Our regularly scheduled programming
If there is one thing certain about the hours of approximately 2-5 a.m.: there is not jack on television. Unless you count the episode of Celebrity Fit Club 2 that I've already seen twice this week, and it premiered last night. Oh, and Girls Gone Wild commercials.

Dad just took the baby out for a ride in the stroller. He figured I could use a break, as today was my first day on my own at home. It went fairly well, actually. I even squeezed in a two-hour nap.

But I am wearing jeans that have TWO fresh pee stains on them. I figure, why bother to change them?

I'll leave you with a couple of pics before I am summoned to open the Milk Factory for business once more...



Yes, I am a long, long way from MILF status.



And our first family photo. He has on the cutest outfit EVAH in this picture but you can't see it.

When Domino met Daniel ...




Greetings from the Land of Little Sleep. The first night home from the hospital was the easiest, by far. We had a few three-hour stretches where everyone snoozed. Night two was the night of peeing and pooping. We had to wash our sheets, down to the mattress pad -- twice -- during the night. I had been feeding him in bed and he'd let loose during feedings. Smaller diapers were promptly purchased the next day, as he is too tiny for even size 1.

Last night he was ready to par-tay all night! We didn't get to bed until after 3, then woke up at 4, 5:30, 7, 8, and then we slept until 11. He just now went back to sleep.

Overall he is a joy, though, I wouldn't trade this for anything in the world. He is really starting to take shape... his hair is growing, his skin is becoming less wrinkly, and his little cheeks are actually becoming a little bit pudgy! He looks less like Verne Troyer and more like a miniature version of my husband. People are telling me that he has my eyes, but I just see my hubby when I look at him. Except his toes. He definitely has my toes.

The cats are adjusting pretty well to him. They both come and stand guard when he is crying. Both have been sleeping near the bassinet at night. Molly came up on the bed and gave his little head a kiss; Dom has been much more tentative (see above). But I think they both realize that their new role in this household is as protectors.

While I have a moment of free time, I think I'll go see who Kaysar nominated!

More to follow in baby land...

Daniel, you're a star
Meet the artist formerly known as Doodle.



Daniel Evan was born Monday July 18, at 7:06 p.m. He weighed in at 6 pounds, 9 oz, and is 21 inches long. I was expecting him to be much larger but he is really quite a wisp! He has long skinny arms and legs.



I must sing my praises to the epidural. Without it I don't think I could have done it. I had horrible back labor for the first few hours and once the epidural went in, I felt nothing, not even the pushing at the end.

We're home from the hospital and trying to get adjusted. I'll post more soon but I wanted to let everyone know that we're here, healthy and happy!

The end is near
I'm scheduled to be induced on Monday morning. I went to the doctor today and it seems that this baby doesn't want to be born anytime soon, at least not without some assistance. They don't want him to get too big.

I'll need all kinds of good vibes being sent my way on Monday so please keep me in your thoughts! Hopefully I'll be back with you next week to share my good news. :)

Take care everyone!

Past due
This is CLEARLY my husband's fault.

I abhor procrastination. I have never been late to an appointment, never turned in a term paper late, never waited until the last minute to do something.

If you give me a deadline, I will make sure that I am two days early. Or if it's due at 5, you'll have it from me at noon. That is how much of an anti-crastinator I am.

So obviously this baby does not take after his mom when it comes to due dates. If he thinks he's not going to be reminded of this constantly throughout his life, he is sadly mistaken.

Zoinks!
I just went over to Hamster Time and there are SEVENTY-TWO pages of recaps. I think I last left off around, oh, I don't know, page 5?

There's no way I am ever going to be able to catch up.

Can some kind soul please tell me the essentials of this past week? E.g. who should I be hating, who is likely getting voted off, who has had meltdowns, etc.?

Boob
I just used the phrase "above the boobline" in a business conversation. As in, "You want me to crop your photo above the boobline?"

The only reason I phrased it so bluntly is because the client I had on the phone said, "Can you crop it so it doesn't look like my boobs go down to my stomach?"

I feel so ashamed of myself.

Lunch trauma
When your days of freedom are numbered and you've been on a restricted diet for six months, lunchtime at work tends to be a cherished event.

Today for me was no exception. I had leftover eggplant parmesan from the Macaroni Grill, where I dined Saturday night. The eggplant was awesome and I was looking forward to eating the rest of it today. (By the way -- a co-worker told me that eggplant induces labor. After eating it three times in the past week, I can say with certainty, IT DOESN'T.)

I heat up my lunch in the microwave and take the first bite. Hmm, I think. This seems a little bit chewier than I remember it. Maybe I over-nuked it. I take another bite and realize... it's freaking VEAL!

I don't eat veal. It skeeves me in the same way that eggs skeeve me. I can eat eggs as long as I don't think about what they really are. But veal, it's too hard for me to swallow, literally and figuratively.

So I enjoyed a delicious 6" turkey sub from Subway. A sketchy guy with huge cuts on his lip made it for me though. If I hadn't already been desperate, I may have refused to eat that, as well.

Then I found out that about five minutes after I left the kitchen to go to Subway, another department brought up four huge trays of subs, salads and cookies that were left over from some seminar they had.

It's just not my day, I guess. Not where food is concerned, anyway.

Surreal
I'm getting ready to watch the premiere of the new season of "The Surreal Life" on Vh-1. I just want to say that the only reason I'm watching is because Balki Bartokomus is going to be on. Oh, and Omarosa, I guess. Really, this show hasn't been good since season one.

Just a couple of pictures ...
First of all, pregnant me, fresh out of the shower and looking lovely... this is from a couple weeks ago.

And Uncle Dom awaits the arrival by making sure the changing table pad is nice and soft. He wouldn't let me practice swaddling him, though. The teddy bear pictured was a gift from the receptionist at work. Isn't it cute?

The tide has turned
I'm still babyless with one week to go. A curious phenomenon has occured at work: instead of everyone asking, "Oh, when are you due?" they are all asking, "You're still here?!?"

I can't even tell you how many times I said, "Yep, still here," today. I changed it up ever so often with a "Still hangin' in there."

In a shocking turn of events, Bad Lady got Doodle a gift. I guess there is some good in her sometimes.

Progress report
No baby yet. In fact, maybe not even this week. I saw a different doctor this morning and he wasn't as gung ho about inducing labor as last week's doc. So they are going to let me go and see what happens. I'm kind of disappointed, mostly because that means I'll have to be at work all week. And plus I had built up Thursday as the day when this would all finally be over, and when I would cease to be myself and instead become SOMEONE'S MOM. But for now, I'm hanging in there, so to speak.

Hope everyone had a fantastic fourth! I had a good one, despite the fact that my poor little Dom hid under the bed for most of it. My neighbors, they like the illegal firecrackers.

Adventures on the Ohio Turnpike
Part of the peril of driving home from work on the Ohio Turnpike during the summer is that my exit also happens to be the exit for a major outdoor concert venue. Throughout the summer, I am treated to an extra half hour to an hour of drive time home whenever a concert rolls into town.

Last night, I spent about 45 minutes trying to exit the turnpike with several hundred Tom Petty/Black Crowes fans. I didn't know what concert it was until I got home and checked the newspaper to find out what gene pool had driven from Cleveland to get to my little neck of the woods, but I usually like to guess. Last night's crowd was 20 something, frat boy-esque, and also had lots of 20 something blonde chicks in tight shirts and jeans. It was, frankly, a crapshoot. I was leaning toward a blah, innocuous-type pop band such as Three Doors Down. If I see frat boys in tye-die, I know it's either Dave Matthews or some sort of Phishlike band. If I see pickups, Confederate flags and W stickers, I know it's a country performer.

Anyway, in my 45 minute wait on the turnpike ramp, I must have seen about 15 frat boys get out of their cars to pee by the side of the road. They'd all do the same thing. They'd jump out and run about 50 yards closer to the exit ramp, then divert into the woods -- barely. There would be a row of peeing boys all along the side of the road. Then they'd zip up and run back to their car, which by this time had just about caught up with them. In my pregnant, constantly-peeing state, I was hurting, but not desperate enough for a road pee.

My greatest moment of humor was pulling up to the tool booth, where one of my usual booth workers, who I like to refer to as "Mr. Friendly," was collecting. In the adjacent booth, a large bus, painted black and full of 20 somethings, had pulled up. They were blasting some old Poison song and singing along. Mr. Friendly, who in the four years that I have been driving home on the turnpike has maybe grunted out two words to me, gave me a look of "can you believe this?" I really feel like we bonded.

Dear Canada,
Thank you very much for Michael J. Fox and the Barenaked Ladies and ... some other stuff.
Happy Canada Day everyone!

Love,
Kat

P.S. Sorry about hockey season this year.

Pet peeve #45521
One thing I will not miss about the office while I'm gone on maternity leave: Bad Lady eating her yogurt. She eats it at the same time every day, and every day she scrapes her spoon on the little cup, trying to get at every last bit of yogurt in there. The spoon scrape, it makes me nutty.

Stir it up
I don't know about you, but when my doctor says to me as he is about to examine how dilated and effaced I am, about the last thing I want him to say to me is, "Do you want me just to check you and tell you where you're at, or should I check you and stir things up down there?"

But that is exactly what happened to me this morning. I was completely taken aback and thus, reverted into Beavis mode. "Uh... what?!"

Then he explained something that I'll spare you the details on, but basically he could move my labor along TODAY if I wanted him to. He also shared with me that he could do it and not tell me and I'd never know. Yeah. So I feel fully confident in him now that he's about to reach inside me to investigate.

Up until that very moment I was ready to get this child out of me and be done with it. But hearing that I could go into labor tonight or tomorrow caused a bit of a panic.

"Uh, no thanks," I said nervously. "Maybe next week."

It's looking like they are going to admit me next Thursday night and start the induction (inducement?) process. Right on time for the Big Brother premiere! But it looks like the actual birth would take place next Friday, the 8th. Mark your calendars, Doodle's almost here!

Nesting
Here's photographic evidence that I'm in full-on nesting mode. This is me and my trusty assistant, Dom, working on putting the knobs on the baby's changing table. You can also see the rubble which is the aftermath of my baby shower a month ago.



Also for your viewing pleasure, here are some pics of some of our flowers in our backyard at the moment:



And another one:

Tech support
Wow. Two posts in one day. It's just like the old blogging days!
Anyhoo, this is a venting type post, because I have been getting dumb phone calls all day.

I sent out an e-mail to most of the company, indicating that there are some new files available for download on our Intranet site. I dumbed it down as much as possible, knowing that most of the people are not computer-savvy.

Well, apparently I didn't dumb it down enough.

Part of the e-mail that I sent indicated that these files can be opened and edited in my most-hated program ever... Publisher. Publisher is grand if you're not a graphic designer. But if you are, Publisher is the bottom of the barrel. So... phone call #1:

Caller: I'm downloading the file and it won't let me open it.
Me: What does your screen say?
Caller: It is asking me to save it.
Me: There's not an option to open the file?
Caller: No.
Me: (thinking) Are you at the office or at home?
Caller: At home.
Me: Do you have Publisher at home?
Caller: No.
Me: It's a Publisher file, so you need the program, Publisher, to open it. The office has Publisher.
Caller: You mean I have to go into the office to do this?

...........................

Also included in my e-mail were walkthrough instructions on how to actually find our Intranet site and how to log on. This was the part I really tried to dumb down. I explained that the dialog box would ask for you to log in, and that your login was yourname@ourcompany.com, thinking that logic would dictate that instead of typing "yourname", the recipients of my e-mail would actually type in their own names. Then I explained that the password would be the same password they use to log on to their computer. Call #2:

Caller: I keep typing in yourname@ourcompany.com and it's not working.
Me: You mean you're typing in your name at our company dot com?
Caller: Yeah. yourname@ourcompany.com.
Me: You mean, your name, Jane Smith, at our company dot com?
Caller: Oh! Is that what I have to do?
Me: *slapping forehead* Yeah. So you should be all set now. Did it work?
Caller: What's the password?
Me: Your password that you use to log on to the computer.
Caller: Oh. What's that?
Me: I don't know your personal password.
Caller: Oh. THAT password!

..........................

I honestly don't know how a tech support person can listen to calls like that all day long. Because those two nearly sent me over the edge.

Coming to terms
Sorry for the lack of posts. I suppose I should just throw something up here every couple of days so no one wonders if I've gone into early labor. I haven't.

However, I am, as of today, officially full-term! I'm at 37 weeks. The doctors tell me that Doodle is about 6 and a half pounds now, which is about average for how far along we are. They also are considering inducing me in about two weeks if it hasn't already happened by then. But they are definitely not letting me go past my due date.

So that's where things stand with the baby!

It's funny, I'm in that phase right now where I'm just ready to get it all over with. But at the same time, I'm hanging on to these last few days of non-parenthood for all they're worth. I took a day off on Tuesday and halfway through the day I realized that this would be my last day off where I was alone. At least until he's in school. There are a lot of "lasts" that I'm ticking off in my mind as we get closer.

In the meantime, I'm trying to distract myself with such horrible television as "Hell's Kitchen," "Real World Austin", and of course, "Hit Me Baby 1 More Time" (how bad was Wang Chung last week?) I'm also reading Tom Wolfe's "I Am Charlotte Simmons" which actually isn't too bad. I'm trying to finish all 2,000,0000 pages of it before I have the baby and I'm about 3/4 of the way through. My husband bet me that I couldn't finish it, so guess what? I WILL. I will, even if I am finishing it through phase three of labor.

And now, I'm off to lunch at Chipotle. Chicken fajita burrito bol, here I come!

Jacko
So Michael Jackson was found innocent. I apologize if someone has already made the following joke, but if not, then I take full credit for it: Now that he's been found innocent, Michael will be free to look for the real molester.

I know that the mother and son who were accusing him of molestation were really sketchy at best. And that the jury found no "smoking gun" that pointed them in the direction of Michael's guilt. But I still feel like somethin' ain't right with Michael. I mean, I would NEVER in a million years send my son to Neverland to be alone with Michael. Would you?