It's Freaking Awesome, That's What It Is.

Sometimes awesome things happen.

(Like the fact that, while trying to post this blog entry, my internet service hiccupped [no, that’s not the awesome part] and while looking at my network settings I noticed that apparently some of my neighbors have named their wireless networks “BaconFace”, "Howdy :)" and “Gellin Like a Crellin.” Yup. I think maybe I need to make better friends with my neighbors now.)

(Oh, and don’t worry. My internet service came back in time to post this blog entry before the deadline. Which is why you’re reading this now. Which is another one of those awesome things that happens, although not, again, the main awesome thing in question here.)

No, sometimes awesome things happen, like what happened to me last Saturday.

I went to my cousin’s baby shower on Saturday. Okay, technically she’s my cousin’s wife, but it’s easier just to call people plain cousin; they’re all family anyway. But the in-law factor is important to this story of awesomeness because it meant that some of her other relatives who are not directly related to me were also present.

Said other relatives were sitting on the other side of the room during the main festivities but came over to coo over Little Guy during the munch-and-mingle phase. (Because, let’s face it, Little Guy is eminently coo-over-able. The dude is adorable, is all that I’m sayin’.)

One of them asked who he belonged to, and I fessed up to being the mother in question. After congratulating me, she said, “We were trying to figure out who he belonged to before, but nobody here looked like they’d just had a baby.”

Yes, my friends, sometimes awesome things happen.


(Yeah, it’s been several days and I am still floating over this one.)

(And. AND—what is also awesome? The fact that I’m still on track here after three days. Yeah, with the whole parenthood and sleep deprivation thing, I take what I can get.)

You never know what a Monday will bring.

So today did not start out very promisingly. In short, things did not look good for Homestar Runner (read: the rest of my week). I got to work and found out that my little half-gallon of milk, whose sell-by date will not arrive for two more days, not only smelled rancid but had little bits of stuff floating on top. I don't know how a half-of-a-half-gallon of milk spoils that badly over a weekend (Shallow Man surmises that there was a power outage over the weekend and the fridge got turned off for a while), but it didn't make me happy in any event. This frustration was repeated when it turned out that half of my individually wrapped string cheese packets (whose best-by date is not until Oct. 30) had also started to putrify in their wrappers. This is not the way you want to start a Monday.

I'd rather not get into the story of how my boss's inability to handle looking at and sending out a 1-sentence document in less than 96 hours also started to send my blood pressure skyrocketing. Let's just say I'm not getting paid nearly enough. And that it did not bode well for the rest of my week.

Third trimester nausea is also back in full force and was really making its presence felt today, too. But I don't want to talk about that, either.

But then Shallow Man and I had an appointment for another ultrasound today, this one as a follow-up for the exciting new gestational diabetes issues going on. Baby is doing fine but was being a punk and hiding again so we couldn't see his face. But seeing the rest of him helped lower the blood pressure significantly. The technician took all his measurements and then took them out to the doctor, so the doctor saw Baby's stats before she saw us, and was a little worried about how big his head seems to be (not ginormous, but bigger than you'd expect). Then she came in and saw Shallow Man's large noggin, and heard how even I have a hard time finding a hat that isn't too small, and she was reassured. Yayy for crazy genetics rather than weird complications, I suppose. We also got a good picture of Baby's foot and determined for certain that he has what are referred to in my family as "Daddy toes." Very cute. (Can't tell yet if they're webbed like his daddy's or not, though.) So that helped make Monday feel a bit better.

And when we got home my Monday luck underwent a major change. I may or may not have mentioned in my last post that I like YA literature. And that I am anticipating the release of several awesome YA books this year.

Well, one of those books is the highly-anticipated Mockingjay, the final book in Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games series. (I must admit that this is not the number one book on my list of anticipated releases, but that's just because I haven't had a chance to actually read the first two yet. Law school managed to take up a lot of time, and then I figured I may as well just wait until the third one is out so I don't have to do the whole waiting-so-impatiently thing. But it was still number 4 on my list.)

Mockingjay is not supposed to be released until tomorrow, August 24, 2010. Or, at the very least, at midnight tonight.

Yeah, Amazon just delivered it to my door about an hour ago.

This means a few things:

1. Someone at Amazon made a shipping error.
2. This kind of shipping error would be considered lucky for the recipient.
3. I am that recipient.
4. That means something lucky happened to me, to wit, I have a copy of the year's most highly anticipated YA release in my hot little hands a full seven hours before I am supposed to.
5. This situation definitely calls for a diabolical laugh.
6. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

This is not the kind of lucky thing that happens to me very often. I can't decide if this means that my week is not going to be as horrible as I was afraid it would be, that my overall life luck pattern is about to change for the better, or that the universe is simply giving me a small apology for a quarter-gallon of wasted milk and the fact that I had to eat my regularly scheduled peanut-butter-and-jam-on-toast with no milk to wash it down this morning.

I figure, whatever works.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a trilogy to read.

The 'phew says hello.

I admit, this is another baby post, but only incidentally.

See, I basically have the best nephews in the world (sorry, anyone with nephews, but mine are cooler). I have a pretty awesome niece, too, but tonight we're going to focus on my oldest nephew. Let's call him Cool Dude.

Cool Dude is my younger sister's son, and we are lucky enough to live within about 10 minutes of their family. Cool Dude is three, a chatterbox (like his mom), a redhead (like his great grandma), a great big brother to his little sister, and one of my best buds. Shallow Man and I have been close friends with Cool Dude since he was born. (Seriously. We were the first people to meet him besides his parents and the hospital staff.)

So this evening we stopped by my sister's place, arriving just in time for Cool Dude to notice that large portions of the popsicle he had just consumed had not, in point of fact, made their way into his mouth and thereby to his stomach, but were instead residing in large patches on his shirt and pants. He therefore requested that I take him upstairs to get him some new pants.

Before this operation could be performed, we had to make a quick stop by the bathroom sink to cleanse his face, hands, arms, shoulders, etc., from the leftover juice of the "wild berry" popsicle (that's what Cool Dude told me it was; his mom, who is probably the more reliable source, informs me that it was actually just grape). In the midst of this operation, Cool Dude paused in his story of wild berries and asked me, "Is there a baby in your tummy still?"

Side note: We'd told him about our baby a few months back, reminding him of when his little sister was in his mommy's tummy, and telling him that now Aunt Scritchy has a baby in her tummy, too, so he gets another cousin (he LOVES his cousins. Cousins are maybe the best thing ever besides wild berry popsicles). He thought this through for a minute and then said, "I have a baby in my tummy, too." (Putting one hand on his tummy and the other on his hip) "She's sleeping right now."

I told him that yes, there was still a baby in my tummy. "That's why my tummy is big right now."

CD: Oh. That's right.

Me: (scrubbing congealed grape goo off his hands) After we wash your hands, you can feel where the baby is if you want to.

CD: Okay!

(Several minutes pass; I finally emerge triumphant with a relatively-clean Cool Dude in tow, who proceeds to choose a new shirt—bright green—and pants—blue stripes—to wear [his mom looked at the ensemble and made a dry remark about how maybe he inherited his uncle's colorblindness]; finally he is clean and fully clothed again.)

I put his hand on my tummy so he could feel where baby was curled up (not kicking at the moment, an increasingly rare occurrence). His eyes got wide and he grinned at me when I told him that was where the baby was.

And then he put his face right up by my tummy, started stroking the spot with his hand, and, in the sweet voice he reserves for his little sister when he's gently telling her not to cry, said "Hi, baby!"

Whereupon I melted.

Yeah, I have awesome nephews. And my boy is going to have a good friend and cousin to help show him the ropes once he gets here. (And I'm sure his other cousins will help, too. I can hardly wait!)

Oh, boy.

Yep, it's a boy! We're surprised but thrilled, and have NO IDEA what to call this kid. (Yeah, we thought he was a girl. Huh.)

I've posted a fuller version of the story on the other blog, so feel free to stop on over.

We've got pictures, but haven't scanned them yet. (And really, one of them is highly inappropriate. Someone needs to teach this kid the importance of modesty.)


And in the meantime, really, who voted for lizard? I know Shallow Man has mutant genes (seriously, his sixth-grade biology teacher pointed out his mutant webbed toes to the rest of the class) but, really now.

The big day; or, A Poll.

So folks, today's the big day. We're getting our ultrasound this afternoon and get to find out what flavor of baby we're having. So place your bets! I'll let you all know when we find out.