rebellion

i quit plucking my eyebrows a few months ago. i have no idea what precipitated this. nothing, actually.  i was just too busy to pluck them, and then it got embarrassing but i still never got around to it, and then it got downright out of control and i became intrigued so i went with it.

i haven't decided whether i'm going to go back to my old hyper-manicured ways. one minute i feel unkempt and shabby and the next i feel european and self righteous. who knew tweezers could instigate such emotions? who would have thought i'd ever blog about my eyebrows?

 when i started this blog did i contemplate sharing my grooming habits with the world? 

is there any more leftover tabouli in the fridge?

thing three

(post script - this is a colossally long post.  i apologize.  but once i started typing, my blood pressure went back up.)

as you all know, i looked long and hard to find a daycare at which i was comfortable leaving Kitten.  and for the last six months, it's been a blessing.  but recently the daycare has been undergoing some changes which affected Kitten's care in a way which rapidly rose to the level of unacceptable.

i firmly believe that finding a good daycare has nothing to do with the facility itself, or the toys, or the playground equipment, or how expensive it is, or how well-decorated.  and really, even the directors of the facility take a back seat to the most important thing: the teacher who is in the room with my daughter all day.

the original infant room teacher left the daycare about one month after Kitten started there.  i was upset about it.  the teacher who moved up into the lead teacher position, Miss J, was young and i was worried that she wouldn't be able to handle the chaos of an infant room.  

it took a few weeks, but Miss J really got things into shape.  i became very happy with the way the infant room was running.  Kitten became very bonded to Miss J, and it was apparent that she was getting really good care.  Miss J was there when i dropped Kitten off in the morning, and she was there when i picked her up.  continuity of care is so important for young children, so having the same teacher in the room all day was crucial to me.  Kitten was consistently happy, well fed, dry, and clean.  i could tell when i picked her up every day that things were going well - and Miss J and i got along perfectly.  Kitten was happy as a clam every single afternoon.

unfortunately, the daycare never put any real effort into finding a steady second teacher for the room to assist Miss J.  there were a couple of girls who were there part of the time that i really liked - and a couple more who i really didn't care for.

further, despite Miss J's efforts, there were some things about the infant room that really needed to be changed.  keep in mind this was a brand-new facility developing brand-new policies, so when "parent survey" time came around i sat down and took the time to write a long suggestion letter.  the letter resulted in a call from an attorney who worked for the off-site owner.  we had a very good and productive conversation--but none of the changes we discussed ever materialized.  for instance, i felt strongly that the infant room needed to adopt a "no shoes" policy, as it was the only facility i had ever visited that permitted shoes in the infant room.  daily sheets needed to be two-way so that parents filled out information in the morning, because i didn't feel like the information in my thirty-second verbal run-down (4oz bottle at 6am, don't give her any tylenol until after 9am, she had a fussy night and will need a longer nap, etc.) sufficiently made it to the caregivers.  stuff like that.  i even offered to have my sister (who is the infant teacher/director extraordinaire with a degree in early childhood education and all the certifications you could ask for) come in and consult for a day or two for FREE.  they wanted to - but never followed through.

Miss J was so great, though, that i got over it, even though i remained a little annoyed.

then, two weeks ago, Miss J was out for two days in a row.  the first day i did not recognize any of the women in the infant room when i dropped off Kitten, and when i picked her up i could tell that she was out of sorts.

the second day i again did not recognize any of the women in the infant room, and i swear to god something inside me told me to not leave her.  i ignored it but promised to pick her up extra early.  

when i got there at 3:00 p.m., i walked into the room to see her standing on the floor with her pacifier (she is not permitted to have a pacifier except at naptime), holding onto a chair, red-faced and distraught.  the room was complete chaos, an utter mess, babies crying everywhere.  i picked her up feeling like a HORRIBLE mother for having left her.  i walked across the room and picked her blanket up from the floor (why was it there?) and put it in her crib, which is next to her cubby.  i looked in her cubby and realized that BOTH of her bottles were completely dry - she had not been given a bottle ALL DAY.  i picked up her daily sheet and she had NO BOTTLES and NO DIAPER CHANGES written down for the ENTIRE DAY.  her diaper was soaked.  she was traumatized. i was LIVID.

one of the secondary teachers that i like, Miss K, had just come into the room after getting out of class (she's in college) and she was frantically running around the room doing damage control while the two strange women kind of lurked around not doing anything productive.  Miss K apologized profusely, but i know it wasn't her fault--she'd barely walked through the door herself.  Miss K told me that the strange women reported that Kitten was crying all day, every time they'd set her down.

PERHAPS BECAUSE SHE WAS STARVING, YOU DOLTS????

i left the daycare and took Kitten straight home.  she was hysterical by the time we pulled into the driveway.  she took a giant bottle, a container of bananas, and a double-size bowl of oatmeal before she would calm down.  i cried.

and then i called the director.  of course she apologized and promised to go to the infant room right away and straighten it out, but i didn't feel any better.  i cuddled with Kitten all evening, even after she was fed and happy and was squirming to be out of my arms.

i vowed that the next day, if Miss J wasn't back, i wasn't leaving Kitten there - and thank GOD she was.  we had a LONG talk and Kitten was super happy to see her teacher.  

that afternoon Miss J and i had another long talk, and she confided that she was putting in her notice that day because the administration was too chaotic and she couldn't get them to support her or to hire any consistent assistance for her.

AHHHHHH.

so i put in my notice, too, and made immediate arrangements for Kitten to start attending a home daycare in the fall, and to stay with my sister for the rest of the summer.

and THEN, the next day, the off-site director called me and begged me to reconsider.  apparently they had already decided to terminate the on-site directors and are planning huge changes to the center, but these things hadn't been made public to the employees or parents yet.

i feel badly because i am invested in this center, and i wanted to see it grow and succeed.  as ya'll know, i spent a TON of time choosing the center that felt right for Kitten.  and there are still many teachers there who i trust greatly - but unfortunately, none of them are in the infant room full-time.

what's more, Princess is attending summer camp there, to great success. she is happy with her teachers and has had wonderful consistency of care (like i said--it's all about the teachers in the room).

i spoke at length with the off-site attorney, and wavered for a few days.  ultimately i decided to go ahead and keep Kitten out of the center, for now.  she will continue with my sister for the rest of the summer, and Princess will continue in their summer camp as long as she's happy.  

and in the fall, i have promised to come back to the center to meet the new director and new infant teacher and see what changes they've made, and reconsider Kitten's placement.  it's entirely possible that the new staff will be wonderful - but i won't allow Kitten to be a guinea pig in the midst of all that change.

not to mention that i had to put down a $400 deposit at the home daycare toward Kitten's fall enrollment.  the home daycare is the same center that i originally almost placed Kitten in, but i didn't at the time because the home daycare closes at 5:00 p.m. sharp and i was worried that would be problematic - but now i know it's workable.  the home daycare has a WONDERFUL curriculum and is terribly organized and creative.  the woman has one employee and keeps mostly teacher's kids, which is why she closes so early.  it's clear that she's put a huge amount of time and effort into developing her program over the last 30 years.  she keeps only children up to 5 years old, and funnels them directly into the local pre-k program.  it's much more of a tiny little private school than a daycare, and i have high hopes that it will work for us.

but who knows? the risk of a home daycare is, of course, that there is only one person in charge, and if you and that one person don't get along, there's no one else to go to.  and the woman does seem quite, ahem, assertive--but i'm never going to fault a woman for that!

wish us luck.

update

J is doing better.  he is up and about today, and went with me to Kitten's appointment this morning.  he is beginning to taper off on the pain medications and put some weight on his leg.  we take off the sterile dressing tomorrow.

Kitten had an appointment with an ENT today and she will have tubes put in her ears next wednesday - my birthday.  it is a minor procedure done under gas anethesia that should take about 15 minutes, although we can expect to be at the facility for several hours.  please keep us in your thoughts as i'm a wee bit nervous about the anesthesia.

i think i found an office.

thing three involves the daycare and ahhhh i just can't go there yet.

things that are going on

thing one.  

there is a distinct possibility that i will be moving my office in the very near future.  as most of you know, i did not go back to my firm after having Kitten, opting to throw my hat into the sole-proprietorship ring and open my own practice.  my cousin had preceded me in this endeavor by several years and already operated an office in town - an office with room for two additional attorneys.  so since last fall, i've been renting office space from him.

wellllll, he's done his time and made his fortune and he's decided to scale back in the overhead department.  he's not sure what he's going to do yet - possibly office out of his house, or rent an office from another attorney like i do.  but either way, it looks like he'll be closing the doors on the office as we know it.  i can't say i blame him - i'd do the same thing.  no one relishes paying a ton of money for office space.  it's an annoying expense.

SO.

there are a variety of options i have open to me, including finding another attorney to rent space from, finding another attorney to share a new space with, or opening up my own office and renting space to other attorneys.  none of these options are incredibly attractive to me, as i'm very happy with the situation as it is, but you can't fight the winds of change.  technically i could office out of my house - i know several attorneys who do - but i don't think it's a particularly good idea for me.  i meet with clients OFTEN, and i don't want them coming to my house unless i have a very specific office space with a separate entrance.  

as a result, i spent a ton of time last week weighing options and looking at commercial office space, thus billing very little time to bring in the money that i will require to actually RENT these spaces.  *sigh.*  this is the make-it-or-break-it point in the process of hanging out my own shingle.  if i have to go back to law firm life, so be it, and i know i have several opportunities that are available for the taking, but i'm not going back to that lifestyle without putting up a fight.  a BIG fight.

which might mean i'll be eating ramen for a while.

thing two.

J had arthroscopic surgery on his knee friday morning to remove a portion of his torn meniscus (shock-absorbing cartilage).  we were discharged with antibiotics, lortab, and instructions to elevate, ice, move about freely to ensure continued flexibility and let the pain be our guide.  pain that should be manageable, if not minimal.

this worked fine friday night and saturday morning, but then around noon J's pain level suddenly skyrocketed.  we called the on-call doctor for the orthopedic surgeon's practice and he said, "yeah, that's normal, you're probably doing too much.  have you elevated it?"  well J had been laying on the couch elevating it the entire time.  by midnight, he was in excruciating pain and couldn't move.  not an inch.  laying on the couch cringing for hours, watching the clock tick by until he could take another pain pill.  so we called again.  more "yeah, that's normal, oh, you still have the ace bandage on?  oh, they told you to keep that on?  yeah, that's normal.  yeah, if you want to take some naproxen sodium that's fine.  that's normal.  if it's that bad go to the ER, i can't help."  AHHHH.  jerk.  it didn't seem normal to us, and it was FAR outside any guidelines that we had been given for post-operative expectations.  we decided to try to wait out the night.

this morning J woke up and it took him thirty minutes to make the round-trip to the bathroom.  he was in so much pain his face was white as a sheet, he broke into a cold sweat, and nearly passed out.

enough of that.

so my mom comes over to watch the girls and we pack up and go to the urgent care clinic.

NEVER GO TO THE URGENT CARE CLINIC AT 81ST AND MEMORIAL.

it's funny, because someone told me that EXACT SAME THING just YESTERDAY but we went there anyway because they were the first clinic in tulsa to open up this morning.

so after three hours at the worthless St. John's urgent care, the physician's assistant (WHO WAS ATTENDING TO US BECAUSE THERE IS **NO** DOCTOR THERE - THAT'S RIGHT - **NO** DOCTOR) finally calls the on-call orthopedic doctor from the night before who advises us to head over to the emergency room at the OSU Medical Center/former TRMC because he is on call there and wants to check J for a blood clot.

okay, the minute the PA said "blood clot" i think MY face went white as a sheet.

so i pack J up in the car again we book it downtown to the LOVELY OSU medical center and MAN that place is just scary.  i guess the south-tulsa-shiney-newness has rubbed off on me, but there is NO reason an emergency room should smell that strongly of cigarettes.  ew, ew, ew.  we were in my mom's black jag because it has a much longer back seat for J to lay in, and as we pulled up to the ER J is like, "we are in the WRONG place to be in this car."

so i walk in and i'm like, "surgery friday, inappropriate post-operative pain levels, DR. DANG IS EXPECTING US." and i'm just thinking blood clot blood clot blood clot.

and that's really his name.  dr. jimmy dang.  AVOID HIM.  he (or his associate) cuts you open, bills your insurance, and then completely renounces all moral and ethical obligation for your health and well being.  and as far as his legal obligation?  i'm still mulling over that.  his legal obligation is going to depend heavily on how well J's leg heals. because it better heal PERFECTLY at this point.

anyway, they make us go through all the processing and blah blah blah and it's actually going way faster than the urgent care place even though the urgent care place was basically empty of patients other than us the entire time we were there.  my sister meets us at the ER and feeds me a pepsi and a lunchable because by this time it's noon and all i've had all day is a cup of coffee.

so we get back into a room (and let me tell you the emergency rooms at OSU medical don't look anything like the small curtained partitions at southcrest.  they are big old-school tiled emergency rooms straight out of television.  they scream "SHOOTING!  TRIAGE!")

VERY long story short they don't know what's wrong.  they eliminate infection and blood clot (THANK GOD), give us a couple of other possibilities, tell us what to watch for, shoot J up with morphine, and send us on our merry way.

and you know what?  dr. dang doesn't show his happy shiny face the entire time.  so we drove all the way downtown to get a course of treatment that we could have gotten at any ER in town.  i'm soooo happy we did that.  right.

so by now it's three p.m. and we've spent approximately five hours and seventy-six thousand dollars on medical advice from one physician's assistant, two triage nurses, three emergency room physicians and one absentee orthopedic surgeon, that can all be summed up as "yeah. dunno."

but J's sleeping on the couch now and there's not much more i can ask for at this point.  at least he's getting some rest.  and when we got home, mom had made a wonderfully amazing pot roast which was waiting for us and could NOT have POSSIBLY tasted better.

we are so exhausted that mom took Kitten for the night and i called Princess's mom to take her. Princess's mom actually called me back while we were in the ER and i was like, "i'm the the ER with J would you want to take Princess tonight, no prob if you have plans but it's not much fun at our house this weekend..." and she's all, "yeah, yeah, sure, hey, can i ask you an etiquette question i bought this dress for this wedding and..." and i'm like OMG I AM LITERALLY STANDING IN THE ER WITH J.  ARE. YOU. SERIOUS.  i mean, i didn't ACTUALLY say that, being raised with the good graces not to.  i appreciate that she values my opinions on hemlines and color choices (i was, after all, kappa delta's most beloved Miss Gracious Living in recent history, ahem), but TIMING IS EVERYTHING.

anyway, i feel HORRIBLY guilty sending the girls away because we've spent the whole weekend in chaos with not enough quality cuddling time, but it's best for everyone.

i can't wait until things get back to normal.  J obviously can't go back to work tomorrow as expected, and i don't know how i'll be able to, either, if he's not feeling considerably better.

but here are the good things.  i need to list these for myself at this point.  

• J is in a lot of pain, but by all evaluations he is okay and will improve.  and he is resting.
• Princess and Kitten are happy and healthy.  
• J and are i both gainfully employed for the time being, and no matter what happens we both have the skill sets to support ourselves.
  
• we have a lovely, warm household and a lovely, warm family.

and, THEN, there's...

thing three.

and you know what? i totally do not have the energy to write about thing three.  so you will have to wait, my friends, to hear that rant.

the bumper sticker, part deux

i found out what happened to it.  my [mischievous and apolitical] sister decided to mess with my [bleeding heart liberal] sensibilities and relocate it to the bumper of my [much more conservative] mother's spare truck.

i should have been tipped off when i first discovered the missing sticker and called my sister to vent, and her response (instead of an empathetically outraged, "OH MY GOD!  WHO WOULD DO THAT?!?!?!") was, "hmmmmmm!"

duh.

at the time i was too irritated to pick up on it, but it should have been obvious since this sort of thing happens in our family approximately every four novembers.  without naming names, the last election a bush/cheney sticker was slapped on the bumper of my car during dinner, there was sneaking into private parking garages to politicize the unattended vehicles of certain persons, and serious discussion of renting a donkey.  

and i kind of started it this year when i snuck a "grandparents for obama" pin onto my mom's purse that she didn't discover for three days.

at least now i can stop being angry about it, because the sticker's fate is much more palatable to me than the image of some [edited for content] republican ripping it off the back of my car.

someone took the obama/biden sticker off my car.

what the hell.

lord loves a working man

went back to work today.  sort of.   mostly running around town, buying office necessities, waiting for furniture to be delivered, sorting out details like fax numbers and phone lines, waiting on hold with bank of america, those unamerican nazi fascist warmongers.  every time i interact with them i swear i will cancel my card, and then i never do, and then they do it again.  worst customer service in the history of the world.  the WORLD, people.  

some day when i have *way* more energy i will chronicle my bank of america tales for you.  truly incredible, the way they screw up in such colossal ways, over and over.  more incredible: the fact that i still have an account with them.  WHY????  i'll tell you why: because every time i get a credit card offer in the mail i read the fine print and ohohoh lookit who services the card!  BANK OF AM-ER-I-CA.  THEY ARE APPARENTLY THE ONLY CREDIT CARD COMPANY IN THE UNIVERSE.

i unpacked my boxes from my old office today.  the ones that my old office boxed up *for* me when i told them i was not coming back.  well, they kept all my office supplies.  MY office supplies.  as in, ones *I* bought.  even took the light bulbs out of my lamps.  ooookay.  you guys owe me a space heater, a three hole punch, a tape dispenser, one reallynice stapler that has seen me through numerous bank of america battles, a leather desk pad, TWO black wheeled briefcases, and a whoooooole rainbow of uniball pens that i bought myself because i hate cheap bic pens.  

but what's more annoying is that they threw everything into boxes without packing it, so i now have one shattered stained glass lampshade and one cracked veryexpensive piece of fine art pottery.  i mean, when i discovered that they had wrapped all my pottery in ONE layer of wal-mart plastic bag (seriously why even bother) and thrown it loose into the bottom of a banker's box along with nail files and old business cards, i was SHAKING with anger.  this is pottery that i bought in the homes of the artists themselves, laid out on quilted beds and old kitchen tables in a mexican village with no electricity or running water where dogs and mules roam the streets, pottery that i carefully wrapped up in 10 layers of bubble wrap and drove carefully across unpaved back roads in chihuahua, mexico and across the border, pottery that would fetch a small FORTUNE in santa fe.  AND YOU JERKS CRACKED ONE OF MY FAVORITE PIECES.

and Kitten is super cranky tonight.

end of post.  i'm in a terrible mood.  better luck tomorrow.

return policies

i've blogged about this before, but here we go on another round.

last year target changed their returns policy.  you are now allowed only $20 worth of receiptless returns a year.  after that, you are simply stuck with the merchandise.  target suggests that you donate the unwanted items to charity.  store credit and exchanges in excess of $20 per year are not available under any circumstances without a receipt.

as background for those of you who haven't heard this story before, i found this out when Princess received some clothes for her birthday in the wrong size, and target would not allow me to exchange the pieces for the exact same items in one size smaller because i didn't have a receipt from the gift-giver.  no receipt = no refunds, no exchanges, no store credit.  too bad for you.  (now, to be fair, the gift-giver was my sister and i had told her the wrong size.  but that's not the point.)

this extraordinarily customer-hostile policy specifically caused me to NOT create a baby registry at target (even though their stuff was a lot cuter), because i knew if i received duplicates i would be stuck with them.  i know some shower guests provide gift receipts, but the vast majority do not, and i refuse to tastelessly request receipts from otherwise considerate and thoughtful gift-givers. it's tacky and i will not do it.  (several people suggested putting "please include gift receipts" on my baby shower invitations.  WHAT!?!?!?!?  no way!  i wouldn't even include where i was registered on my invitations because that in itself is a breach of etiquette.)

well, today i went into babies r us to exchange some things, and lo and behold, on august 10 they revised their return policy to mimic target's.  no receipt?  we don't want it.  you can't have store credit, you can't exchange it, take it out of here.  if it's an item off your registry, they can try to look up the original transaction by your registry number, but HAHAHA NONE OF THESE THINGS ARE ON MY REGISTRY BECAUSE I DIDN'T WANT THEM!  i guess the joke's on me.

the oh-so-helpful woman at the returns desk said, "well, we handed out fliers about this."  SO TELL ME HOW THAT HELPS ME OUT.  then she told me i needed to contact the people who gave me the items and get receipts from them.  no!  flat. out. no!  stop encouraging this culture of tackiness!  this is particularly unacceptable from a store such as babies r us where a gigantic portion of their sales is generated due to gift-giving and registries.

from a sheerly economic standpoint, tell me how this makes any sense.  two weeks ago before the policy change i returned a bunch of duplicates (unopened, perfect condition), received store credit, and picked out a bunch of stuff i could actually use.  i spent the entire store credit and THEN some.  not only was babies r us not out any money (the cash stayed in their pocket the entire time and i was merely swapping items of equal value), but they MADE money off me coming into the store when i spent extra (which i'm sure to do every time).  what's more, i received rock-bottom store credit prices for everything that had gone on sale or clearance, when it's very likely that the gift-giver paid full price.  babies r us wins!

but now, post-august-10, i'm stuck with a pile of stuff i don't want, and i can't exchange it for stuff i'll use.  this waste of resources is abhorrent to me.  so i'm going to end up donating all of it to the margaret hudson center.  which is ultimately a good result, but i suspect the vast majority of the new policy's victims will end up shoving the stuff in the backs of closets and the bottoms of drawers only to be forgotten or discarded.  what a waste.

the real irony here is that now wal-mart (WAL-MART!) is the only store with an infant department of meaningful size that will offer store credit for receiptless returns and exchanges.  i would have never thought i'd be in wal-mart's corner on ANYTHING, but for today--and today only--i am happy with them.

i may seem hugely ungrateful.  truth is, i am awed by the generosity of my friends, family, and co-workers during this pregnancy.  the gifts have been amazing.  but i am also frugal.  there has to be a balance.  this child does not need sixty size 0-3 month onesies.

mega-chains are increasingly adopting these types of no-receipt-no-luck return policies, and the resulting waste is incredible. don't stand for it! vote with your feet. i am taking down my babies r us registry effective immediately.  i should have never registered at a chain to begin with.  local stores, here i come.

edited to add:  further research reveals that babies-r-us's sister chain, toys-r-us, also now refuses all returns/exchanges without a receipt.  the next time you go to buy a christmas or birthday gift for your favorite little one, please consider shopping locally instead.  lord knows autumn's got too much stuff in her room, the last thing she needs is duplicate or unwanted toys that we can't return.  it's hard enough teaching her to understand why she has to give to goodwill each year before her birthday and christmas.  

and i'll save the "educational toys and activity-based gifts vs. piles of ornately packaged plastic" rant for another day.

jeebus.

not as in homer simpson.  as in "gbs."  group b strep.  which i'm sure you know nothing about unless you've been pregnant in the last ten years since they started testing for it.

anyhoo, gbs is a harmless bacteria that people carry from time to time.  it comes and goes and causes no symptoms in healthy adults, but it can be passed to an infant during delivery so they test expectant mothers for it toward the end of their pregnancies to see if they're carriers at that time.

well, guess what.  i tested positive.  yay freaking hooray.  this means i get to be on antibiotics until the baby's born.  

i love antibiotics.  i think they are really great and i take them as often as possible because i think they're useful for all sorts of things, like allergies and the common cold.  i keep half-full bottles of them in my medicine cabinet and every time i'm feeling under the weather i'll take them for a day or two and they make everything go away because they're Magic Pills.  and who cares about superbugs because as long as *i'm* feeling better then the rest of humanity really doesn't matter, it's not like one person is going to make that big of a difference.  so taking penicillin four times a day for the next month is just peachy with me.

now re-read that last paragraph out loud with biting sarcasm while rolling your eyes.

i am incredibly annoyed.  i picked up my prescription and then went straight to whole foods and got a great big jar of plain acidophilus yogurt.

but wait!  there's more!  what's worse than what seems to be this incredible amount of oral antibiotics? now, when i go into labor, they have to hook me up to an IV and give me MORE antibiotics intravenously.  i had hoped to labor as long as possible at home before going to the hospital, and i also wanted to avoid an IV until it was time for my epidural, but now none of that is going to be possible.  once i go into labor, i have to be on the IV.  and once my water breaks, the clock starts ticking, and i will have a limited amount of time to progress before they whisk me off to be sectioned.

my morale is low.  i am eleventeen months pregnant and i had three separate strangers comment today on how enormous i am and this baby seems quite content to stick around for another three or four weeks at least.  CONTRACTIONS CAN I HAVE SOME PLEASE KTHXBAI. 

my muscles are tired of carrying around all this extra weight and the hormones are causing my bones to shift, and it hurts.  no one told me how sore i'd be.

it is a major ordeal to get out of bed each of the thirty-four times a night that i have to get up.

i groan.  a lot.

and whine.

poor J.

that's all.

so...

...i took it pretty easy all weekend, but i've been wiped out.  i can tell that my blood pressure is elevated - it's a weird sensation.  my blood pressure is usually pretty low - think 110/60 or lower.  last wednesday it was 130/90.  monday it was 140/90.  i go back on thursday morning.  if it keeps going up, the doctor will put me on official bed rest - which he hasn't done yet, much to my annoyance.  

right now what i'm having can be described as "gestational hypertension," or high blood pressure during pregnancy.  it's not actual preeclampsia yet.  preeclampsia is diagnosed with a trifecta of factors: (1) water retention, especially in the hands and face (mine is pretty much restricted to my lower legs); (2) elevated blood pressure (which is measured not objectively, but subjectively based upon what's normal for that woman.  my blood pressure won't be in the "danger" zone until it gets closer to 150, although 140 is certainly high); and (3) protein in the urine (so far i've only had trace amounts).

so i'm still in that grey zone.  i'm okay to work easy days as long as i stay down all evening, but frankly i feel like crap and my mental acumen is fogged by fatigue so frankly it's best i'm not working full-time anyway.  even when i'm there i'm not billing much because i'm thinking so slowly and trying so hard not to make mistakes that would normally not even be an issue.  

i told my boss that i'm supposed to be working half-days.  she asked for a doctor's note.  and then she gave me fifteen projects to do.  i can't tell you how annoyed i am by that.  do they think i'm injecting saline into my ankles before work every morning?  i had already told her that if they wanted to consider this a hybrid maternity leave that was fine, and that i wasn't expecting them to give me additional paid time off, but that there is no way i'm making my hours this month.  so now i have to ask my doctor to write me a note when i go in on thursday, just like i'm in middle school.  *highly, highly annoyed*

J is in dallas for a conference yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  he'll be back tomorrow evening, and i'm glad.  normally i don't mind being home alone at all - after all, i lived alone a lot after high school, and i liked it, so him being gone for a few days here and there is a nice respite, and distance lends enchantment to the view, and et cetera, et cetera.  but today my head is really hurting (another hallmark of preeclampsia) (and i just used a passive verb phrase, good grief) and i really am just ready for him to be back, and i just said "really" twice in one sentence - see how much i'm slipping???  ug!  i feel so mentally DULL and it is completely maddening, i can't even tell you how frustrated i am.

i'm 34 weeks now, and i'll be full-term at the end of 36 weeks, as i've mentioned oh approximately fifty trillion times in the last two months.  i want her to have the full benefit of being in utero as long as she needs, but an induction is pretty darn appealing right now.  which makes me sad, since i was SO anti-induction just a few weeks ago.  

but man.  i'm beat.  oh, and it's 9:30 p.m. and my boss just called and asked me to do a hearing for her tomorrow.  WHY.

tired, i am

i'm so tired, i haven't slept a wink
i'm so tired, my mind is on the blink
i wonder should i get up and fix myself a drink
no, no, no.
-the beatles

i went to bed at 10:00 p.m. last night (lights out at 10:30 because i'm reading a new book), and i overslept until 8:00 a.m., and i've been exhausted all day. shaky, too: after eating a too-early lunch at 11:00 a.m., i had to run to panera bread at 2:30 to get a sandwich and a smoothie because i was feeling so awful (at $12, to boot - "no recession" my arse. they raised the prices on their bagels, too.).

i really just want to go home and lie down before i commit malpractice, because i am totally not with it today. problem is, i was totally not with it yesterday, either. i have a list of about six projects that i need to start on, but i can't bring myself to do it. not because they're not interesting projects - in fact, i'm excited about a couple of them. but when i sit down and look at the logistics of beginning them, my mind gets overrun and i want to go take a nap.

beale thinks i'm getting too much sleep. i think it's the opposite. the bed seems smaller and smaller and smaller every night, and the room seems warmer and warmer and warmer. i'm sure it's not the outside elements so much as it is my expanded insulation and the multitude of pillowy accountrement that i now require to get comfortable. i have this gigantic bolster pillow that is pretty much my new best friend, but rearranging Mr. Bolster and myself throughout the night is no small feat.

i'm whiny today. i'm whiny a lot these days. thirty-three weeks down, how many more to go? *shaking fist at sky*

clotheshorse

when i was planning for this baby, i thought about the usual things: delivery costs, supplemental insurance, diapers, daycare. it did not even occur to me how much an ENTIRELY NEW WARDROBE would cost.

i just spent another $150 on clothes i neither like nor want. i have an entire closet full of clothes i adore, and i can't wear any of them. instead, i have to rotate between the handful of maternity pieces i've bought. i'm already sick of them. i'm used to having a very large, varied wardrobe. i love clothes.

but i have NO motivation to go shop for maternity clothes, much less fork over my hard-earned cash for them, especially in the midst of termite damage in the nursery and hail damage to our cars. they're ugly. and most important, they're temporary.

this morning i was in really desperate shape. i realized that i really need to get it in gear and buy some more stuff now that i officially can no longer get away with wearing pre-baby pieces. so i got to work and logged on to oldnavy.com because i'd heard they have some cheap maternity stuff. i was greeted with this (click for bigger if you want a higher resolution view of their pin-thin arms and protruding collarbones):

WHAT PREGNANT WOMAN HAVE YOU EVER SEEN THAT LOOKS LIKE THAT??? way to go, old navy. i hate you now. i thought i'd spare myself the annoyance of going to The Mall and dealing with the salesgirls at motherhood maternity who insist on calling me "honey" (last time i was in there, i actually asked the girl to cut it out--i'm probably the least tolerant of patronizing attitudes that i will ever be in my life--isn't it enough that i have to suffer the supreme indignity of empire waist shirts?). so instead i get online to have maternity stuff shipped to me, and i'm greeted with the summery image of a couple of 19-year-old size 2 models with pillows stuffed under their shirts.

whatever.

It's a GIRL!

and to answer some commonly asked questions, i will post in blog-form an email that i wrote to my friend jessalynn this morning, which actually covered a lot of stuff people have been asking:

the nursery is going to be in our former guest bedroom/office. it's in a transitional phase right now and there will still have to be some office stuff in there once the baby's born because there is some stuff (like J's computer) that we simply have no where else to put. last weekend we were moving some furniture around in that room and discovered that we have termites, so we also have to have that treated next week before we can do any more real work on the room. oh, well, more time for gardening, which also needs to be done.

originally, frugal me was going to use the bedding from Princess's nursery, which a discontinued Carter's pattern, based upon some John Lennon drawings.

it's very nursery-like and also gender neutral. but then i was in the room the other day and realized how BARE the walls are. i don't really want to get into painting, and i can't easily find any good matching wall hangings because this pattern has been discontinued. And THEN I saw THIS and I think it's much more me:

we borrowed a crib from J's mom, and it's old and not a beautiful dark wood like above, but it will work, and I'm just going to use an old dresser for now. we'll buy all new furniture when the baby is ready for a twin size bed, we'll get an entire bedroom suite then that will see her through childhood. i don't see any use in buying a changing table and other things that we'll only use for a year or two. as much as i'd love to have a beautiful, perfectly put together nursery, there are better things we can put that money toward right now. things like termite control.

as far as registering goes, we still have a lot of Princess's baby stuff, so when i get the nursery set up in the next few weeks i will inventory what we have, and also J's older brother and his wife have some stuff we might use, so once i figure out what i have and what i need, i will register then. probably just at Babies-R-Us.m at Pottery Barn Kids, but then again if you're not registering for furniture and nursery linens there, there's not a whole lot more left in that store to register for.

target has super-cute stuff but i've heard awful stuff about their registries. i discovered their new return policy last year when i went to exchange two outfits Princess had received for her birthday. i wanted the same outfits in one size smaller, but apparently you are allowed only $20 worth of receiptless returns or exchanges per YEAR. this is compounded by the fact that their registry has glitches and does not automatically update, so things aren't always removed from the registry when they're purchased and people keep buying them. the result is that you end up with duplicate gifts, and you can't return OR EVEN EXCHANGE them unless the gift-giver has included a gift receipt - even when the gift clearly came off your registry. you are just 100% stuck with two of the same item, which they suggest you "donate to goodwill." and i don't want to be put in the position of having to ask people for receipts - it's so rude.

also, we are not even remotely close to having a name picked out yet. we haven't even decided on the last name. we brought out the baby naming books last night and started making lists, but nothing has jumped out at me. it took me two months to name Gatsby, and this baby is due in four, so that does not bode well.

i think that's all for now. have a great weekend!

i heart administrative rulemaking

so my driver's license expired back in december. i'd kind of just let it slide because the worst that could happen is that i get pulled over for speeding, ticketed for having an expired license, and then get my license reinstated via the normal avenues and have the ticket dismissed. at times, my knowledge of the inner workings of the law prompts me to violate it a little. oh, well. only the minor laws. besides, december 31 is the most POSSIBLY inconvenient day to have your license expire. it's the holidays, the tag agencies are closed, and i'm usually out of town.

so i had been dragging my feet about the reinstatement because of oklahoma's new anti-mexican (oops, i mean anti-immigration) legislation, which makes it much harder to obtain a state ID. i won't go into details in this post about the legislation lest my blood pressure rise too much, although that might be a good thing because when i went to the doctor this afternoon for this headcold-and-migraine (because of which i stayed home from work today, which is incredibly stress-inducing in and of itself) the nurse, after taking my blood pressure (which is historically very low anyway) said, "my GOD. are you alive??"

anyway, i decided it was finally time to get my license renewed after i got kicked out of the bar area in a restaurant in bricktown a couple of weekends ago. i got ID'd, and the girl (barely 21 herself) was like, "you can't sit here - this is expired." i said, "i'm twenty-seven years old, i'm pregnant, i'm an attorney, and i'm just going to sit here and eat buffalo wings and drink water while my boyfriend and his friends have a beer. are you serious?" she was. i hate her a little.

and also i had a FABULOUS time the last time i flew, trying to get through airport security with an expired license. they put you in the terrorist line. it's embarrassing. the people you're traveling with will make fun of you. don't try it.

used to be (pre-"MEXICANS ARE BAD"-legislation) that you could just go to the tag agency to get an expired license renewed. but with this new anti-immigration bill, if you let your license lapse, you have to go all the way down to the DMV and show your old license and TWO forms of ID (passport, birth certificate, or social security card), get re-fingerprinted, re-photographed, and if you don't have your old license to surrender, re-tested, too, and THEN you get permission to drive to the tag agency to get it p-r-i-n-t-e-d o-u-t, which they can't do for you at the DMV for reasons unknown to everyone, including the DMV guy. oookay. i feel so much safer now. this will definitely cut down on the incidents of new mexican groceries in east tulsa. good job! oklahoma was becoming dangerously diverse, anyway.

homeland security exercise: here is a picture of the new face of terrorism. how many WMDs can you find hidden in this image?

so AN-Y-WAY, i go down to the DMV and wait for 45 minutes. talk to the guy. get fingerprinted, photographed (apparently now you have to be fingerprinted and photographed EVERY TIME you have interaction with the DMV or tag agency to make sure you're the same person each time), fill out the paperwork, show my documentation, and get a little piece of paper approving me for a new license.

then i drive across town to the tag agency, wait for an hour, get re-fingerprinted, re-photographed, show all my paperwork again, and then i find out that my FINGERPRINTS NO LONGER MATCH from an hour and a half before. i've been told i have an adaptive personality, but that's just AMAZING. i'm like a shapeshifter. it's so cool.

so i get sent BACK to the DMV across town, wait for 45 minutes. talk to the guy. get re-fingerprinted, re-photographed, show my documentation, and get sent back to the tag agency.

then i drive BACK across town to the tag agency, wait for an hour, get re-fingerprinted, re-photographed, show all my paperwork again, pay $21.50, and FINALLY get my new driver's license FOUR HOURS AFTER STARTING THE PROCESS.

i can't even tell you how furious i was. this is four hours out of my WORK DAY.

the woman in front of me at the tag agency (the first time i was there) got sent back to the DMV to be re-photographed because at the DMV she took her picture with her glasses on, but at the tag agency they made her take them off ("it's the new rules"), and the "facial recognition software" wouldn't recognize her as the same woman, even though the agent admitted that he could clearly tell that it was her in both pictures.

tell me how all of this rigamarole is an efficient use of my, or the government's, time and money.

oh. and my new license still expires on december 31.