Tuesday, September 26, 2006

only 5 more weeks

give or take...Alex is convinced the baby will be born October 17 and I tend to think that we'll be looking at November 5. Either way I'm very excited and looking forward to meeting the little fellow.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

fun with photos

I'm starting to get to the major fatigue part of my pregnancy. Due to heartburn, excruciating groin pain and residual scabies scratching I usually wake up at 1:30 am and don't get back to sleep until 5 or 6. I used to just lie there in bed and think about how miserable I was. Sometimes I would selfishly whine just enough to make sure that I had company during my pity party, but Alex is very adaptable and quickly learned how to tune out my whimpering so he could remain in his state of deep sleep. It took me a few weeks, but I finally realized if I actually got out of the bed I would probably feel better and maybe have a fighting chance at sanity.

During the wee hours of the morning I've found a bevy of things to do:

Project Cat is been something I've been working on for awhile, I force the cats together and see if they'll actually get along. It was going okay until the other day, Irene now has an injury on her face. (not my fault, I swear)

I think I've hit my limit on Sudoku, I finished one book right after I got out of the hospital and I'm almost done with a second.

I can tell you all about the Magic Bullet, because that infomercial is always on.

Entertainment Weekly is an easy and quick read, while Seed doesn't really do it for me like it does for Alex.

What To Expect When Your Expecting may be the worst pregnancy book ever written. I figured this out about 7 months ago when I was about 10 pages into it, but now I just read it so I can roll my eyes and say things like "oh, come on, that's ridiculous" while I get cynical and bitter and feel bad for women who consider this book useful.

Then of course there's the internet. I have my regular sites that I visit, but one of my favorite things to do while I'm wasting time on the old laptop is to peruse through other people's photos on Flickr. I have a couple of different methods of how I browse, sometimes I search the tags for obscure keywords or look in the groups section for interesting titles (such as "the hidden charm of flea markets" or "what's in your fridge?"). But my new favorite way is to go to into the Explore section and look at the pictures labeled "most recent uploads." Usually I find at least one thing worth clicking on in those thumbnails. Once I find a photo I dig on I check out that person's profile and maybe check out some more of their photos or their favorites. After I've seen enough from them I pick a contact from their list and check out those photos, and so on. I've found some pretty crazy pictures, but a little while ago I found this. At first I thought it was some sort of art project, because every single one of Kulhanek K's photos are of someone covered with a scarves. Once I checked out his contacts, it dawned on me that this is no art project, it's a fetish. I felt so naive. Of course I had to check out more than one of his contacts, you know, to confirm that my suspicions were correct, and now I wish I never had. Go ahead and delve in further, if you dare. But I'll warn you right now that there are a lot of unattractive and slightly overweight, yet under-dressed, Midwesterners who seem to enjoy scarves in more ways than I ever thought were possible.

Because I went overboard and had already tainted my psyche forever with Kulhanek K's contacts photos I took that extra step and searched through tags of things I knew would end up somewhere unsavory. Like, say, for instance, badonkadonk. And lo and behold, I found beauties such as this, this and this.

I will end this post with a plea: Please don't judge me, it's the fatigue.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

cooties

Obviously Alex and I are incapable of staying healthy for more than a few weeks at time and unfortunately it seems to be the only subject that keeps me posting stuff here. I was a little reluctant to write about this one, only because it's not something one would usually announce in a public way, but I have no secrets anymore, at least not after peeing my bed in the hospital.

While I was in the hospital last month Alex started showing signs of a rash on his belly. We both agreed that it was caused by stress, after all, he had just gotten out of the hospital himself and there I was 27 weeks pregnant and whining about being stuck in a bed. Weeks passed, I got better, but the rash persisted. In fact, it got worse, so bad that Alex would smear himself with Calamine lotion every night and then lie in bed diligently trying not to scratch, or even move, for fear of rash vengeance. When I would wake up in the middle of the night I would catch Alex scratching in his sleep. It was when the rash started taking over his ears and the webby parts between his fingers that he finally gave in and went to the doctor. That was on Wednesday at 7:15 in the morning, which meant that before I was even done with my coffee I was treated to the news of his delightful diagnosis.

Here's where I play a game with you, I'll give you a hint and you can guess what caused his rash.

Are you ready?

It's really, really small and it rhymes with babies. Did you guess?

That's right, it's scabies!

I can't remember my exact thoughts when Alex told me what it was, but do recall thinking "Who the hell gets scabies?" Alex even said "What is this? 1824? No one gets scabies anymore." But it turns out a lot of people get scabies, as a matter of fact there are about 300 million cases reported worldwide every year. I was just hoping we would not be two of them. I didn't even have a rash at that point, just a little mysterious itching, but if you live with someone with scabies it means you probably have scabies, too. Fun!

To get rid of the mites Alex and I had to apply a cream to our entire bodies and leave it on overnight. We proceeded to do eight washes of linens and clothes, vacuum the entire apartment, including the furniture all while scratching a lot. The bummer about it all is that after completing all this I read the box of bug killing cream and it says that even after the mites are gone itching can last for up to four weeks afterwards. So now I have no idea if I'm just scratching because I know that these mites were a part of me and I can't get past that, if this is just a normal part of the four weeks of itching after the treatment or if these bugs are still hanging out in my skin and I have to start the whole process again. What I do know is not only am I tired of getting up to pee every 2 hours because the baby is taking up the space where my bladder used to be, but the addition of this persistent scratching isn't helping my sleep quota.

The only good thing about this whole scabies crisis is that I think once we get it licked this time we'll hopefully have it licked for good. I assume this because when Alex got home from the doctor's on Wednesday he let me know "Well, that's it, this decided it for me... no more hobo sex."