Mood

I might kill that cat myself if he keeps killing our songbirds.

Here’s the obituary for my cardinal.

Mr. Cardinal met with a tragic end on Monday, June 23rd, to the shock and surprise of his family. Mr. Cardinal is survived by his mate, and like all cardinals, mated for life. He was also a dear father to three adorable offspring, Cardinal, Junior, and Bubba. Sadly, one of his offspring also died recently, probably due to the same cause.

Henry went to bed last night at 8:30 PM and woke up this morning at 5 AM.

It was a great first day back. I got my 5 year service pin and my boss showed this cute slide show and everybody seemed happy to have me back. Hoooray!!

Today is the day I go back to work. We’ve been up since before 6 (not counting the three times I got up to feed during the night). I have gotten myself all ready for work, packed lunches for Dave and I, and taken care of Henry. I’m ready to have a stellar day!

Today we celebrate Henry’s due date! Of course, he arrived two weeks early.

I know I said that he might come early, but honestly, I was not mentally prepared for his early arrival. When my water broke, I was aware that the doctor would want to have the baby delivered within about 12 hours. So as soon as we’d figured out that my water broke, I knew that we would be having the baby by Sunday. It was disturbing to me to know that there was a definite end time to the pregnancy, it was rapidly approaching, and I had no control over any of it.

Ele talks about wishing she had savored the experience of the delivery more. I really felt like I understood what she meant, and had every intention of making a conscious effort to inventory, document and appreciate the birth experience. However, the whole experience went so quickly! I dilated so much quicker than any of us anticipated. It was also much more painful than I’d anticipated, even though I had an epidural. To add to that, the strain of physically pushing the baby out combined with the loathsome pain of reflux that occurred every minute I was pushing nearly put me out of my mind. In the middle of the height of pushing, my only thought was “get this baby out of me NOW and I don’t care what it takes.” So much for savoring the experience.

I went into labor on Saturday, and on Sunday Cristin and I had scheduled a photo shoot to do belly pictures. Once labor started, I was so disappointed when I realized we weren’t going to get to do the photo shoot. On Sunday, I still had a pretty big belly and for a moment, I considered whether we could fake it. I realized that anything else I wanted to do while pregnant was no longer an option. The last pictures we took of me pregnant are just that, the last pictures we took when I was pregnant. I am kind of reeling from the whole loss of pregnancy.

Now that Henry is two weeks old (golly!!), I am still trying to adjust to the fact that I’m not pregnant any more. It took a lot of time to get adjusted to the idea of being pregnant, and it turns out that it’s really nice to be pregnant (assuming you’re not having a difficult pregnancy). Being pregnant is like carrying around a secret. A little secret you share with this unborn person. A little secret that only you and the little person know about. You talk to the little person pretty constantly. He’s is your constant companion. He might annoy you occasionally but won’t wake you in the middle of the night. Once he’s born, your secret is out and he is suddenly so much less manageable.

There is a tangible loss with even the happiest of births.

As a side note, I’m going to take down my Pregnancy page, but you can still get to it from here.

I don’t normally blog about work, and technically this isn’t about work, it just happened at work.

Yesterday I was chastised for raising my arms above my head. Apparently you can strangle the baby with the umbilical cord by raising your arms above your head. SERIOUSLY PEOPLE. I mean, have you even thought logistically of how that would work? It’s like, impossible. And wait, I’m sorry, when did you get your medical degree? Oh, that’s right. You don’t have one. You’re just crazy.

And today I was chastised for wandering through the hallway eating at 10 o’clock and told that “You’d better be careful, you know you have to get skinny again after you have that baby.”
Most people I work with are not phased by the site of me walking around the office eating - happens all the time and has for years. If you’ve ever met me, I hope you’ll agree that I am not and have not been overweight. I’m nearly eight months pregnant and I’ve gained a measly 22 pounds - not bad if I do say so myself.
So what the heck? I actually planned a light breakfast today so I could finish up my leftovers in the morning - it wasn’t even an impulse eating binge. It was tasty chinese leftovers.

And then there’s this trauma that Emily’s going through with nosy people of her own.

Gah, can’t people keep from being so danged nosy?

With Dave gone, I think I’m a little down and less motivated. I haven’t been very inclined to cook for myself, which I have managed to do in the past when he’s gone. On the way home I knew I had to stop at the grocery if I was going to have any chance of eating a decent meal over the next few days. On spur of the moment, I stopped at Earthfare to get my groceries tonight. I figure I’ve been stress-eating lately, I’d be more productive if I stress-bought!

Here is proof of Dave’s theory that “organic” is code for more expensive.

• Conventional Peaches: $1.99
• Organic Red Plums: $2.99
• Organic Nectarines: $3.99 For Dave, I got some Ram’s Head IPA from Top of the Hill Brewery! Fun that you can buy it here, and in cans, as well!
  A gift for Jenny - local soap powder for your laundry!
  Here’s my dinner - Manchego, spiced salami, asian pear, Jonagold apple, Wasa crackers and steamed asparagus, with a glass of Kim Crawford Unoaked Chardonnay.

  I thought it was quite tasty and a nice change from the deli sandwiches and Bojangle’s I’ve been eating.

I am so sad.

We’ve been watching Scrubs for a while, and decided to start DVRing it a few weeks ago. It’s in heavy syndication so now we’re up to our eyeballs on the DVR and trying to watch every episode before they get deleted. It’s really such a great show. Is it bad that at the end of every episode, I end up crying?