D*#$& you, word verfication

I hope that title isn’t too R-rated . . . but don’t we all feel that way when we see this:

No?  I’m the only one.  Oh well.

Maybe some people can handle these with no problem, but I usually can’t read these things for the life of me.  Is it my glasses?  A genetic defect?  I have no idea.

In any case, it’s not usually too big a problem on blogger; I just give it a few tries and finally succeed.  But gmail . . . that is another story.  I can’t decipher the dang gmail word verifications to save my life.  And usually they come up during the very moment that I have like 30 seconds to print something on campus.

So last Monday was my big, last-one-of-grad-school class presentation.  I felt pretty confident that it would go well because 1) I prepared a lot and 2) I’m a perfectionist in all things academic, so things. must. go. well. period.  We are the first group presenting, so I proceed to pull up my gmail account to download our powerpoint.  And I think you know what happened next . . .

Word verification.

I’m staying cool, just typing it as it see it.  No dice.  Meanwhile, since the whole class can see it projected on the screen, about 42 people tell me that it was an “h” not a “d.”  So they give me a fresh word verification in case I’m just trying to hack into this gmail account (is that what this is for?!  maybe it’s an okay trade-off; I agree to email hacking and I never have to verify any more “words” again).

I’m still relaxed . . . but once again, mid-typing, people start shouting out, “no, it’s a 1.” “f.” “there’s no y in that.”  I really couldn’t figure out if everyone agreed that I could not read the darn thing, or if I was starting one of the most lively debates ever seen in the academic world.

Luckily, one of my group members had saved the powerpoint on a jump drive.  Because attempt #3 wasn’t going well either.

Word verification, you mock me.

Vanity revisited

Way back in about August of 2008, I started a blog post entitled, Vanity is not one of my vices, which I never finished and posted because I was waiting on photo developing (oh that old-fashioned process).  I have posted it below for your reading pleasure, but have since found out something very important: I may be as vain as the next person, I just hadn’t discovered what I was vain about yet!

And then it hit me after the 28-week ultrasound when I once again proclaimed that baby girl has my nose, my Larson nose.  I am vain about my nose.  I really like it.  Neal’s is okay, but I just think mine is much more fitting for our progeny.  Apparently, I’m in love with my nose.  I never even suspected it before.

Life . . . what a wonderful time of self-discovery, no?

****

One early morning in May, the most unexpected thing happened.  Raw sewage started flowing out of our toilet, bathtub, kitchen drain, and furnace room drain.  Needless to say this caused quite a stir . . . and stench.  When all was said and done, I lost only a few pieces of clothing (thank heavens since there is virtually nothing I hate more than clothes shopping!) but nearly all of my shoes.  These two pairs survived:

The Danskos on the left were fortuitously at the shoe repair shop.

While Neal repeatedly told me that I needed to get some replacement shoes because these were just too ugly to be my ONLY shoes, I resisted for some time (mainly because of the aforementioned shopping aversion).  Finally, after two months, I caved and we purchased these to create a more well-rounded shoe collection:

Sadly for Neal, I rejected “cute” or “sexy” shoes and just went for functional.  He wishes I were a little more vain about footwear (and clothing and make-up and hair sty . . . you get the picture ).

I’m in stats class right now . . .

and I just finished my final presentation for the semester.  And turned in my final homework for the semester.

Do you know what this means?!

I just finished my final presentation of GRAD SCHOOL!  And turned in my final homework of GRAD SCHOOL !

 

Still to-do:

1 stats final

1 thesis

When I put it in that to-do list form, it doesn’t sound like that much, does it?!

Approaching normalcy

I know I promised a medical update on Monday, so I hope no one took it as too bad a sign that I didn’t get to it until now.  But I guess Thanksgiving is a fitting day to say how blessed we were to get some promising test results.  In fact, we got the best news we’ve had during the whole pregnancy as the perinatologist indicated that unless something changes dramatically, I have a good chance of carrying this baby girl full term (37 weeks or more).  This was the first time any of the doctors we’ve seen have made that seem like a real possibility and we were so relieved.

Baby girl was like a perpetual motion machine during the whole ultrasound, so the pictures are not as clear as the first batch.  During the first ultrasound, she put her sweet hand on her head like so:

Determined to one-up herself, this time she put her foot on her head:

That’s our little overachiever

She showed us a few other tricks she’s learned, like scratching her bum and stubbornly refusing to unclench her legs so that the doctor could verify that she’s still a girl.  She, in fact, did not take as well to this doctor and was infinitely less cooperative (I similarly did not take as well to this doctor — I’m thinking of sending him a list of ways to improve his bedside manner).  It seemed that every time he tried to narrow in on a specific organ, she would suddenly flip over or do a somersault.  Good strong-willed girl.

The one thing I wish we’d gotten a picture of  is the close-up we got of her nostrils.  They were undoubtedly the cutest nostrils that ever existed . . . and the close-up view confirmed what I have long-suspected, that she has a Larson nose.

And just under her adorably perfect nostrils, she has a dark, Hitler-esque moustache.  Okay, so probably this was just an artifact of the ultrasound technology where the things you’re not focusing on look very black.  But it was still quite amusing to me.

Everything looked good enough that for the first time we actually talked with the midwife about typical pregnancy stuff like calcium deposits and heartburn and unmedicated labor.  It all felt so normal and that made me happy.

I’m 29 weeks today and if everything continues along this path for 5 more weeks, until she is at least 34 weeks, I’ll get to deliver where and how I want (mostly).  This is very good news since I’m very opinionated about such things.  (Maybe too opinionated, Neal would add if he weren’t still asleep).  But that is a discussion for another day.

Why is Ayda so happy?

You might think it’s because she’s eating some yummy food, but you would be wrong.

As she told me on the phone, “Tia Linley [that's me, Aunt Lindsay for you gringos ] having bay-bee.  Lit-tle cousin.” Ayda is the cutest!

And then yesterday, she got even happier news that she is going to be a big sister to another baby girl!

Come next April, there will be three Larson grandkids, all girls!!!

Grammy Larson is already planning the slumber parties!

Disclaimer for my pregnant friends

I wasn’t really thinking about all my prego friends out there that have to take the glucose tolerance test in the coming weeks when I wrote about my experience yesterday.  I think as a society we tell each other way too many horror stories about pregnancy (and other things too) . . . as if we need to pass on the worst case scenarios.  That was not my intent at all!

So I just wanted to mention that I know many people who think glucola is tasty; Neal would drink it daily if I let him (Neal also eats Tums and cough drops like candy–he’s actually a gross person in many ways ).  But like my friend Kjell commented, for many people it tastes like orange or lemon-lime soda.  The rub for me is that I don’t like carbonated drinks much and I especially hate fruit-flavored ones.  That’s the double whammy.

I hope it goes super smoothly for all my girls out there!

***

And for some happy news:  our ninja baby is BACK!  I hadn’t mentioned on here that after weeks and weeks of constant kicking and movement, baby girl was remarkably still for the last week.  I was trying not to dwell on it too much and just assume that she was getting some much-needed sleep right along with her mama.  But I really missed her.

Lo and behold, at 5 a.m. I wake up to the biggest kicks and punches we’ve had yet (although Neal would prefer to think that they were huge head-butts, because one should always head-butt if at all possible).  I swear she was trying to claw her way out right through my belly button.  She was crazy active for 45 minutes straight.  It did my heart good.

***

And speaking of ninja babies, you know what I love even more than a ninja baby . . .

DARTH BABY

It’s been many months since Lindsay unveiled this gem and I am still obsessed with it.  She’s selling it at her etsy shop now, so I’m dropping Neal hints about the perfect Christmas gift (just kidding, you know I don’t “drop hints”)!

A funny thing happened on the way to the . . .

I rarely post two days in a row (for awhile I struggled to post two months in a row), but I’m feeling kind of bored and restless at the moment.

I actually thought today would be quite productive.  I had two important errands planned: 1) the Medicaid office to figure out why they sent me an “auto-denial” for coverage and 2) the lab to get my bloodwork done.  That is one FULL day in my world.

As you might have guessed from the post title, things did not go as planned.  First, the Medicaid guy told me that he couldn’t see any reason for the rejection letter and so I would have to go home and call the useless-hotline-with-the-average-wait-time-of-45 minutes (this is its actual name).   I hate the phone (here is my past confession that contrary to our blog title, we may not actually call you . . . ever, such is the depth of our phone aversion).

On to the BYU lab where the first test I was supposed to take was the glucose tolerance test for gestational diabetes.  If you’ve never had a glucose tolerance test before, they make you drink a horribly sugary, semi-soft drink in 5 minutes and then draw your blood at a certain interval afterward.  Now I am no stranger to this test, having been tested for diabetes and hypoglycemia multiple times before, but I thought it wouldn’t be that bad this time around because it was only a 1-hour process (in contrast to 6-hour long ordeals I’ve had twice before).  But I think the combination of pregnancy nausea and glucola was more than my taste buds/esophagus/gag reflex/stomach could take and not even halfway through the bottle, I was vomiting all over the public restroom.  I should have left a note for the poor soul who was called to clean up, explaining that I really was trying to aim for an appropriate receptacle but it was just coming with such force.  After the first pass, I naively thought I could clean it up a little, but before I knew it, it was on the walls, the floor, the sink, and the trash can.

Although my glucola was lemon-lime, I chose this picture because it was aptly titled "Glucola Hell"

When I emerged from the (unisex) bathroom, a bunch of missionaries were sitting right outside, just staring.  Should I have told them not to go in there or was it understood from all the retching and heaving?

So I came home from my big day of errands, with only a pile of dirty clothes and shoes to show for it.  I’m leaving those for Neal and taking the rest of the day off.

A big week . . .

on the baby front!  Wouldn’t it be cute if I posted a picture of my big ole baby belly so that the title of this post had a double meaning?  Well, as soon as I get the old-school film developed, I will (lag time ranges from 1 month to 1 year).

Truth be told, my belly isn’t all that big considering I’m entering my third trimester this week.  It feels huge to me, but I’m still routinely getting comments about how small it is.  As well as some only sort-of compliments from Neal, like this one from last week:

“I’m surprised that you’ve really only gained weight in your belly.  I thought you were gonna balloon up all over the place.”

Nice.

I almost can’t believe we’ve made it to 28 weeks.  It feels like an eternity since we had our first prenatal appointment at 8 weeks and things weren’t looking too good.  We honestly didn’t think we’d be here 5 months later.

So where is here?

• Two more blood tests this week to see how my body is faring
• Then, another ultrasound on Friday to see how baby girl is doing (if I could stay strapped to one of these machines all day everyday, I would–I wish watching her move around was my full-time job.  Alas, my full-time job is actually fighting with–and then (mildly) cursing–insurance companies.)
• Finally on Monday, we sit down with the midwife to find out all the test results and see where things stand

All things considered, I’ve actually been doing pretty well for the last three weeks, just the typical pregnancy stuff and less of the insanity-inducing itch.  It makes me feel pretty hopeful about what this week will bring.  Of course, we hope that they tell us everything looks great, but I think even more so, we want to start making some plans about what’s going to happen from here on out.

Wishful thinking?  Maybe.  I’ll let you know in a week . . .

You know your mom loves you . . .

When she comes to visit and packs her trusty apron.

(And it looks nothing like one of these cute little numbers!)

This is it . . . my birthday report

So my actual birthday was a tad anti-climactic.  I got the H1N1 vaccination and voted in the Provo city elections (Note: I do think it’s awesome that every few years I get to vote on my birthday . . . in fact, it just so happens that I got to vote for the first time on my 18th birthday!).  By the time I was done with ALL THAT, it was 11:30am and I was ready to hunker down and rest for the remainder of the day.  Lame?  Maybe a little, but I’m a 30 year old trapped in the body of a 72 year old; no spring chicken here.

But when you add the week as a whole up, I fared well in the celebration department and I’ll go to my grave insisting that birthdays ought to be celebrated a week at a time if at all possible.  Here’s a recap:

Saturday: Blueberry pancake breakfast by Neal

Tuesday: Neal’s surprise present, a list of potential baby names he compiled by looking at name websites–this was awesome because if I haven’t mentioned it before, I am practically paralyzed by this whole naming thing

Decadent chocolate by Kjell–seriously, the smell alone is hedonic (click here for recipe)

Thursday: Lunch at Cafe Rio, and then:

Neal knew that this was it, the perfect birthday gift.  How did he know this?  Because I emailed him on September 25th, October 26th, and November 4th to tell him.  (Some people think this tendency makes me overbearing; I prefer to think of it as setting him up for success!)  It was actually a momentous day because it was the very first movie we’ve seen as a couple at a “real” movie theater.  You should have seen us wandering around like we were in a palace: rocking the chairs back and forth (because they moved!), adjusting the armrests (because we could!). I kept wanting to touch the wallpaper and tile because it seemed so fancy.

Someday perhaps I will write a full post dedicated to my complex relationship with Michael Jackson, but for now let me just say that his music is in some ways THE soundtrack of my life.  It’s just so pivotal, so ever-present.  Dangerous is still my go-to album when I need to kick it up a notch (read: get out of bed).

Friday: Baskin Robbins double scoop of chocolate fudge ice cream in a cup with a cone–the BR worker teased me mercilessly about how boring my choice was, but I live for that stuff

My mom arrives for a 4-day visit in which she is cooking (sooo much good food!) and cleaning for us–could there be a better gift???

Sunday: My parents give me two beautiful, vintage books: Anne of Avonlea and Pride and Prejudice

Monday: Chinese lunch with my mom, grandparents, and Neal, followed by a huge, luscious chocolate cake

Not too shabby, eh?!