Headaches makes working on the computer not fun...

I'm back in Little Rock and missing the So. Cal weather already. Been dealing with daily headaches varying from a general annoyance to fully fledged migraines. Had a nasty one the day before the boys and I flew home and i thought i was gonna die... Woke up with it the day of our flight, downed a couple extra tylenol and it stayed away until half way thru out flight from Dallas to Little Rock on an ancient ATR prop plane... haven't flown in one of those in years and it was sooo LOUD. Thank god Paul was there to meet us and whisk us home... Been limiting my computer activity to work related stuff because it seems to aggravate the headaches... Spoke with the doctor at my appt on Monday and he seemed optimistic that the headaches will let up. I'm officially 14 weeks now - so into the 2nd trimester. Next appt in the middle of September is the high resolution ultrasound so hopefully the little one will cooperate and shows us his stuff or her lack of stuff! It amazes when a newly expecting couple announces that they do not want to find out the sex of the baby. Being pregnant in and of itself, is such a new and wacky experience… and trying to prepare yourself for being a new parent or for being a parent again, is enough to keep you up at night stressing and speculating about the unknown. Finding out the sex of the baby, takes one element of that mystery away and sure makes for an easier shopping experience for you and your friends and family. I think those that choose not to find out the sex have some innate masochistic streak that that they must fulfill…

Not enough sleep and shitty internet connection leads to grumpy prego woman...

I publicly apologize to my adoring, supportive, and effing sexy husband who's head I bit off last night when he called me to just check on my day... He didn't deserve it one bit and if it's any consolation Paul, I felt like the biggest asshole last night and swore to myself that I’d try to be better, again :(.
So the cause of my grumpiness… (I’m affectionately referred to as ‘grumpasaurus’ amongst my immediate family because of such outbursts)… being prego of course, that goes with out saying… not enough sleep and a shitty internet connection. The room I’m staying in at my parents faces east and gets direct sunlight starting at about 6am which wakes me up and no matter what I do I cannot go back to sleep. Five more days of this… can I survive??? Or can those around me survive, is a better question. That and a crappy internet connection while I’m logged in to two different client’s networks via extranet/Citrix gateways while trying to update code and get applications to run as services makes for a testy Michelle. I worked a good twelve hour day yesterday battling often dropped and generally slow connections and by 7pm was ready to heave my laptop over the fence and apply for a job at Walmart. My parents live on a hill above Culver City which is not exactly a dead zone… but a very flakey one. My work cell phone only gets service if I pace up and down the very back of their yard… This makes for an interesting and challenging work environment to say the least. Today is a better day… been connected since 7am this morning w/o being dropped once with decent connection speeds. I probably should do some internet connection rain dance to keep the ISP provider gods at bay… Off to see my sister this afternoon. I gave her the link to my blog w/o telling her the prego news. She sent me an email after reading it containing one line: “what the #$%^ are you serious?”… Lots of support and encouragement there…Let’s see what she has to say when we’re face to face. And did I mention that when I told my mom I was writing the blog and should I sent her the link… that she basically said she wasn’t interested… What’s up with the women in my family? I’m beginning to think that they don’t think this is a good idea… I really appreciate the kind comments from you guys I’ve received since I broke the news. Ciao for now.

No... I'm not 4-5 months prego...

So went to Chipotle in downtown Culver City today for lunch… (The boys and I are visiting my parents which has become an annual August trip… partly to escape the oppressive Arkansas August heat; partly to give the boys a change of scenery for their last few weeks of summer vacation; and mostly so we can all spend time with my parents.) Chipotle satisfies my cravings for real Mexican food, namely giant veggie burritos. It’s not Tacos Acapulco which was my favorite giant burrito Mexican place located in San Luis Obispo, CA where I attended university for a few years ages ago. It was the kind of place you’d visit at 2am after a night of massive alcohol consumption to try and stave off the inevitable hangover. I’d eat half of the giant burrito that night and the rest in the morning along with a gallon or so of water and that usually killed the hangover. San Luis Obispo is about a 4 hour drive from Culver City so Chipotle will have to do. I do miss California Mexican food… California does Mexican food right… fish tacos, pico de gallo, fresh made guacamole, tortillas, etc... It’s Baja ‘fresh’ Californian Mexican which is extremely hard to come by in Arkansas. (Moe’s Southwest Grill is the closest…) The dirty South’s version of Mexican food is always smothered in some kind of gravy or queso and anything but ‘fresh’. The gravy is listed on the menu as mole. I’ve had mole prior to moving to Arkansas and this ain’t it. It’s more like a southern version of Mexican gravy… and living in the South where gravy is a staple for most meals including breakfast it’s not surprising… but it’s on everything: burritos, enchiladas, tamales… yuck. And the queso obsession in the South is also very strange. Queso is just nacho cheese, but in the South it’s a blanca queso – white queso or cheese dip as it’s aptly referred to in the South. (Those of us who frequent the Food Network channel all know that nachos and nacho cheese aren’t a traditional Mexican fare. Some poor restaurant owner in Tijuana was about to close his restaurant for his afternoon siesta and was put upon by some military wives who had just finished shopping. They wanted a snack to go with their margaritas so the poor guy went back into the kitchen to figure out what to make for these women… stale chips, cheese and jalapenos… nachos, there you go.) Some outfit in Little Rock publishes a monthly magazine about Little Rock, (creatively named “Little Rock Magazine”), which publishes a “Cheese Dip Report”. When I first moved to Little Rock, I thought it was a joke, but upon picking up my second issue of Little Rock magazine at the local Kroger, I realized they were serious. Some chump takes the time each month to visit a restaurant that serves cheese dip and ‘report’ on it… After writing the first review, what possibly could anyone have to say further on the topic of cheese dip??

So back to lunch at Chipotle… I’m standing in line ordering my gi-normous veggie burrito and there’s another very prego lady in line in front of me. I notice she’s wearing very cute jean capris so I ask where she bought them (Motherhood). I make a comment that I’m pregnant also and she asks me how far along I am and before I can answer her, she takes it upon herself to estimate…she guesses that I’m 4-5 months prego and we all know that I’m just finishing up the end of the first trimester (3 months for those non-prego lingo literate…). Ten years ago, I would’ve prayed for the ground to open and swallow me whole… or the ability to reverse time and never ask about her cute capris to begin with… But yesterday, I just chuckled and confirmed her estimate. Why make her feel bad and cause me additional embarrassment… What am I saying… I’m in LA, she wouldn’t feel bad… I’d just be embarrassed! I do look further along than 12 weeks already which is unfortunate so I can’t blame her really… mainly due to a 20 lb weight gain over the last year and general lack of exercise the past few years. Having two children already doesn’t help either. Your belly has been expanded and detracted twice and leaves your tummy in a deflated balloon state. My kids are 15 months apart in age which boils down to 9 months of pregnancy, 6 months of breast feeding, another 9 months of pregnancy and a final 6 months of breastfeeding… after which I lost of a ton of weight, but didn’t really make an effort to tighten up those tummy muscles again. (Reminder to self - blog entry topic - bizarre fear a) during pregnancy number two that my c-section incision was going to split open and Aaron would be dropped on the ground somewhere out in public and b) of sit-ups post back-to-back c-sections). Not to mention what it’s done to my boobs (yet another blog entry topic). My husband doesn’t seem to mind so why should I. I have taken it upon myself to get some low impact cardio going every day…just a simple walk… and I checked with the various prego web sites out there and talked with my doctor about exercising your core while prego… and both give the thumbs up to very mild workouts. I ordered Denise Austin’s core prego workout DVD which secretly I’m dreading the arrival of…You know Denise Austin has made some deal with the devil and she passes on the downside of that deal via these barbaric exercise DVDs and her way too peppy attitude. I suppose if you want to kill the trainer on the exercise DVD, that’s better than wanting to kill the live version at the gym… he or she is accessible and you may just act on that feeling one day. I’ll keep you posted on how Denise and I get on with this exercise video…. Urghhhh.

Okay, I'm pissed. I just wrote a fabulous lengthy entry and this damn website took a shit and lost my work... Note to self, write blog entries in Word and then cut and paste...

The Big 39

It's August 4th and I'm officially 364 days from turning 40... As each year goes by, time seems to go by faster and faster. As a child, time moved soooo slowly. It seemed like an eternity from birthday to birthday. I remember in particular waiting to turn 10 - double digits - a big deal at age 9. In kid time, that year seems like 10 years... I always wondered why as you got older that time seemed to move faster and after much thought on the subject, it's really just a matter of fractions. When you're 9 years old, each year you've been in existence is 1/9th of your lifespan. At 39, each year is 1/39th of your lifespan. In the grand scheme of things, a year in relative time at age 39 appears much shorter than a year in relative time at age 9. Being somewhat of a numbers geek, this makes total sense to me. I've tried to explain that to my children when they're anticipating that last of school for example. It doesn't matter how many days are left in the school year, that last day of school always seems like some far off day that will never come. But they are 9 and 10... and their relative time is still too big of a fraction to comprehend.

So this is day one of my blog... As you can see from the title I am 39 and I am pregnant. My husband and I found out a few weeks ago and I'm nearing the end of my first trimester. This is my third child and my husband's first. Life is a lot different this time around, which is why I've started this blog... I think partly for my own sanity... and partly because I've got some great back stories I'd like to share... I've had an interesting yet challenging life and have learned many lessons along the way. Being pregnant at this age, makes you reflect, how can you not? I am a different person than I was 11 years ago when I was pregnant with my first child. Since then I've experienced divorce, my ex-husband's remarriage, my remarriage (which required involvement from the INS), life as a full-time working mother, a frequent traveling working mother, and learning how to navigate corporate life while still maintaining some semblance of a work/life balance. My hope is that one day my children can read this blog and get some understanding into how they have changed my life in such a positive and enriching fashion… and hopefully gain some insight into their mother that will help them understand me as a woman.