am? i should have been sleeping but instead i was standing tippy-toed on a barstool in the baby's room with a 9-volt battery in one hand and a partially distmantled, yet still beeping to high heaven, smoke alarm in the other hand. it's a miracle i didn't land on my face but i was bound and determined that i was not going to have a bum smoke alarm in the baby's room. (not that there's going to be a baby for several more months but i know i'm going to have more on my mind than smoke detectors during that time.) so after about half an hour and a lot of cursing, i swapped batteries and stopped the blessed beeping.

the bedrooms are upstairs in this place and they have sort of a vaulted ceiling thing going on. so of course you can't put a smoke detector in a logical place - a reachable place. nope, they're on the slant and hard to get to. i ended up dragging every chair in the house up the steps last night to find something tall enough to get me within arm's reach. and even the barstool was nearly too short...

so where was the bee in all this melee? asleep on the sofa, impossible to awaken, in spite of the fact that i'm swearing like a sailor, the dog's barking, i'm dragging furniture up and down the steps - he manages to sleep through all of that. how that's possible i don't know.

ugh.

and how was your night?

fish sticks

fish sticks, french fries and DONUTS, oh my!

i love fish sticks. lucky for me, the bee loves fish sticks too. we got a cool daddy deep fryer for christmas and he has been craving fried food since the wrapping paper came off the box. it was one of those things he bugs me to buy all year long but i won't do because if you've seen the latest christmas pictures over at my momma's place, you'll plain as day see WE DON'T NEED ANYMORE FAT.

but whatever. merry christmas, have a clogged artery. or two.

so the birthday boy gets to choose dinner tonight and he wants to use the new deep fryer. he wants fish sticks and french fries. wooo buddy, we're eating high on the hog tonight!

it's okay, it's his birthday. and it's not like it was difficult to make. it's just that the place smells like a dirty hardee's kitchen now. ewww...

i didn't get a chance to ask him what kind of cake he wanted, so i picked one of my favorites, fudge marble with chocolate frosting. YUM.

gotta go, things to eat.

where's the tylenol?

*sigh*

it's over.

the holidays are done and moving is finished, sort of.

christmas was good. christmas was great. the bee and i spent christmas eve at my parents and christmas day with his family. and both events were wonderful. i love christmas. i felt incredibly guilty this year because a lack of funds kept us from buying a lot of presents and that's really the best part - watching people open gifts. but as usual, my mom outdid herself even though it wasn't really necessary and we had a really good time. even christmas day with the bee's family was good. his little sister is a real sweetheart and i'm getting to know his mom better.

we moved this weekend. with huge help from mark and craig and the bee's little sister (and his dad's big truck and trailer) we moved from a teenie-weenie one-bedroom apartment to a larger two-bedroom townhome. the biggest difference - the 16 stairs from floor to floor. i'm not complaining, the layout is great. but because i'm bullheaded and a little dumb when it comes to moving, i refused to stop even though my body was screaming for it last night. and so i unpacked and moved boxes and climbed stairs well into the evening until i really thought i might fall over from exhaustion.

and let me tell you - i'm paying for it this morning. i hurt in places i didn't know i had. it took nearly 10 minutes to get from the upstairs bedroom to the downstairs door just to walk the puppy.

oh, and the poor dog. poor little kingsley was so confused and so scared - he's never known any place other than our tiny little apartment and to see him come in for the first time, his little tail pointed down and his shoulders all hunched over was so, so sad. he was really frightened. he's since discovered that stairs are fun and so is dragging up the shoes from the entryway and throwing his toys down the stairs to run after them is his new favorite thing to do.

to be a dog. or at least, be my dog.

i don't have any picutres of the new place yet but i'll get them soon. i saw the camera not that long ago, i'm just not sure where.

later i have to figure out what kind of cake to make the bee for his birthday. i wonder if he has a favorite kind of cake. i'm thinking cupcakes but it's not really my day... he's 24 today. happy birthday to the bee. :-)

but for now i'm going to go back to bed. i just wanted to see if any of my neighbors had unsecured wireless networks - it looks like i may never have to pay for internet again! woohoo!

it's a holiday classic!

merry christmas from superjanel, the bee, baby wal-mart and millions of special bk lounge employees worldwide.

i'm hungry for girl scout cookies.

i'm writing from a hijacked internet connection. i thought i'd been riding the wireless connection of the neighbors that moved but apparently it's the neighbors across the hall that are hardly ever home. whatever, i don't really care. thanks to who ever it is. (who? whom? i don't know.)

so it's christmas week and my mood is great. no, seriously. i have so much to be happy about right now, i'm just trying to enjoy it all.

the bee and i are still so excited about the news we got last week about baby wal-mart - i feel like it's okay to be happy about being pregnant. i feel like i've been holding my breath for the last two months and finally, it's okay to breathe again. the perinatologist said that everything looks great and that we're having a healthy (and handsome!) baby boy and there is no reason to continue to see the specialists - apparently i'm not high risk anymore and that's okay with me.

i think this has given the bee an immense amount of relief. i know he was upset and scared at the possibility of a special needs child, not that he ever wanted to talk about it. but since learning that things seem to be okay, he's been happier, more open and more interested in the baby. and in me. and that's okay with me too.

this last weekend, despite awful, horrible weather, we made it to the quad cities for a small family christmas get-together and a (huge and absolutely inspiring) christmas program put on by the church i grew up in and would love to get back to if we ever moved back to the area. (podcasts just aren't the same but they are kind of helpful.) but the weather was horrific - snow and black ice and 40-mph winds - we're lucky we had 4wd to get us there and back. and the bee is a pretty safe driver, so i slept most of the way home even though he reportedly white-knuckled the steering wheel for about three hours. but we made it home safe and sound and found that the dog hadn't even messed in his kennel (although he did pee for about three minutes straight once he finally got out side, the poor thing.)

i talked to our new landlord tonight and made arrangements to move in this weekend. we're moving to a great townhome in ankeny - it's about six miles from here to the east and a little bit north. we're going from one bedroom/one bath and about 700 square feet to two bedrooms/two baths and a two-car (attached! yay!) garage and about 1300 square feet for almost exactly what we're already paying.

(thank you craigslist!)

we spent all day yesterday packing - well, i packed boxes and the bee moved them around into various piles under my directions. this is his first time moving like, ever - for real! how do you get to be 24 years old and never have moved in your entire life? i think i've moved probably 24 different times and i'm pretty sure i have a brother and a step-dad that can attest to that. (poor guys. they'll be happy to know we're signing a year-long lease so they'll have a few months to unpack their gunny sacks... i don't really know what that means but mark has always said that.) but it's almost too bad for him that his first real moving experience has to be with me. if you think that i'm anal retentive in everyday activity, you should see me in moving mode. oh wow. stand back. not only do i want things done my way, i want them done yesterday and i want it all unpacked right now. it's probably a blessing that i'm preggo and won't be able to stay up all night unpacking. plus, we're moving in between the holidays and that gives me time off from work to get things done.

christmas is thursday. i love christmas. i love our family traditions and the things we do and the things we eat and just the time we spend together. it's different without my grandma and i'm trying not to focus on that - it hurts too much to think about it right now - but even different can still be good. it's just hard to believe that the holidays are here already. this year has just flown by, and thankfully so in some cases.

but anyway. i wasn't sure when i'd get to post again, my neighbors' internet connections being as sporadic as they are. if i'm not back before christmas, happy holidays to everyone.

ps - i'm accepting all offers of donations of baby stuff! crusty, we should talk! :-)

OMG! It's a ...

...BOY!

(High five, team pink. Good game - better luck next time!)

Baby is definitely a BOY. Look at these pictures...

that is such a boy pose, oh my...

PLUS! I just got off the phone with the perinatalogist and she says she thinks everything looks great and there is no need to be seen by a specialist again. I am practically in tears, hearing this.

The bee and I are so, so happy right now - I can't even begin to explain.

*sigh*

Now we just have to wait for the little guy to get here!

sorry i ruined your black panther party...

(it's true, i know every line to the movie "forrest gump" like the back of my hand. i'm not going to tell you why.)

let me begin by telling you this: christmas parties are overrated. i tend to think that most get-togethers are overrated - it's just the nature of the beast. i'd much rather sit at home and completely veg out than sit in a crowd of people i don't know and watch them get obnoxiously drunk and rowdy. and this doesn't have anything to do with the fact that i'm preggo although it may be triggered by the fact that i'm reaching the neighborhood of being in my 30s (i'm still at least 14 blocks away, so don't go calling me "old" just yet).

but even when i was in the midst of a small-town bar scene i used to be pretty familiar with - even then i thought it was boring. it's the same people doing the same thing every weekend - in and out, no variation on a solid theme. and now, it's different people doing the same thing and i'm bored as hell. and so most social shindigs are of no interest to me. i'm kind of stuck up in that i have a particular group of people i like to spend time with and everyone else can go to hell... i don't need a lot of friends nor do i need a constant stream of people to entertain me.

and how does this relate to christmas parties? it was a company christmas party, for one, and two, it was for a company that i don't work for. so i got to be one of the (ignored) (in)significant others that stood around twirling the straw in my cherry coke while the employees stood around telling "remember when" stories. so i got to stand around in my outfit that wasn't good enough (but sorry honey, that sleaz-o black dress with the giant metal zippers up to there doesn't come in preggo size), with my attitude that was apparently not right (but apparently never is) and try to laugh at the right time so as not to seem rude.

good times.

NOT. 

but it was a good reminder of just how much i love my flannel pants, my dog, and the heat pad, especially when my back hurts from falling on the ice earlier today. 

graceful? no. snobby? yes. but ask me if i care.

hardly fantasmical...

yeah, yeah, i know. a month? was it really necessary to go a whole month? (no.) am i trying to prove a point? (not really.) was i stuck under really heavy furniture? (once, but not blog related.) am i suffering from an incurable disease that renders my hands and fingers useless? (not that i know of...)

let's face it: i'm just lazy. and that's why i haven't been around.

plus, once i'm gone for a few weeks i have this need to post something really fantasmical and outrageous, that's going to make everyone comment and speculate on the wonder that is the janel. but to be honest, i'm not feeling it. i've sort of been in a funk lately - no real reason why, i'm just stressed about things. and i'm taking it out on all the wrong people, blog readers included. 

and i don't mean george clinton funk. i mean, like, all down and sad and stressed and eeyore-ish. 

yes. i'm feeling like a forlorn, handstitched, black-cloud-plagued donkey? is eeyore a donkey? what is he? oh bother....

then i found this and this cheers me up, i don't know why.

and that's about all i've got today.

i love sam's club

my recent cravings for convenience store nachos has gotten out of hand. so out of hand, in fact, that instead of making 3-4 trips a day to kum n' go or quik trip, i had the absolute brilliant idea of going to sam's club today so we could buy nacho cheese and chips and jalepenos in mass quantities.

and we did.

i could eat out of this container with a spoon. YUM.

and then we walked around and ate until we were both just about sick, because saturday is prime sample day at sam's. we had wings and shrimp and ham and egg rolls and hot pockets and juice - it was great. like a little mini buffet.

the ham was so good, in fact, we bought one and i'm going to make it for dinner tomorrow. ten pounds and i'll eat the whole thing myself.

wal-mart (ha! wal-mart - sam's club! hahaha...) loves sam's club. and nachos and ham and cinnamon rolls...

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?