Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Brought to you today by the number 10.....

Two tens actually. For those of you not in the know (like you missed the FB post) after 1.5 yrs we have finally managed to begin the procreation process for the second time. Apparently I'm not that easy a breeder, go figure. We are presently at 10 weeks and yes, I know, most people in my precarious position (Advanced maternal age, such a great title to be tagged with) don't tell the world until 12 weeks but back in the real world it just wasn't practical. Which leads me to the second 10, that's about how long I'll have had (in years) between my 2 children. Hiding it from the 9 yr old was going to become difficult right quick.

You see my mother in law flew out Christmas day to spend a week and a half with us. She'll be here for my first real prenatal appointment (I've already been once but apparently it doesn't count) (?) and she has 2 sons so the pregnancy/grandchild thing is a super big deal for her. Super big deal. FYI I'm not telling my own mother until I have to. Preferable never but I'm a realist. So maybe she'll figure it out in the 3rd trimester. Anyway the mother in law likes to buy all of the maternity clothes (fucking awesome). She did it for my sister in law for her one pregnancy (they tried to have another but she was in her 50's by then, no go) and she did it for me when I was pregnant with my daughter. Now since she lives in San Diego I knew that there would be some shopping involved in this visit. Shopping of the preggers nature. This basically made it so we kinda needed come clean with the kid because she's no dummy. She figured out the secret of Santa last year all by herself. Trust me, she'd have noticed something was up a lot sooner than my idiot mother will. And I'm ok with that. So we decided we'd tell her on Christmas day as an extra bonus gift. She's dying for a girl. Mother Nature being what it is she has a better than 50% chance of it being a girl. I always wanted a boy but really, I think it'll be a girl. Murphy's Law right?

I did have an appointment as soon as I tested positive. My doctor is paranoid because of that whole brain explosion thing 3 (was it 3?) years ago. I thought I was only about 5 weeks along so we didn't know if we'd see anything on the ultrasound. Turned out at the time I was 7 weeks along (wow, impressive math skills Michelle) and we got to see it on the ultrasound (doesn't look like much at that point) and most exciting, I got to hear the heartbeat. This is big for me. At my age (37) my eggs are old and there are a multitude of different things that can go wrong. The heartbeat tells me, at the very least, it's alive. I had a co-worker whose wife got pregnant at the same time I did with my daughter and she ended up getting a D&C because they never found a heartbeat. That's gotta suck. There's also a high risk of miscarriage, most of the women I know around my age had at least 1 before getting a viable pregnancy.

I have high hopes for this pregnancy. The last one was at a kinda precarious point in my life, was only really dating my present hubby, and we had no idea how the relationship was going to work out. And there were a variety of other health issues in the beginning so I was pretty much miserable on top of being hormonal. I don't have any happy memories of that pregnancy. Or for a good 2 years after either. It's been almost a decade since then though and I'm determined to have a pleasant, if not happy, pregnancy. I'm not worried about labor and delivery. I know all the horror stories and I have some of my own. And just so ya know, an aneurysm hurts WAY WORSE than giving birth. May you never find out the hard way. I know what I do and do not want. I have people (no, not the hubby) who will be there for me and will either kick out or beat the crap out of anyone who goes against my wishes. It's good to have some serious beotches at your back in the L&D room. Everyone needs at least one. I also don't have family telling me what I'm doing wrong. I'm a mom, my kid, my word is law, they can piss off.

I'm so glad I'm not a first time mother anymore, that was HELL. I have high hopes for this one. I may have to kill a few people who piss me off but I have no problems with that. I'm a chemist, no one can hide bodies as good as me.

Did I mention that (as an added bonus) my kid saw me in the shower yesterday morning and told me I didn't look like I was pregnant. She also said that her friend (a boy whose mom recently had a baby) said I didn't look pregnant either. I didn't want to pop her bubble and tell her it's because mommy already has too much of a belly on her and if mommy was skinny you'd be able to tell. No, I thanked her and told her it was a sweet thing to say. The child is built like the hubby, stick thin forever, so she doesn't need to know that there are those of us who will always be a bit round. May this next one have the same luck and get the skinny gene. Wish us luck!

Friday, December 10, 2010

Food for thought

Every once in awhile I flit across an interesting human behavior article on CNN (or maybe Time even, I like them both) and it gets me thinking. I know, I know, dangerous thing me thinking and all. This particular article was very short and to the point
Babies go to school to teach
And what it basically said is that they bring a baby in to class to see if the kids can understand what the baby is feeling through body language. The original point was to help build a more peaceful and civil society through children. What they found was that it reduced bullying because they could empathize better. And all they did was expose them to a baby and her momma and asked them about body language.

Seems simple doesn't it? But the fact the third graders learned important social behaviors from it tells me there are some bigger social issues going on here. Apparently empathy isn't something you're born with, it's something you learn. Where do you learn it? Your parents (I'm assuming here)? TV (more likely)? And don't you think many of these children would be able to see this momma baby relationship at home or with friends that have baby siblings?

And there's the rub huh? With the whole 60's sexual revolution women earned the right to be equal (yeah right) in the work force so now we all get to go to work for 10+ hours a day. And come home, cook, clean, do homework with the kids, get them ready for bed, and sure we've got plenty of money for multiple children. Now that both adults are working and we spend all that money on child care. Because we earned the right to be in the work force and pawn our children off to child care businesses. I have a problem seeing how we're so much better off this way. Now that we can mass produce offspring and pay a business to raise them for us.

So these children are learning about relationships and empathy by having someone other than their mom (who can't possibly have the time or money for another kid) and somewhere other than in their own home. Because, you know, the public schooling system, in theory, is not responsible for building the basis with our children's morals but in the end somebody has to do it. It's not like parents have the time for it any more right?

See, it was a short article but I think they left out a whole bunch. Talk about not seeing the forest through the trees. Or maybe I'm just hormonal today. Lord knows it's always a high possibility.....

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Dennis the Menace

I wish I had a photo for this post, I really do. I'm going to try and make a point of taking my camera in the mornings specifically for y'all and the visual that you really need for this.

I live in a 'brick home, in a school zone, with the doors locked and alarms on' neighborhood (name that song). It's a gated community, and yeah the gates are constantly broken so I'm still not sure why they bother. Regardless, it's a somewhat hoity toity hood and there are different levels of stupid expensive homes in it in different sections. We don't really belong there but I fell in love with the house so there we are. Their are rules pertaining to all kinds of things in my hood, as to be expected with a gated HOA hood. People break the rules all the time but rarely to an extent where they'd get popped. One of the rules is no free roaming animals. Even cats. I like this rule personally because walking my big psycho dog is a beotch if there's a wandering animal about. Impossible really. Mostly it's the super rich homes that let their animals wander. They either don't want to spend the money on a fence that matches, don't really care, or both. They just open their doors and let their pets out. I'm sure they crap everywhere else but their own lawns so it's a double bonus for their lazy ass owners. I don't live in the richy part of the hood though so I only see this while either driving through their end or on the rare occasion I take a 2+ mile walk over there with my big psycho dog.

Recently I've seen a stray in the hood. You can tell it's a stray not because it doesn't have a collar (most of the richy dogs don't) but because of the breed. Best I can tell is that it's a big black pit bull boarder collie mix. Black with a bit of white around it's neck and chest. I was a vet tech for over 5 years, I can often call the mix of breeds. He is neutered and seems nice. I'd like to catch him but it's hard to get him close enough. I know that many of the neighbors have tried because we all want him caught. One neighbor came around to let people know not to call animal control because she wanted him. Too bad she didn't leave any contact info. Idjit. It's been at least 2 months since he was (I'm thinking) dumped in our hood. Lets face it, we're way the Hell out in suburbia and no one owns a pit mix in our hood. Not pretty or purebred enough for our hood. It's gotten below freezing at least 3 times in that time span and he's still doing ok. I'm hoping someone is feeding him or something. I see him just about every morning and occasionally in the afternoon.

Here's the sight that just killed me though. Last night I see 2 women walking their golden retrievers at a decent clip. Goldens are real laid back go with the flow kind of dogs and they don't mind much as long as you take them out for exercise. Along side them is the stray (I've nick named him Dennis the Menace) as if he's totally park of they pack. If you didn't know that he was a stray you wouldn't know it watching him walk with them. It was so sweet, you know that poor dog wants to have home. It was just heart breaking to watch because I knew those women weren't going to take him home. If I didn't have psycho dog I could try to get him but alas, my psycho would flip the hell out.

My mission for today is to get a hold of a slip lead and see if I can't wrangle his butt up. I see him just about every morning at the same time when I drop the kid off at school. I can't get him with the kid in the car but after I drop her off I'm hoping I can con him into jumping in the car. Dogs are such suckers for rides. I don't know what I'll do with him if I do catch him. Maybe wait until everyone gets home in the evening and then take him door to door to see if anyone will either a) take him in or b) donate money for his care. People don't like taking in a responsibility but they'll assuage their guilt with money. Hey, it's just that kind of hood. Then if I can get someone who will take him I can give them the money to get him shots and whatnot. I'd rather not give him to animal care, they're the only ones with room right now and they have a high kill rate. Wish me luck!