My Vacation

So I'm here in San Jose visiting Adrianne....she very kindly had me up for a visit, (and generously paid for me to come), and Jeff very kindly agreed to watch the kids for me while I'm gone. This is probably the only time for the next couple years that the stars align like this to enable me to go off alone, so I'm appreciating & enjoying every moment of it. We've done some fun things...not the least of which is decorating her new apartment, pictures shown below. We also drove into San Francisco & walked around these great streets together...all sorts of interesting shops & things to see. Of great culinary interest to me has been the raiding of the Japanese market, as I've been craving Japanese food all my pregnancy & haven't been able to indulge, as El Paso doesn't have anything like that. Today we went to the beach, brought our lunch, and hung out together on the sand. It was so relaxing! I was telling Adrianne that a big part of the vacation is the ability to just get myself ready & leave the house in a matter of about 15 minutes, without packing everything but the kitchen sink & just KNOWING that you forgot something vital for the young ones. Today was my last full day, I fly home to my babies & my "Beauty" tomorrow. Thanks for a wonderful time, Adrianne!
Anyway...below are some pics. Enjoy.

Aint we fine? I had to use Adr's umbrella because the sun was too much for me...90 degrees!

Beautiful sis in a great new dress, just bought that day...a vacation treat to herself.

Barefoot & pregnant & in cooling off in the freezing water.

A sunken ship that had been "exhumed" and was on display at the end of the pier.

Adrianne the beautiful, again.

Suz the pregnant & parasolled.

A beach a little farther down...had a great little boardwalk with terrific shops. We walked around & I got a harmonica & kazoo as omiyage (gifts) for the kids.

One of the great pieces we found at Home Goods for Adr's apartment.

A rather artistic view of her wall as seen from the kitchen "bar"

The living room & kitchen

And...the living room again. Better Homes & Gardens, here we come.

Pix

Mr Pickle giving you the eye

At the aninmatronic dinosaur exhibit...Dilly was clinging to me for dear life in fear of them.

Noah "digging for bones" at the fake dig site.

Noah poses by his beloved "spiketails".

1st ever watercolor (with some help from Mom)

And below are some pics from our recently rejuvinated yard, courtesy of springtime. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday Chris

Chris, I didn't forget about posting for you on your birthday...I was just wrapped up in other things (see below). However, I must say a little something, however belated, for my dear brother. Happy Birthday to you, my son. Sometimes I think about you & remember all the good times we've had over the years. It's weird to think I used to be your "teacher" (term used loosely) at Greenfields....looking back, I was too young to have done anything of the sort. But we had some good times reading those "Little Women" books..."a soupcon of rouge" and all that. Remember Hortense the rabbit? Good times. I remember smuggling bags of oversized jelly beans home for you when you lived in Arrowhead, after walking to that convienience store that was about 4 miles away.
And now you're unrecognizable as that little boy, all grown up with your own life. Well, I think we still get along great, which is a blessing and a sort of minor miracle....so many siblings don't. I love you very much and wish you so many good things for this year. May things continue to get better and better for you in every way.

Recent Happenings:

So we've had some high drama since my last post...never a dull moment and all that. Actually, here in El Paso my life has been FILLED with dull moments...or maybe we should say "relaxing" moments. Things don't necessarily happen all that much here. As the moving guy put it when he heard we were going from CA to El Paso, "Living there is like watching paint dry". However, I would probably take a little boredom anyday over the following:
Firstly, Jeff's job became a victim of this terrible economy last week. He was laid off. At the time it seemed like the end of the world, and now it doesn't seem quite as bad, but still pretty s****y.
I will say this, however....Jeff is just the kind of husband you would want to have in this sort of situation, taking all sorts of initiative and really "going for" the job search. I feel like if there's any job to be had, he will find it. Which will hopefully be very soon, before there is an axe murdering "spouseicide" incident in this house. Ha ha ha. Ahem.
Also, a few days after we had that gem of news from the stellar guy who was Jeff's boss, I found out that "baby girl Doss" had a cyst in her brain. They found it on our last ultrasound. Apparently it's actually a common'ish' thing to have appear in babies, and only in very rare cases is it indicative of something bad and serious. So our doctor referred us to a high-tech ultrasound place for a 2nd opinion. And I could drag it out and tell you about the agonized week of waiting...but lets just skip all that and tell you the good news, that baby girl Doss is A-OK. Thank God. You would have been proud of me...throughout the whole week I was full of faith and confidence that everything would be fine....and then when we got the clean bill of health I promptly broke down and sobbed like a child in the car.
Also, it's pretty certainly a "she". We are taking name suggestions. This is what we have so far:
Jeff: "Jaqueline"
Susanna: "Zoe" or "Ava"
Noah: "Miu Kitty" or "Toothbrush"

Here she is, in all her 5 month glory. Don't worry, the appearance improves as time goes on. I thought it was so cute how she was all cuddled up on her placenta. AWWWW.

Ode to Toe

So I was lying in bed last night after putting Dilly to sleep, and I was thinking. And what I was thinking about was: toes. Yes, toes. And feet. Things of which, for the first 20 or so years of my life I was largely oblivious (except for the use of them, of course)...and which, after "leaving home" and joining the American Workforce of Production & Internet Abuse, I became ultra aware due to some funny happenings. Just little stuff over the years, but it's funny how things like that will stick with you. And here's my conclusion: female America is obsessed with feet! Who doesn't look sadly at their feet after a winter of coverage & declare how they must have a pedicure immediately? And the foot jewelry...the toe rings & anklets.
The other parts of the world I have seen have not been into feet on this sort of scale. In Japan very few people ever wear open-toed shoes at all, and flip flops are worn with socks, traditionally.
My foot saga began a few months after I started working for Gary, who, incidentally I was also dating. It was summer & I was wearing these heeled flip flops all the time, thinking I was really dressing it up. Imagine my horror and surprise (in a wholly bad way) when one time I returned to work in the evening to retrieve something I had forgotton there, only to overhear 2 other women saying the following:

"So we have a pretty good team here"

"Yeah...we just have to get rid of Susanna and we'll have a perfect team. Her and her ugly toes."

Both laugh uproariously.

Me and my ugly toes? Really? I had never so much as heard tell that I had slightly unattractive toes, much less ugly ones. Sadly, this was only the beginning. My toes seem to have inspired violence of emotion one way or the other. Consider an opposite story:

While working at ADP we used to have quite a turnover of temp. workers coming through. There was this one really friendly African American guy, actually quite good looking, who was very quickly "chummy" with me. He would always greet me, and seemed just really friendly and nice. Then one day we were both getting coffee at the breakroom & he was complimenting me on something, I don't know what, and then he tacked this gem on the end:

"Yeah, you and those sexy toes of yours."

Hmmm. Sexy? Ugly? Unfortunately this was only the beginning of a very creepy sexy toe campagin that escalated until he wrote me a love letter, expressing his desire to take me out on a date, and presumably get up close and personal with said toes. Can anyone say YUCK? So I dated him for 3 months. Ha. Kidding. He had a visit with HR soon after.

And this is just the personal stuff. There were always at least 3 or 4 women at ADP, every time the weather warmed up, who would start in with comments expressing distaste at seeing un-pedicured feet uncovered, and would make general comments about how gross it was....along the lines of, "If you have ugly feet, cover that **** up". This was all new territory for me. I started getting pedicures and really liked the result.
But you know, pedicures cost a lot of money over the long term, if you keep them up. And when you've had a professional pedicure, trying to do one for yourself just doesn't seem to cut it anymore. There's really no comparison in my opinion. So I tend to spend the summer longing for them and getting them like maybe twice, if I'm lucky.
All this has made me so aware of feet. If you have nasty toes, I will notice. I will be in agony if my heels are all cracked and gross and you come over to see us at our place and I don't have shoes on. It's sad.
Incidentally, I told Jeff about the "ugly toe" incident, and he has jumped right on the bandwagon, like the supportive husband he is. He routinely takes my foot and says,
"If someone was mountain climbing on your toes, they would go right down from your big toes, like steps (here he takes his fingers and walks them down my toes until he comes to the 2nd to last one. The piggy that had none. Then:)
"And then they come to the last toe, and....AHHHHHHHH they fall off the cliff and die if they don't have a parachute. HA HA HA HA."
He says I have a mutant baby toe because it's about 1/2 the height of the other ones. He also says my toes are as long as fingers.
And I come right back and tell him that his big toe that got crushed by Noah about 2 years ago and the nail never grew back right is rancid. And his toes are overweight and need to go on a diet. Then we both laugh together. Good times.

As a last thought, I think my sons' toes are the cutest things on the face of the earth. I just can't get enough of them, and 'eat' them regularly. The ADP toe guy would be proud.

Maternity clothing rant

Ok, maternity clothing designers, we need to talk. We need to have a serious discussion as to why in the heckloslovakia I cannot find, for love, money or breastmilk, a knee-length maternity dress. That's all. I'm not asking for the moon here, I don't think. I need a dress that hits me at or just below the knees. WHY IS THIS BEYOND THE REALM OF POSSIBLITY?
Now, I must admit that this season the lovely 'town dress' has, um, come to town...which is great. Amber, it is your season. Those town dresses are YOU, girl. I even bought one. But I'm not so much into the hippie-dress-to-the-floor thing all the time...kinda awkward. And seems really dressy to me, for some reason. I just want a knee length one. I've looked in Motherhood, online...nothing. A lot of mid thigh or above the knee ones. And people, I'm here to tell you, when I am 9 months pregnant and retaining water like yesterday's milk-marinated cheerios, and also about 300 lbs overweight to boot, you DO NOT want to see me in something that hits me at the thighs. Sorry. We all have our cross to bear. Mine is terrifically ugly upper legs. Also, in the spirit of inclusiveness, I will go even further and say that it would interest me to know who is wearing these mini dresses. Are there that many people in the United States of Fatness who can wear these things through their 3rd trimesters? Because I gotta tell you, it aint just me. I see PRECIOUS FEW people who look like they need to be showing their legs at right about that time.
However, sometimes we all need to wear a dress. So why, for the love of the man Jesus, can I not find one that would flatter me? I thought this was the land of opportunity, people. Jeez. Get with the program, designers.
Or maybe I should just stick to pants.

70% of the substance of things hoped for

So we went to the gyno today for my 2nd ultrasound....and incidentally, to also find out what we're 'having'. No biggie. I wasn't excited or nervous at all....I just happened to not sleep very well last night.
So they do the whole song and dance of ensuring that every part of the fetus is grainy black and white, all the while pointing out things like..."And as you can see, here is the left femur. Oh wow, what cute toes on the right foot." And as parents you're sitting there going, "oh yes, oh yes" and thinking, "that looks like a really bad copy of a black and white impressionist painting". Oh but seriously...I was that parent with Noah, but I have become older and wiser in my time. I am able to intelligently converse with the technician on things like cleft palate, spinal bifida, and the four chambers of the heart. Our baby is 6 ounces, seems to be on schedule growth wise, and is 70% a girl. At least that's the percentage the lady gave us. "It" very obligingly opened it's little legs for us to see, and we didn't see anything, if you catch my drift. So nothing equals girl.
We'll know for sure in a few weeks. Excuse me while I go physically restrain Jeff from jumping in the car to purchase the entire stock of the children's girl department in Macys against the upcoming arrival.