Before the fog

I’ve been so excited by the thought of having a baby these past few months that I haven’t given myself permission to think about the big cultural impacts of me having a child. Two things have lately worried me a lot, they were of course always there on the back burner but now they have moved from being abstract ideas to concrete dilemmas.

Yesterday at the doc’s office, J and I played a stupid game of flipping through the parenting magazine and counting the different ethnicities represented in the ads and what started out as a really silly game turned disturbing, when we found 5 ads in a magazine with nearly a 100 pages of advertisements that had non white babies or toddlers. Especially weird, given the cover story was “How to raise a color blind child.”  It disturbs me on a lot of levels to think that my child will never see someone who looks remotely like him on mainstream media. I know things are changing but I didn’t realize how slow the change. Interestingly, internet magazines, blogs and alternative media outlets seem a lot more culturally and racially inclusive. So, yes, I could be that parent that avoids mainstream media and only exposes myself to niche outlets but it seems rather escapist to me. Also the lack of any mention of father or picture of fathers in these magazines. Why, dear god? We are in the 21st century? Most new fathers I know are quite involved in their children’s lives and actually have very strong preferences when it comes to consuming baby products, why wouldn’t these magazines reach out to them? Why is there still such a rejection of modern families, but an archaic, idealistic desire for traditional roles?

The second thing that has been scaring me is the new mommy wars which has expanded into a parent vs non parent battle. I have nothing against people who choose to be child free, hell I probably will start to envy them but I am a little worried about all this cultural hate towards mothers. I understand that babies crying or fussing might be annoying to others who don’t have them but am I really expected to give up all adult pleasures simply because I have an infant? Then won’t I get tagged with the classification that I have no other interests than children? How am  I supposed to win.

I know I can’t really do anything about these things now, so maybe it is best I don’t dwell on them too much, but sometimes a girl just has to vent.

All done.

Happy Anniversary

Make a Smilebox invite

Utero Music

According to all the pregnancy books and websites, husib is very good at hearing things now and distinguishing between them. Unfortunately for him and J, husib’s mama has been into really angry girl songs lately. J is very worried that his son will only have heard girl centric music in utero. Well, I’d be happy to trade with J so that he can carry husib and J can expose him to whatever music he wants. Maybe, I’ll play some boy music soon for husib. Right. one of these days.

Third Trimester

Home Stretch Y’all- 12 more weeks until there is a full term kiddo in there who will hopefully make an appearance into the real world. Husib is now 2lbs and already feels too huge to me, so I dread to think what gaining another 6lbs there is going to do.  Other than this milestone, life has been very hectic with work and car troubles and all those sorts of issues. J and I are slacker parents, cuz we have bought zero baby items , thats right folks, zero, other than a few very impractical baby clothes. But it all changes this weekend. Maybe. I’m not committing to anything in particular.

This week I started really thinking about what happens after maternity leave. I’m 99% sure that I’ll be happy to go back to work, but I have that 1% that questions , if I’ll be ready to go back only after 12 weeks. I wonder if I’ll need to cut back my hours or extend maternity leave longer, but I’m still not at the point where I can contemplate being a stay at home mom. My friends who are moms remind me that once the baby  is here, its hard to predict how I will feel. I heard real life stories of moms who went to drop their baby off at daycare and simply couldn’t do it, and others who were thrilled to be back in the other world.

Having a career and work has defined me for so long  that I can’t imagine having to reorganize myself like that, but maybe I’ll feel differently. Until then, I’m just letting husib kick the crap out of my belly and organs and wishing I don’t get too many of those Braxton-Hicks contractions.

Things that are coming up- doc appt next monday, Labor and Delivery hospital tour next thursday!

New Townhouse

The Day after my birthday J and I signed a lease on a new townhouse and started moving in immediately. We were in a two bedroom before but a very small 900 sq feet one. The new place is older than our apt and the carpet and decor is a bit dated ( ummm….wallpaper in the kitchen, orange carpet, Yikes) but its 1500 sq feet and huge with a very nice deck and in a great neighborhood. Thursday night after we got our keys, J and I celebrated with my birthday icecream cake and excitedly making plans for the new house and on friday we started moving our stuff in. As of right now, all our rooms except for our bedroom and heavy furniture is in the new place and this saturday some of the guys from J’s lab will help us move our bed, futon, loveseat into the new place. Here are some pics of the new place. It looks very transitional b/c some the rooms have our books and crap moved in already, but I think they will make for good before and after pics once we have it all set up nicely.

Layla in the new house. She is still not super sure about it, but this was her first visit. Thats the kitchen floor, isn’t it hideous? There’s a few patches that are worn and  our landlord said , they dont’ even make that pattern anymore, ha ha

View from the entrywayinto the living room

View of the Kitchen . It is actually really sunny and big and other than the flooring, I love it

The living room is a mess but J’s working on it

You can see our fireplace in the living room from the dining area

THats the master bedroom with the ugly carpet

This room will be the nursery/guest room, its almost identical to the master bedroom. Also, there’s layla’s tail

Layla enjoying our nice new deck

The backyard

We have these planter boxes, so maybe I’ll attempt a garden.

Birthday Belly

My birthday was last week and I’m a slacker so I had to wait this long to finally post about it! But I had a very good excuse, I got in a fender bender, had to spend hours at the DMV and sign a lease on a new place and start packing and moving, so all in all its been a very very busy few days for me. So here’s a whole lot of posts in a row, just how I like it!

For my birthday this year, I had a very bittersweet day. Next time this year, I will have a teeny tiny baby boy who will be in my life, so this was the last birthday that was just me and J. I went to work in the morning and took the afternoon off to go to the DMV and my insurance office to deal with the paperwork from my fender bender the day before. I finally made it home by 4:30 super tired and took a quick nap. J came  home shortly after and surprised me with a very funny card and some lovely roses and then it was time to go to dinner. I wanted the dinner to be the highlight of my day, but it ended up being the highlight of the year! We went to Elaine’s on Franklin Street. It has consistently been one of the best restaurants in the area for a few years and I was really excited to try it. I wore a new maxi dress for the occassion, since they seem to be all the rage and it seemed like a good prego option. So I got all prettified and J took some pics and then we went to our fab dinner! I ordered the foie gras with a black cherry tart for an appetizer, a virgin cosmo for a cocktail, and Pan Fried Halibut with Blue Crab salad and corn succotash and I finished it all off with a warm chocolate cake with vanilla bean icecream. J got flounder ceviche and a Bison NY Strip Steak and his hearts fill of Mint Juleps. We took nearly 3 hours to get through dinner and it was wonderful, chatting and talking about all the new changes in our life. When we got home J had another surprise for me, instead of my yearly cupcakes he had been listening to my requests and got me an Ice Cream Cake! We decided to save it and celebrate with it next day in our new house.

Summer Concert!

I loved the concert last night. J and I had a fabulous time listening to these great musicians and because it was at the Bulls stadium we got to eat lots of junk food too. I had a footlong and garlic fries. Made a pregnant girl very happy . But more than the food, the music was great. I was a little sad to see how old Willie is now, but he is still rockin out, so thats awesome.

Fixed

Clicking on photos does make them bigger again. I figured out the new system.

The Layla Monster

So guess who is more unprepared than me or J for the husib? Why of course, our very own slobbering Layla Monster. I was uploading some pics earlier today and found this, it was too funny to not post

R.I.P Michael Jackson

Wow! I can’t believe Michael Jackson is dead. I know he is a celebrity and a weirdo and perhaps a pedophile but he was iconic during my lifetime.  He was so omnipresent everywhere when I was a child. I mean, for me when I was a child MJ was MTV. Not Nirvana, or Pearl Jam or any indie bands because I got into that a lot later in life Junior High/ High School. I also remember when one of his videos debuted on MTV and staying up late to watch it.

I have memories of summer afternoons with my cousins danceing to a Michael Jackson tape, thats right a cassette tape in a tape player!! Also MJ was also something J and I bonded over whenever we discussed music and we disagreed on some band we always knew we loved MJ. When we first started dating J would be silly ( and he still is) and try to moon walk with his favorite MJ song – They don’t really care about us. He even tried to teach me, but I don’t think moonwalking is for me.

We played my favorite MJ song at our wedding – The way you make me feel and my little cousin who is a total boy at 11 and hates dancing, totally bust out the moves. He loved it so much he even dressed up for halloween that year as MJ.

You will be missed Michael Jackson, you were a legend, an icon and definitely a star! You know its true because you were also batshit crazy!