No lake today

Yesterday B mentioned to the girls that we might go up to the lake today if the weather was nice. We haven't been up since last October, so the girls were thrilled at the thought of a day swimming and boating. Little did they know that if we went, part of the day would be spent putting things to rights - mowing the grass, picking up sticks, cleaning the boat, etc. But fun still would have been had.

Alas, it is not to be. The morning started with a whopper of a thunderstorm and torrential rain. The thunder has let up, but the rain hasn't, and the weather channel is showing huge green and orange blobs heading our way.

Plus, Ella woke up with a fever. I should have known it was coming. Last night she was so tired she just about fell asleep at the dinner table. I put both girls in bed to read at 6:30, and they were asleep by 6:45.

So we'll spend the day being lazy couch potatoes, watching cartoons and movies. I've already announced that we're having house-wide quiet time when Campbell goes down for his nap.

Next weekend is B's birthday, and we'll definitely head to the lake then.

A lizard in the house

This morning I once again added "lizard rescuer" to my list of mom jobs. Ella and Lily came out of their room two days ago shrieking that there was a lizard under their bookcase. I went in to take a look, knowing full well I'd never manage to capture him in the disaster area that is their room. As I expected, the lizard was nowhere to be found.

Yesterday afternoon, while I was dealing with the effects of a migraine that went all the way to 11, Ella came out of her room with the lizard in a cup. She was very proud that she had trapped him, until he climbed out of the cup and up her arm. She shrieked and jumped, and the lizard scampered for cover. I was too dopey from pain and medication to give chase.

This morning, however, the lizard appeared in the kitchen. I stalked/herded him into the kids' bathroom, where I knew he wouldn't have anyplace to hide. I managed to grab him as he tried to scale the tub. I showed the lizard to Campbell, who tried to pet him. I snatched the poor lizard away before Campbell could flatten him with affection.

Then I showed him to Lily, who deemed him "very cute." She I and took the lizard out onto the front porch and set him free in the bushes next to the porch. He seemed very relieved to be back in his natural habitat.

When I told my mom about the lizard, her comment was that it was good I'd grown up in Florida. We had lizards get in the house all the time. There was a whole family of them that lived on our screened-in back porch, and when we opened the sliding doors or kitchen windows, they'd make a break for the house. We'd shoo them back out again without thinking about it. But my aunt, who also lived in Florida, was terrified of them. She was in our kitchen once and saw a lizard on the counter and flipped out. She refused to go back in the kitchen until I got the little guy back outside.

At the school I went to, catching lizards was a popular pass time for the boys. They'd get the lizards to bite their earlobes and wear them as earrings. Most girls were grossed out, but I wasn't. Lizards just don't bother me.

Now frogs, on the other hand . . . especially little green tree frogs that cling to the garage door and drop on your head when you open the door. Those send me over the edge.

Booties!

I knit these baby booties for the silent auction at our preschool. I didn't see what they went for in the end, but at one point they were up to about $20, which made me feel good. Plus I got lots of compliments from people when they saw them.

I love making them - this is the fourth pair I've knit. It takes me about four hours per bootie, and it's a simple pattern. The cuffs are alternating bands of stockinette and reverse stockinette, and the toe and foot are garter stitch.

I use a self-striping yarn, and I don't make them so the stripes on each bootie match. I think they look better unmatched. I have a pattern for a hat that goes with them, but I didn't have time to knit one before the carnival. I barely finished the booties in time.

My mom made a set for Campbell before he was born, and he can still wear the hat. It's just a matter of whether he WILL wear it.

Soon, I'll start knitting a set for the Alien child.

Hello, world

This alien-ish creature is the baby. I had an ultrasound today to make sure I wasn't having twins. Not that I was worried. But I had mentioned to my doctor that my aunt and uncle have twins, and she decided that we'd better check. I think she was looking for an excuse to send me for an ultrasound. Anyway, it's not twins. This picture is of the baby's face, with big eyes and mouth. The baby's left arm is waving at us.

I took Ella with me to the appointment, and she was pretty amazed by it all. She kept asking how the ultrasound worked and how the doctor knew what he was looking at, and I didn't have any answers. Even on my fourth pregnancy, the whole ultrasound thing seems like magic to me.

Here's baby's whole body in profile - head on the left, legs on the right, and umbilical cord sticking up in the middle. The baby is about 2 inches long at this point. When the doctor told us that, Ella's eyes got really big and she held up her fingers, about two inches apart. My mom asked if Ella had been able to tell whether baby is a boy or a girl, and I had to break it to her that it's too early for anyone to know. Mom is just desperate to know, and the fact that B and I aren't going to find out just drives her nuts.

My ambivalence about this pregnancy abated a bit today as a result of the ultrasound. It's hard to remain on the fence about a new baby when you see the little heart fluttering away and the hands waving around.

It's finally hitting that we really are having another baby.

A B in his Bonnet

I don't know what got into B yesterday, but he went on a garage-cleaning tear. I woke up from my nap to find B and the girls and my car gone. They arrived soon after, with a trailer hooked to my car.

B worked in the garage for at least 12 hours, cleaning out shelves and baskets, corraling things into big plastic tubs that I made a Target run to buy, and sweeping and vacuuming everywhere. The floor is so clean that you can . . . well, you can walk across it barefoot without fear.

I should explain that our garage is a miniature one. Our house was built in the late '40s, and for some reason, the builder put in a garage that is about 3/4 the size of a one-car garage. Even if the garage were completely empty, we'd never be able to get a car in, well maybe a Mini-Cooper.

B emptied so much stuff out that the trailer is filled with things for the dump and Goodwill. And there is so much space! I can walk from the back to the front without having to hurdle bikes and strollers and wagons. There's enough space in front of the washer and dryer now that I can stack laundry baskets there and still open the dryer door.

B is so thrilled with his garage that he is out there right now, drinking his coffee, returning e-mails, and making phone calls. It could become his new office.

Woohoo!

Turns out the anticipation of the meeting about the writing job was far, far more painful than the actual meeting. I was worried I'd walk in to find a hip, tatooed, pierced grrrll young enough to be . . . young enough to be my much younger sister. Instead, the woman was older than I and incredibly nice and welcoming. In fact, everyone I met was incredibly welcoming.

The end result? The job is mine, and there is as much work as I want to do. I have to ship them my first bit by next Wednesday. Eek.

And after all my dithering over clothes, I wore a pair of khakis and a cool shirt my sister gave me for Christmas. I did buy an outfit yesterday, but I'm not sure I'm going to keep it, so it's still hanging in my closet with the tags on. The skirt is a good transition one; I'm just not sure I actually like it. I have a hard time making my mind up about clothes, which is why I hate shopping for them. If I really need to buy something, I take one of two friends with me. They have better taste than I do, and I trust their judgment over mine any day.

So now to work. Yay me!

All adither

I have a real-live work-related meeting tomorrow morning in which I get to pitch myself as the perfect freelance writer to take on what could be a large writing project. The potential job is through a small, but very well respected, marketing and PR firm here in Austin, which shall remain unnamed. But if you live in Austin, you've seen their work.

I got the referral through my good friend O'Pine, who had been offered the writing job but then decided it wasn't his cup of tea. So he gave the account manager my name as a candidate.

So even though O'Pine has assured me that I'll be fine, I'm still worried. This is really the first time since leaving the "real" work world that I've had to pitch myself for a job. Everything I've done at the textbook company I've worked with for the past five years has sort of just been given to me because I was in their system as a reliable freelancer. I've worked my way up through the trenches there to the big projects I've been given in the past year. This is the first time I'll be going in cold.

Also, it's a big project with technical writing. I'm worried that that part of my brain has stagnated a bit.

And then there's the issue of what to wear. I don't have work clothes. At the textbook company I can get away with khakis or a skirt and a polo shirt. This firm, though, is known as hip and cool, and I don't have hip and cool and work-like clothes. O'Pine has assured me that jeans and a cool shirt will be fine, but I don't know if I can do that.

So I'm considering going shopping, which seems kind of pointless. Within weeks, if not days, I'm not going to fit into any of my clothing.

So I'm all adither. What, dear readers, would you do?

Blurg

People keep asking how I'm feeling, and I'm sure they're getting tired of my answer, because it's always the same - awful. I do my best to smile when I say it, in the hopes that if I look cheerful, I'll feel better. But it's not working.

Last week was a bit better. I didn't feel queasy in the mornings, but I could set my watch by the arrival of the 4:30 nausea express every afternoon. I was hopeful that the fact that I wasn't sick in the mornings was a sign that the nausea was easing up, but no such luck. This week I'm back to all-day queasiness.

Blurg.

Friends and strangers alike have been offering me all sorts of advice on ways to quell the nausea, but believe me, I've tried them all. The funniest was a male friend offering tips on how to deal with the queasiness. His wife saw the look in my eyes and dragged him away. It's a good thing she did, because as much as I like the man, I was about to lose it. What does a man know about morning sickness?

I also get frustrated talking to some of my running friends, none of whom have ever dealt with the level of nausea that I have. Some have the attitude that I should just eat some crackers and get over it all ready. If only it were that easy.

When I was pregnant with Lily and Campbell, my nausea ended somewhere between 14 and 15 weeks, and it stopped over night. I'm hoping the same thing happens this time - that a switch will flip and I'll feel better. But since I'm only 11 weeks along, that means I still have 3 to 4 weeks left of misery.

Blurg

Notes from Ella

Ella, even before she could write, would send me notes whenever she had been confined to her room for various transgressions. Some have been pretty funny; others pretty pitiful. Once she drew a picture of me with fangs and wrote, "Big Mama! Bad Mama!" on it. Another time she just drew a picture of me with a circle around it and a line through it.

She does sometimes leave me nice notes, like the time I found a thank you note tucked under my pillow.

This Saturday's note was on the pitiful end of things. Two of her buddies were outside playing, and Ella wanted to join them. However, I was walking up to the store, and B was in the shower, so there wasn't anyone to be outside to supervise her. I told Ella that when I got back she could go outside. Unfortunately, by the time I got home, her friends weren't outside playing anymore. Ella launched into one of her famous screaming fits. So she was sent to her room, while Lily, who was being extra good of course, was allowed to play on the computer.

When I went in to Ella's room to talk to her about her behavior, she was in the process of writing the following note on a stack of kleenex with a hot pink marker. I ignored the note while I was talking to her, so Ella taped it to her bedroom door.

Here's the note:

I want to have fun too! Lily gets to play on the computer I want to too. You don't like ME! You don't let me have FUN! You don't care about my feelings. You like little ones more.

I can only guess that by little ones, she means Lily and Campbell.

And as for not letting her have fun . . . let's just say she had a lot of fun over the weekend. She went to a picnic at the park with her grandmother, had a sleepover at a friend's house and went on a bike ride with B.

Nope, no fun at all around here.

If you give a boy a bat

. . . he will whack something with it.



I found out on Easter that hitting things with bats is programmed into boy DNA. Despite the brisk weather, we had a picnic at the park with B's family (the ONLY reason we did this was because his brother and sister-in-law, whom we don't see enough of, were in town), and the kids' aunt and uncle brought a scary bunny pinata.



We brought a bat for the pinata, and as soon as Campbell got his little hands on the bat, he was looking for things to whack. He bee-lined for the pinata and started swinging, yelling, "Go! Go!" every time he did. It was both funny and frightening. I forsee lots of bat swinging and broken windows and injured sisters in his future.

It took both girls to pry the bat away from Campbell when it was their turn to hit the pinata. After it finally broke, we left it hanging in the tree for Campbell to continue swinging at.