Updates

Okay, so, I’m a bit behind on releasing news here because I’ve had my eyes glued to reports about how the dire global economy has started causing serious food shortages.  Seriously guys, Haiti’s government has completely collapsed due to mass food riots, Japan has completely run out of butter, and warehouse stores like Costco are rationing flour, rice, and cooking oil–in the U.S., of all places. Methinks it’s a good idea to start a family farm and hole up for a while.

But enough doom and gloom–here at Chez Stout, we’ve actually been stuffing ourselves (to the neglect of setting up a food stockpile, ayyieee!). And by “we” I mean “me and Nolan,” to the tune of at least 2 1/2 pounds of weight gain in the past two weeks for him! He is now 3 lbs. 14 oz., which places him in the 18% percentile of growth… as opposed to the 8%, which is why we were fearing a premature induction in May (see this article on intrauterine growth restriction for more details). He’s still going to be closely watched, and I’m still supposed to be on modified bedrest, but we’re all breathing a huge sigh of relief over here (well, as much as we can breathe, considering his feet are all now firmly pressing against my lungs. Baby growth does have its tradeoffs, unfortunately). Pray that he continues putting on weight and stays cooking until mid-June. I am by no means ready to have a baby sooner than that.

And of course, the good news (and consumption) doesn’t stop there: the Church Ladies threw us a jungle-themed, potluck baby shower this past Sunday and we had an absolute blast–though it did feel awkward opening presents in front of everyone. Nolan now has more stuff than Aaron and I had coming up here, haha! To our pleasure, a great deal of the gifts were purchased off of our registry at Target, but a fairly substantial amount were homemade. The people at Lake Hills are, as always, far, far too generous–we now have nearly everything we need to care for our baby, and they also continue to make sure we’re provided for concerning meals, which is a wonderful blessing. I will soon be taking pictures of the massive amounts of good quality stuff we recieved for a new blog feature I’m calling Fun with Flickr Fridays.

Also, through the use of mad internet skills, I was able to track down the person who stole my phone, including not only his name and address, but pictures of him, too. I called him immediately in order to possibly discuss the return of my phone and the $300 worth of downloads he had on it, but he claimed that he “just happened to buy the same model phone … uh… with your number on it” from a legitimate T-Mobile store, five days after I lost the phone. O RLY?? When I asked him how the numbers of all of his friends “just happened” to show up on my online contacts, two days after I lost the phone, he had no idea. Luckily, I kept track of all of my bills, in both hard copy and online. With this information, I called T-Mobile and was able to sucessfully contest the $300 charges against Aaron and I. (It still cost us $60 to replace the new phone though, sigh, but I was able to keep the same number.)

The most shocking part of this was that I recognized him from the pictures. This teenager in overpriced-shoes not only had the audacity to steal my phone, but to get off the bus immediately after I did and ask if I was okay when I collapsed in a crying heap at the bus stop. It was quite a long bus ride, and he was sitting next to me as I panicked, trying to find my phone. When I saw who it was, I was filled with a burning anger. I was fired up and ready to send the cops to beat down his door. It would have been easy to incriminate him considering how much evidence I held. Aaron then counseled me to forgive him, saying that there wasn’t any permanent damage done to us, and besides, he’s just a stupid high school kid whose family is probably struggling (blatant assumption made due to the fact that his mother spoke no English). Aaron’s right, of course, so I’m trying to forgive this person.

Heaven help me, I’m trying.

Spitting Mad

And in other news, my faith in humanity has been once again shaken.

The last time I had something stolen from me was in 6th grade. I had set my stuff down just outside the classroom door to talk to the teacher about a report on Paul Revere he was concerned about. Apparently he was concerned that I was plagarizing because my written vocabulary was much more advanced than my oral one–”you don’t speak like this, so I’m sure you didn’t write it,” he said. I took my paper and left, fuming. How dare he accuse me of lying about my work?

When I came out, my lunch, nestled in its cute little lunchbox, was missing. Already stressed, I cried and cried and went hungry, and then I passed out later in the day because my metabolism hates me. The whole situation was based on my belief that people were decent enough to respect the fact that my property belongs to me, which some people would say is a flawed assuption that’s likely to get into trouble. (And they’d be right.) It shouldn’t have been traumatic as it was; after all, it was just a lunch and there are definitely worse things that have been stolen, but it still stings.

Losing my brand new phone on the bus put me right back in the same position as that helpless little 6th grader. I cried. I called the phone several times, as did Aaron. I called the King County Metro Lost and Found. I waited for four days before calling T-Mobile to cancel the account, because I was sure that someone would bring it to the bus driver…

And then I got our phone bill.

$212 and counting, because whomever found it not only decided to use it to call everyone this side of the U.S., no, they also downloaded a billion or so crappy ringtones. Eminem, 50 Cent, DMX…even Fergie! I could have forgiven them before–after all, it’s just a phone–but Fergie?  Never!

In all seriousness, though, it does hurt to be reminded that my property isn’t sacred. I grew very attached to that phone. I liked being able to call people. Aaaand my list of contacts, which can’t be recovered because T-Mobile is stupid (they only send the online account password TO THE PHONE, and the username is the phone number itself, GAH! talk about a security risk!!), is gone. Poof. There’s a list of at least fifty people that I don’t have the numbers for and have no way to recover, which is obviously very disrupting. And, just to include a bee sting, it’s going to cost about $60 to replace.

Granted, I realize that this rant is an entirely privileged one; a phone is a small thing to lose, and I wasn’t exactly mugged for it (thank goodness). It just bothers me that people, when given the choice to do the right thing, sometimes choose not to. And I liked being naive about that.

And in other news…

Ladies and gentlemen, from the land of Weird Pregnancy Symptoms, may I present the Third Trimester:

#357: ”Innie” belly button becomes an “outie.”

#42: Asymmetrical pelvis. Due to hormonal changes and an ever expanding belly, the right side of the pelvis is rotated forward, throwing off the center of gravity and causing one leg to be shorter than the other. Opportunities for ridicule increase as tripping and bumping into things becomes the norm.

#156: Itchy back (as opposed to itchy stomach, which will kick in eventually).

Check, check, and check.

Resemblance

If anyone was wondering what being married to Aaron (or me, for that matter) is like, THIS IS IT EXACTLY. We even look like this. Creepy.

Unfortunately, I’ve misplaced where this comic came from… So if you recognize it and want me to credit the original artist, please let me know who’s stalking me!

Ob·sti·nate [ob-stuh-nit], adj.

I’ve really begun to hate eating.

“What!” People who’ve known me for any length of time say. “That’s crazy; you love food!”

Yeah. I did… But, like anything I’m told to do, I resent it now. My usual response to “you should do x” or “you must do y” to is snarl and dig my heels in. “How dare they!” I rant, regardless of who “they” are and whether or not they actually have my best interests at heart (which is generally the case). “They don’t know me!” Eventually, I’ll calm down and take a more objective look at the situation to determine whether the advice is worth following.

Is this immature? Sure. Passive-aggressive? Absolutely. Unreasonable? Most of the time, but especially now.

Now I’ve been told I need to gain 35 pounds in the next three months. I need to eat, they say, and I need to eat a lot. My intense, knee-jerk reaction is to stop eating altogether, and my crazy brain has no trouble coming up with excuses not to eat: If I eat this, I’ll throw up. (Sadly true most of the time.) This tastes nasty. This isn’t going to help me gain weight! Why bother?  I’d think I had an eating disorder if this reaction didn’t happen in other areas of my life as well.

So where am I going with this?

Obviously, it’s not just me that will be affected by my stupidity this time around, so I’m trying to ignore those unbidden thought patterns I’ve cultivated over the years and eat something. But it really is harder than I thought it would be: my stomach is tiny, and I’m just not used to packing away this many calories over the course of a day. But if I don’t gain weight, and soon, the effects on Nolan will be devestating.  What to do?

Luckily, my solution came on the radio: I need to bring all the boys to the yard (note: link is suprisingly work safe). In other words, I need to make use of that Cusinart blender I recieved as a wedding present to make weight-gain shakes. How simple! Why haven’t I thought of this before?

So here’s where you come in, reader–send me your best milkshake recipes! Bonus points for shakes that boast large amounts of protein (preferably without using a powder). And, just for fun, here’s an extra contest: I currently have eighteen 8oz bottles of vanilla-flavored Ensure drinks which are absolutely disgusting. If you can design a recipe to make those palatable, I will personally bake you a batch of green tea cookies.

I am Such a Spaz

According to the ultrasound we had this morning, Nolan seems to be doing okay; he’s just not as heavy as he should be due to my complete inability to gain weight. I have an over-reactive metabolism, whoo-hoo! …Only not. Usually that deserves a whoo-hoo; now it’s a health risk. 

I’ve been told to start counting fetal movements at least once a day, which of course is freaking me out because he moves about 1/4 as much as he used to. Also nerve-wracking is the diminished strength of said movements: it’s no longer the kung-fu punches he once had, but a pitiful tap-tap-tapping.  Dude, you have enough room in there to move around, so what’s the deal?

To their credit, my doctors have learned from their earlier “YOU HAVE A MOLAR PREGNANCY — TIME TO PANIC IS NOW!!1″ mistake and have taken great pains to ensure I avoid extra therapy. “No, no, there’s nothing to worry about,” they coo in gentle, placating tones, “We’re just going to have to give you a 30 minute non-stress test every week and an ultrasound every other week. But he’s fine! Really!”

So it’s official: I’ve been put on modified bed rest, which entails my sitting around and eating as much as possible. They told me to try not to do anything active, even cleaning, riiiiiiight when my “nesting” instinct has started to gnaw at the back of my brain like a rabid weasel with OCD. (Seriously. Those blinds in the guest bedroom need to be cleaned! I don’t care if you can’t see the dust–I can!!)

…Anyone have any suggestions on how not to go crazy?

Hairy Situation

I walked into a Great Clips yesterday and said “please to be giving me a trim” and apparently the stylist thought “trim” meant “so short I won’t be able to put it up into a pony-tail, but long enough to blow into my face constantly.” Now it’s shorter than I’ve ever had in my life and looks absolutely terrible to everyone except Aaron but of freakin’ course he’s going to say that, he has to live with me and likes making love once in a while. RaaaAAAAWR! *breathes into a paper bag*