How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)

My BFF (http://jessica213.blogspot.com/), who also set me up with this blog, bestowed this very thoughtful award on me on her own blog, after one of our mutually favorite bloggers of all time (http://redstapler23.blogspot.com/) passed it along to her. And, no, I still don't know how to post the link as anything by the URL.

Jessica is one of the wittiest women I know, who possesses a unique combination of liberal feminist, intellectual giantry, and raunchy girl-down-the-block that all the boys want to get with and all the girls want to hang with. Check her out if for nothing else than the unbelievable photos she posts as the banner on the top of her blog.

Although I have never met SUEB0B, her blog puts forth someone who is smart, hysterical, thoughtful, thought-provoking, and determined to make the world around her a better place not simply be being in it, but by being an active participant. We need more women like these two, folks. Not women who spend their days in full-cat mode, living to cut one another down, hoping their hair looks better than the woman in the next cubicle over, spreading viscous rumors in hopes of destroying someone else's good fortune or hard work. Check them both out. Their blogs make my day a little better each time I tune in.

This Bed's Too Big Without You

It's 5:30 a.m. on Memorial Day. Animal is actually sleeping and now I can't. My husband has the shitrific night shift, so he was gone all night. I miss him. I feel so guilty. He took another substandard job to accomodate MY life and career change, and now he's stuck doing shift work. In the city. That's what I want for him-driving into downtown Philly at midnight to start work. Work that involves cleaning grown men's shitty diapers. He's applying for grad school for the fall semester. Please say a prayer to whatever God/dieties you chat with that he gets in.

The apartment we put a deposit down on was given to a couple that looked at it the night before. However, landlady said she had another one they were working on with an extra bedroom and a larger yard that we could have for the same price. We said sold! and she said it'd be available by the end of May and she said she'd call us Mother's Day weekend. And then didn't. We chased her for three days before she called us back, at which point she said, oh, it's taking longer and more money than anticipated and won't be done until the end of June and by the way we have to charge $100 more than I told you because of all the extra costs. There is NO housing available for our price range with more than 1 bedroom except in the middle of the gun-ridden city I work in. But, if we wait that long, it means I bring our new baby home to my parents' house. Which I wasn't/am not thrilled with. We are still looking for another apartment, but with no luck so far. I need to get over it. We are saving money, it'll be easier for my folks to help out with us here rather than 25 minutes away, we are being freaking pampered to the hilt. There are people who bring their newborns "home" to shelters and cars and under bridges. There are people who bring their newborns home to a ghetto apartment they share with 15 other family members. This is a comfortable, big house with a yard my daughter is obsessed with. I should shut my pie hole and thank God. I also don't want to be any more of a financial/time burden on my already generous parents. They swear they don't mind, but it has to be getting old by now. My husband is psyched that we'll actually be living somewhere with windows that function and that has more than 1 three-pronged outlet and that there isn't a toilet leaking on our heads from the apartment above us, all scenrios we have had in our last two places. He's willing to wait for a place with "new" amenities, then so I am I.

The baby is due in three weeks. Now, bear in mind that all of our belongings are jammed into my parents' garage. And I packed only the stuff I thought we'd need through the end of April. No warm weather clothes, no larger clothes for the ever-growing Animal, no newborn stuff. My husband's been on me to pack my hospital bag, but I had NOTHING kept out with which to do that. My poor dad and I pulled out as much stuff as we could from the garage last weekend, but didn't find what I needed. So, on his one day off, my husband took EVERYTHING out of the garage. Everything. And managed to find everything I needed. AND fit it all back in with room to spare. All without a complaint or one iota of attitude. I must have done something right in a former life. He's so good to me. Scratch "good". Fantastic. I spent yesterday sorting out and washing newborn stuff. My GOD it's small. It's only been less than two years since Animal was born, but I forget how freaking tiny newborns actually are. The socks, my LORD! Tiny. The baby seems to be doing well. I ended up in the hospital with my asthma, which hasn't bothered me since the last spring I spent in the Lehigh Valley.

Animal is up. Have a good Memorial Day. Think of those gone and those that will lose their lives in this senseless war over the next year.

Good Day, Sunshine

Has it really been two months since I have written? Dooce has 200 entries cued in my bloglines, so, yeah, that's about right. How the hell are you all? A few developments since my last entry...



Animal is a kid. That's right. No baby left. She's in a big girl bed, sleeping through the night for the most part. I get to actually sleep next to my husband, and not have the funnity of grasping onto the very edge of the bed while my protruding stomach hangs off and using one hand to fight off a baby that still gets comfort from groping her mother's breasts all night long. Most importantly, it's good for HER. She naps better, wakes up in a good frame of mind (for the most part) and loves her little bed. She's talking in full sentences, complete with articles and correct pronouns, counting to 10 on her own, singing the alphabet up to G correctly and then here and there for the rest of the song (V is her favorite, thank you Elmo.). She's sassy as ever, but so much fun that sometimes I think it might make my husband's head explode. He loves her like no other. So do I.



Baby Two is doing well, I think. He/she's being a trooper, putting up with all of mama's crap. She's squirming around as we speak. I'm enormous and still have almost 6 weeks to go. No, REALLY enormous. I found an OB practice I really like. We did a refresher childbirth class and hospital tour the other night with a few other couples, one of whom included Charlie Sheen's harder-looking twin. He and his wife were a riot. The other couples apparently had large sticks up their arses. NO sense of humor. They were all like "oh, we have a doula" and did NOT find the shrine in the nurse's station to George Clooney amusing at all, whereas I just about wet my pants laughing. Not that wetting my pants is an anomaly these days, but I'm sure that's too much information. Sorry. Anyway, the baby is doing well. I showed Animal some photos of babies in utero at 8 months and told her that was what was in mommy's belly. She stroked the pictures and gave me a kiss and a big hug. She's so stinking sweet. We'll see her ACTUAL reaction when the baby is competing for my attention.



We think we found an apartment we can sort of afford in a nice community. The commute is going to continue to suck for my husband, but he's willing to take one for the team so I can be closer to work, we can find daycare somewhere easy for me and my parents (our only back up) to get to in an emergency, and is in a decent neighborhood for what we can afford. My paycheck is even more minuscule than I had originally anticipated, so the quality of our housing had to be severely downgraded. What's new.



Work is going okay. It's a little like selling your soul to the preservation devil at some points of the day, but in the end I know it's important to have someone there to balance saving cultural resources with practical issues. I spent the last 4 days on field visits in a big, bumpity van with 10 sweaty guys driving to places I never thought I'd see in rural Pennsylvania, holding my bladder and trying not to get carsick. Apparently some poor bastard threw up last week in the van and that's been the talk of the department. I would like to think I'd garner a bit more sympathy as an 8-month old pregnant woman, but somehow I doubt it. They have been stellar about giving up their seats near the front and, with the exception of one particularly nasty project manager who apparently gets off on making people as miserable as he is, about making sure I'm not doing the peepee dance for too long if avoidable. The field visits are interesting. I work for a particularly hated, visible governmental agency, one of which is hated mostly for things I have absolutely no control over. Nonetheless, I am amazed at how many people, particularly in one district, will speed up and aim when faced with a group of workers squashing themselves against a guard rail on a bridge rather than slow down and move over. Nicely done, vehicular drivers of Pennsylvania. You know you are in rural areas when you get out of the van and are greeted by a guard duck. I shit you not. I think it was a goose, but my co-workers disagreed. Later in the day, after we parked in the driveway of a very cute but sadly maintained bungalow owned by, apparently, Ted Kosinski, covered in No Trespassing signs to check out a project, we had a dog turned loose on us. That was fun. WHY we chose that driveway to pull into, I am not quite sure. Not the smartest move we made all day, but we survived. So, I'm settling in. After 6 weeks of commuting a minimum of 4.5 hours a day for training, I am moving into my district office. I still have to go back to Harrisburg for training over the next few weeks, but more of my time will be at the district office between now and my due date, so that should lighten my load a bit.



Well, it's time for me to hit the shower and get to work. My poor mother is up and ready to take Animal when she awakens. At least it's a reasonable hour this morning. Have a good one, people. I miss you.