Boob Holes

During my recent visit with my mother, I discovered that she has become obsessed with e-bay. Rather, she has been obsessed with buying nursing night gowns for me on e-bay. Yes, the woman has been setting her alarm clock for 1:30 in the morning so that she can wake up and try to squeeze in a last minute bid on a boob slit nightie.

As a result, I received two such items at my baby shower. When I got home, I tried to explain the items to D., as "a combination of grandma and porn", in other words, "a muumuu with boob holes." I knew what he would imagine: huge gaping holes cut out so your boobs could just hang out of the muumuu. I think he was relieved to see that they were discreet little slits instead, from which the boob can stealthily emerge, when the time is right. Sexy.

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So, in order to "win" at Nano (50,000 words) it looks as though one would need to write an average of about 1600 words per day for the month of November, which would be about five or six pages? Does that sound right? Help me out here, even with a calculator, I'm bad at math.

notes from augusta

My parents picked me up in Atlanta on Wednesday morning and we started off for the 2-3 hour drive to the town where my Mom lives. My Dad suggests the usual chain restaurants for lunch but my mother announces that she wants to stop off for lunch in a small town that has a good "homestyle cooking" restaurant with "lots of veggies". So, we drive off for an hour or so and my Mom starts wondering where the exit is. I ask her if she's sure where the restaurant is. She knows the town but the last time she went there the highway didn't go that far. I ask her offhand how long it's been since she's been to the restaurant. "Oh, thirty or forty years," she says.

Humoring her, we exit the highway and drive into your typical Georgia small town, with a main street lined with antebellum mansions and various other historical artifacts, then a "downtown" lined with antique shops, and, amazingly, the restaurant where my mother used to eat thirty or forty years ago. It's in an old bank building and it looks like they haven't changed the furniture or the decor since the last time she was there. There is an old woman behind the counter slopping out servings of mac & cheese, black eyed peas, turnip greens, green beans, and fruit cobbler, for about a dollar a serving. There is a plastic pitcher of sweet tea on each table. I guess some things never change.

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Why didn't anyone remind me that visiting my Mom, who runs her own home daycare, during the week while quite pregnant might not be such a great idea? I keep having to remind myself that I will not be giving birth to two one year olds, a two year old, and two five year olds all at the same time. Seriously, I don't know how people with lots of kids do it. Or my mother.

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My mother's house is SO COLD that if you are wearing your jeans and a sweater you will still be freezing. You will want to wear your coat, gloves, and a hat. If you want to warm up, you will go outside. Even in the rain.

Good News

I finally took, and passed, the dreaded clinical exam today. I am so glad that's over. I was very anxious about it. It's even less fun to take a stupid standardized test when you're seven months pregnant. Now I feel completely exhausted and drained.
I totally flaked on my blogging! (shocking) That is, my idea to blog every day until Nov. 1st. On Thursday I completely forgot, on Friday I had trouble with Blogger and eventually gave up, and on Sat. and Sun. I said "fuck it." So there.

Baby Boy

So instead of taking the dreaded test today, I spent the day doing my son's laundry.

He's been quite active lately, and even seemingly responding to me. If he starts kicking and I stroke my belly, he appears to kick in that direction in response. Who knows, but it's getting easier to imagine that there's a real little person in there and I'm more and more anxious to get to know him. Thus I wanted to do something for him today and what I came up with was to launder his wardrobe. He has a lot of clean clothes! (much thanks to Laguilia)

I was pretty freaked out a month ago when I found out that I was having a baby boy. Derek and I had convinced ourselves that we were having a girl, had picked out a name and begun imagining her and everything. But then, at the ultrasound, there was a penis! And suddenly I was flooded with thoughts like, how on earth am I going to raise a boy? I don't know anything about boys or what it's like to be a boy. Will I have to step aside and will Derek be the main parent here? I know there will be things that they will enjoy together that I just can't get my heart into - sports, for example. Derek is already enjoying chanting y*nkees suck to my belly. Lovely.

But what scared me the most was all the negative feelings I have carried around about boys and men for much of my life. It's true, and those of you who know anything about my family dynamics know why. Then there was my more recent history of becoming involved with boys/men who ranged from abusive to dismissive. Basically, most of the men in my life were quite difficult (to put it mildly) until I put myself through untold years of therapy and met Derek, who is the kind of man that I didn't even believe in before.

I imagined how I would feel if I gave birth and my son had the same face as my father. A friend of mine, who has the difficult relationship with her mother, reported having similar feelings after she gave birth and was convinced that her baby daughter was an exact replica of her mother. Fortunately these feelings went away quickly. Hearing this from my friend worked wonders at "normalizing" the freaked out feelings that I was having. Now I am better able to imagine a little baby version of Derek - someone who I love and who has never hurt me and never will. Of course, I will not be giving birth to baby Derek (thank God) but I am confident that together we will put another wonderful, kind boy/man into the world.

All this to say, I am coming to terms with it, although I do still hope to have a little girl some day too. (I have to admit.) At first I felt like a monster/bad mother for having any of these feelings at all, and I was really worried about it. Now I think it's a part of the long process of recognizing my child as his own self, different from me and my imaginings, already coming into the world as someone beautifully out of my control.

Bad Day

I've got to find a better way to sit at the computer because my back is killing me. My back has been quite achy lately, from the time I wake up to the middle of the night to the middle of the day. Ugh. It might be time to start thinking about prenatal massage.

It's been rainy here for the past couple of days and this has been bringing me down. Today was supposed to be my last day studying for The Test, as it was scheduled for early tomorrow morning. I was looking forward to getting it over with, then treating myself to, I don't know, a pedicure or something.

But when I got home from picking Derek up there was a message stating that I would have to reschedule because they couldn't find a proctor!!! What kind of idiocy is that? So now I have to continue to worry about the stupid test, which I am pissed off about having to take in the first place, until Monday. (Asia, if you read this and have any generic test taking tips, it is not too late at this point.)

I'm soooo annoyed. I'm so mad that I have to take this test anyway, and that I don't live in New York where I am ALREADY LICENSED DAMNIT!!!! Also, I am sick and tired of not having a job and not have any friends. I am TIRED of it. Yuck.

Hermes, the Flying Kitten

Here are Hermes and Derek, engrossed in one of their favorite activities: "bouncing ball." During this game, Derek bounces a ball in the air and Hermes takes flying leaps across the room in order to bat the ball down with his paw, kind of like a slam dunk.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to master the athletic feat of "bouncing ball." The one time I tried it with Hermes, I didn't get out of the way in time, and he came flying straight at my face, little paws outstretched, and actually punctured a tiny hole in my lip.

Quality of Life

Since we remain in limbo (as we have been for quite a few years now) about where we will eventually settle down, I spend a lot of time thinking about what I would need to be satisfied with where I am living. What are the minimum requirements? What brings quality of life, or the quality that Derek & I hope for?

I used to think that in order to be happy I needed to live in a major city. I loved the idea of myself living in New York, and before that, San Francisco. I loved a lot of real, concrete things about my life in those places, but I also loved the image of them.

Living in Ohio is stretching my ideas about what I need in order to be "happy." For example, I would say that overall I am much happier this year than I was the year that I spent in LA. I don't think this was LA's fault really, since I was 1. grieving my life in Brooklyn 2. had a horrible, torturous commute 3. had a job that I didn't really like 4. worried a lot (apparently unnecessarily) about when we would be able to start a family. But never, in a million years, would I have thought it even remotely possible that under any circumstances I would be happier in an overall sense living in a place like D*yton than in a place like LA. That's how close-minded I was about the whole thing.

This is not to say that I am in love with D*yton, by any means. There are many things that I strongly dislike about where I am living and where I am in my life right now.
1. I'm don't like not working.
2. I don't like not having any friends.
3. I HATE the urban sprawlish-ness of the area where we are living right now. (and I will probably write another entry at some point about how enraged I am by the very poor urban/suburban planning that seems to typify much of this country)

But yesterday, we went out to Y*llow Spr*ngs, which is a tiny college town about 30 minutes away from here. The town is laid out in a lovely way. The streets are small and tree-lined and the houses are older and have character. You can walk to the elementary school and to the shops, which include NO chain stores of any kind but several cafe's, bookstores, organic type restaurants, a yoga studio, etc. You could walk or ride your bike out to a state park with beautiful hiking trails. It seemed to have almost everything I could want in a town albeit encapsulated in a tiny space. I thought I could probably be quite happy with my life living in a town like that. Maybe I would still feel it was "second best" to living in a CITY, but a close and acceptable "second best".

This is good because it means that I don't have to freak out every time Derek applies to a job that is not in an urban center. Only some of the time.

Fun Things To Do In D*yton, Part One

One thing that we enjoy doing every weekend is going to the farmer's market downtown.
Above is our bounty for this week. Please note the jar of homemade pickles, the very thick German-type whole grain bread, various Amish cheeses and butters, and of course, lots of yummy produce. Also, note the very cute cat.

Here is Derek with the superstar of yummy produce:



His very own brussel sprout stalk!

So, here is the anxiety topic.

I really might fail my licensing exam. Last night I had one dream that I failed it and another that they told me that they were failing me because I didn't deserve the license because I plan to be a stay-at-home Mom for about 6 months after taking the exam. In the second dream I was at least outraged, demanding to speak to a supervisor, and threatening to sue for discrimination.
I am already a "licensed clinical social worker" in the state of New York, but because of "grandfathering" rules I did not have to take the standardized test to get this license. Instead, I wrote and submitted two papers about my clinical work with two different clients. I was pleased with my two little papers, and writing two little papers is soooo much easier for me than taking a standardized test. But now I need to take the damn test, because even if we don't stay in Ohio, every other state (except CA, which has it's own TWO special standardized tests) won't accept you as licensed unless you've jumped through this particularly hoop.
So, I've been studying my butt off for the past month. Before studying, I took the sample test offered by the test makers, and passed, but only with a VERY SLIM MARGIN people. Since studying, I've taken several more sample tests, but all of these are the free samples offered over the internet by companies trying to sell you their extremely overpriced (hundreds of dollars) study guides. I do not know how valid/legit these little tests are. Some of them I have passed with flying colors and others I have FAILED.
I am trying to figure out why I am not doing better on these tests. Objectively, I feel that I am a competent practitioner and have a pretty good knowledge base. I'd like to tell myself that it has more to do with standardized-test-taking-freak-out, so I'm trying to take a good look at that process too.
I will feel so humiliated if I fail this test, and I think it is a possibility! It just brings back so many feelings of being one of those kids who wasn't good at everything surrounded by kids who were good at everything. I know I'm not an idiot, but I'm terrible at math and I'm not great at standardized tests, so I've never been one of those all-around excellers. It would really suck to feel that I am legitimately good at something (being a therapist/social worker) and then have a standardized test say, "Actually, you suck at it."

I promised and I am loyal.

Well, here it goes, my vow to write every single day, an actual blog entry WITH WORDS until November 1st. My life is not too exciting at the moment, so my dear blog readers will have to suffer. It's okay to click and not read, really, it is. I'm going to write about something boring today because I have anxiety about it. So there.
For future blog entries, is anyone particularly interested in any of the following topics? (I will eventually write about them all, since there is a dearth of material.)

1. How Much I Love My Kitten and All the Funny Things that He Does
2. The Local Animal Shelter, in particular, The Cat Room
3. The Range of Emotions I Have About Having a Boy Baby
4. What To Do For Fun in the Greater D*yton Area (other than make movies of your cat)
5. General Pregnancy Update, Including Gross Stuff

on another note

I promised Derek I would post this movie and after this we will cease subjecting people to cute kitten movies.

Okay...

I did it, I signed up for Nano. (like an idiot, I am unable to figure out how to post the cute little icon on my blog) I am waiting to see when Ms. Bri will announce her own signing up.
I hope I don't fail at it. I haven't done a very good job at preparing. I thought I would use the months of Sept. and Oct. to warm up, you know, like for running a marathon, but instead I've been quite consumed with studying for my licensing exam. Which I also might fail. It would really suck if I failed at both.
Sigh.
I could at least try to blog on a daily basis until Nov. 1st. That would be something, right? Humph.
Derek just called and told me that it is snowing outside. I was going to pet cats at the animal shelter. What to do?

Is it Jesus or is it God himself?

On the road between ?Dayton and ?Cincinnati.

Dipping the paw slowly back into blogger....

To blog or not to blog, that is the question.
It's awfully hard to start again after going missing. I've been avoiding my blog. I won't even look at it. I've been gone for so long, I've no idea what this "blogger beta" thingy is.
So, for a slow start...

The Many Faces of Hermes