Wednesday, April 29, 2009

More from Anne Lamott

So I mentioned in my last letter to the Kernel that I wanted him to make it to the water, like the baby turtles. I decided I wanted to share with you the actual part in the book Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year that Anne Lamott writes about this.


December 6

...So often I just sit by him and watch him sleep. I tell him while he sleeps that it's a jungle out there, and you have to be really, really careful or else the eagles will get you, like they got Johnny G. My friend Mary had six cats at one point, until her cat Johnny G. disappeared, and eagles had been seen in the sky that very same day, so of course you could only draw one conclusion. After that she used to warn the other cats to be really careful so that the eagles didn't get them, too. The odds seemed so stacked. Have you ever seen that awful PBS nature movie on baby turtles, where they show you the beach where twenty million turtle eggs are laid and then hatch? Then they show you those twenty million baby turtles trying to race across the sand before the seagulls swoop down and gobble them up. About forty-five baby turtles make it to the water. It makes you shake your head. You double over and have to hold onto your stomach. I say, Please, please, please, God, let Sam make it to the water.



That really is my exact prayer. I have worked my way past being frightened that our little boy won't make it to birth...and now I find myself concerned (although not consumed) by the thought that he might be born with some awful condition that was impossible to determine prior to that point. I guess I have just been too close to too many children who have not made it to the water. And I know that I need to remain hopeful and faithful that our son will be as healthy as a clam...but I would be lying if I didn't say I was a little bit nervous. So I pray...as often as I can...to please let our son make it to the water.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Fingers crossed...

I found someone selling their gDiapers on Craigslist in the Boston area this morning. They are selling:
  • 11 small and medium gPants (the smalls are new the mediums are in 'good used condition')
  • one full and one almost full M/L refill package
  • over a dozen nylon liners
for the bargain price of $110.

I have been doing some research and was able to confirm the seller's claim that new, this cost them over $250.

Oh I hope, I hope, I hope I contacted the woman in time!

Will you help me cross my fingers on this?

I'll keep you all posted...

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Feeling the heat

It is 50 degrees outside and raining sideways...the air conditioning system is on at work and one would think that I would be cold...but I am not. I, in fact, am sweating bullets.

I was prepared for pregnancy to make me hot. My husband calls me the radiator these days because I just emanate heat. I am finding myself ill prepared for the sweat.

My deodorant just doesn't seem to be working any more...I mean, I smell powder fresh, but I am sweating right through my clothes. That same deodorant is the deodorant that kept me pit-stain free while working at Disney in 90+ degree heat wearing all black clothing under a glorified fur rug AND during my wedding when I danced my ass off in a huge honkin' dress. So what the HECK is going on that all I am doing is just sitting at my desk wiggling my fingers over a keyboard and I am sweating buckets?

Oh, right...I'm preggers.

Word on the street is that this is what menopause is like too. Yay.

Monday, April 20, 2009

An answer to the great debate?

Well, I think we have finally made our diapering decision. The good news is that these decisions don't have to be permanent...once the Kernel gets here, my guess is our lives will be thrown into chaos and anything that isn't working for us is going to go by the wayside pretty quickly.

But in the meantime, I have decided that I am not going to be cloth diapering our child (unlike my rock-star sister-in-law who has yet to allow the inconvenience of cloth diapers and the amount of washing to sway her eco-consious decision) and I will not be using disposable diapers either.

Instead, I am planning on using gDiapers.

They are a cross between a disposable diaper and a cloth diaper in that they have a non-disposable cloth shell (or g-pant) that you use with a disposable insert. What makes the disposable insert so much better than a regular disposable diaper is that they are non-plastic, bio-degradable and flushable. Now, I am not so sure the plumbing in our 100 year old house is going to agree that the inserts are flushable, but if that doesn't work out, the inserts (the wet ones) are garden compostable too!!

Cost wise, they are a pretty significant expense up front. However, I have heard that you can find some great deals on the g-pants on Craigslist and/or eBay and apparently the inserts are available from Amazon.com with a 15% discount if you sign up for auto delivery. I think if we are cautious about it, we can keep our costs similar to what disposable diapering would be.

So to break it down: 1) there is no plastic 2) I reuse the outer shell 3) the inserts either flush down the toilet and go where other flushable waste goes; or I can compost the wet ones; or if I do send them to the trash, they will eventually break down much faster than regular disposable diapers and lastly, 4) with some work, we can hopefully do this in a cost effective way.




I am really hoping that this will be a good experience for us and I plan to blog about it so that other people can perhaps stop by and use our experiences as a resource. Again, who knows what will happen once the lil' guy gets here...but for now, it is nice to have made a decision on this.

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Conspiracy theory

Well, we have ordered our new car and are waiting for it to arrive sometime in May...YAY!! It is a Volvo XC60, their new cross over.

Volvo has a pretty big ad campaign going for the car now since it has a new safety feature called City Safety that will stop your car if you are going less than 9 miles an hour and are about to hit the car in front of you. But we actually could care less about that. We decided on this car way back in November when we attended a car show in Boston. It was the only vehicle that wasn't a full SUV that we could fit a car seat (not to mention a full sized adult) into the back seat and still have me drive with the seat all the way back. This may not seem like much to many of you, but to us long-legged people, it means the world!!


The lovely Volvo XC60...ours will be in Black

Of course, this means that I need to sell my trusty 2003 Saturn L200 which I still had at least 8 months of payments to make on it.


2003 Saturn L200 in Silver, just like mine

We sent in a payoff check to the financing bank over two weeks ago and magically, it hasn't arrived yet. I find that complete bull shit. You can't tell me that in 33 years of never having anything get lost in the mail, that NOW is the time a check would disappear off the face of the earth? I just find that a little too convenient...especially when the bank won't let you make a payment in any other way than sending a check (at least not without a huge service fee) and every day the check doesn't get there they add more and more interest to the payment...which means we will eventually have to send another check for $1.87 and go through the entire annoying process again. AND they won't send the title until it is completely paid for, which means I can sell it until this is all resolved!!

I. CALL. BULL. SHIT!!!

I don't believe for one second that they process the check the moment it arrives as I have been told by two snotty customer service representatives. I think it sits in a holding cell somewhere while they try to nickle and dime me as long as they possibly can!

So there you go...my conspiracy theory.

Note to self...next time, pay to send it overnight with a tracking number. That'll show 'em!

Thursday, April 02, 2009

The belly...

Apparently I am supposed to be sharing pictures of my belly with people. Not sure who made that rule up, but I really have no issues with it so here you go...


...hope it was worth it.