Be Grateful There Aren't Pictures

I am serious about that title. Please stop for a moment and send thanks to me that there are not pictures accompanying this post. Moving on...

This story begins with L's father-in-law being nice. L doesn't get to the Temple for her church very often due to a lot of miss-prioritizing and a little legume we like to call Peanut. Anyway L's father-in-law arranges for L to do a session at the Temple on Wednesday while he watches the 'Nut outside. Problem solved. L is excited.

However, on Tuesday Peanut is a little clingy in the morning and after being up for about a half hour he vomits twice in the living room. It's not a big deal, especially since he hasn't eaten anything yet and as he has been having problems with allergies L chalks it up to that appealing-sounding sinus drainage. She watches what he eats all day and isn't overly concerned.

Wednesday he's still not back to normal but not even any vomit. L's sister, from here on out to be known as 'Wendy the super queen and best sister ever', comes over and dyes eggs with L and 'Nut and much fun is had. Although 'Nut seems mostly back to normal L determines she doesn't want him running around too much outside yet so has Ox take off work early to watch the 'Nut and she heads on down to the Temple. 'Wendy the super queen and best sister ever' watches the 'Nut for the few minutes between L having to leave and Ox getting home.

On the drive to the Temple (approx. 70 miles/1 hr 15 mins) L realizes she hasn't eaten since lunch and won't get dinner until late. Well...life happens. However, after L gets to the temple her stomach starts hurting. Then aching. Then grinding and twisting into a tornado of pain. This eases into a wave of nausea. L is sitting through the approx. hour and a half session alternately praying to NOT VOMIT IN THE TEMPLE!!! and wondering what would happen if she did. Probably not a lot of quality worshiping.

After the session is over L rushes to the bathroom fully intent on vomiting but nothing happens. The nausea diminishes and the pain becomes bearable. Maybe God loves L because she stoically endured under pressure? L would be proud if she wasn't in such a rush to get home. So starts the 'short earlier this afternoon and now unbelievably long' trip home.

L drives down the freeway trying to decide if it's better to be distracted at a higher speed or for a longer time. If she vomits on a cop will that get her out of a ticket or into jail as he will surely not believe she's not drunk? Being a planner L starts to look around for what she could vomit into should such a situation arise... Ahh thanks to L and Ox's slovenly ways here is a WhataBurger bag within reach. Problem solved. L even calls her Ox to make sure he will still love her if she fills their car with vomit. He responds positively but hints that love will not extend to cleaning vomit from car upholstery.

And then it happens. Uncontrollable Vomit. Left hand on the steering wheel, looking over the right shoulder to change lanes and pull safely off the freeway, right hand holding the WhataBurger bag to her face to catch pulsing streams of something hot and rancid. Almost to the side...almost safe...then the WhataBurger bag disintegrates under a burden it was never meant to bear. Suddenly things have gone from bad to worse.  

***Pause to calm yourself... She doesn't get eaten by the eels at this time.*** 

As we return to the scene L is safely off to the side of the freeway. However the gratitude that should be forthcoming is mired in the vomit covering: L, her lap, her seat belt, her center console, her gear shift, the right side of her car seat, a small section of the passenger seat...

If the world were fair L would be immediately transported to her own bathroom to get cleaned up and then pampered by her loving husband. Alas the would is not fair and L is still over 45 minutes from home. Calling Ox results in sympathy but no logical quick fix. So L calls 'Wendy the super queen and best sister ever'. 'Wendy the super queen and best sister ever' immediately agrees to meet L at a gas station about 2 miles from L's current location.

'Wendy the super queen and best sister ever' meets L at the gas station and sends L into the bathroom with her own back up clothes. L ignores the horrified look of the attendant. While L cleans herself up and seeks to wedge herself into her sister's much smaller clothes, 'Wendy the super queen and best sister ever' uses a half carton of baby wipes to clean L's car better than could be ever imagined. L comes out (with a resolve to think on thigh and tummy fat at some later point), buys a water and thanks 'Wendy the super queen and best sister ever' in an inadequate way. 'Wendy the super queen and best sister ever' heads into the city for a date/night out (with her friend who has been sitting horrified in her car the ENTIRE time) smelling of someone else's vomit. She truly is amazing.

And so L heads home. She still has 45 minutes of driving and is eager to get to it. She does vomit once more but makes it off the road and out of the car first. As she makes the last stretch the following words come through her mental fog from a song playing on the radio:

Ooh, ooh that smell
Can't you smell that smell?
Ooh, ooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you

Choices

Question: Which is grosser?

A. Leaning in to kiss your baby, to find his breath smells like the dog food he got into and ate

or

B. Cleaning the vomit out of his ear because he was sick during the night and then rolled in it

Answer: Either is appropriate- both should serve as birth control reminders.

Snippets

So most of this post is not going to be about pregnancy stuff but I had to remind you...
Any day now, for sure in less than a month, people are going to let me take a real live baby home to keep at my house. Seriously. You have been warned.

Sexy Story:
Ahhh my inherent sexiness strikes again. Last night I awoke at 4am to an awful ear ache. Ear aches for me almost always mean a small sinus infection- which I'm pretty sure I have. I sat up. This cause the bloody nose I'd apparently had for some time while asleep, to start dripping down my face and the back of my throat. I ran (ok waddled quickly) to the bathroom to get cleaned up. I decided to brush my teeth to get rid of the taste. That irritated my already queasy stomach and I spent the next couple minutes crying and vomiting strawberries into the bathroom sink. Nate woke up to come rub my back.

Sad Story:
While Nate was having furloughs at work he started doing some extra work in a mower shop. This mower shop is owned by one of his best friend's dad. It is also one of the local hangouts for the 'Old Men of Perry'. They would come in small groups to sit around the shop and BS. Nate's jokes and attitudes took a definite old man feel onto them during this time. I teased him about it (he is almost a whole year older than me). He talked with them, ate lunch with them and became friends with them. He was already familiar with most of these men but a definite kinship happened during this time.

This last week one of those older men died. He was only 61 or so and Nate really got along with him. Nate's been asked to be a pallbearer. Although we have no doubts he is happier where he is now, Nate has been very sorry to lose a friend. It feels weird to be grown up enough to have friends dying of 'old age'.

Story in Which I Try to Remember I Actually Like Animals:
This past week we were changing the hinges on a door in our hallway. We had let the dogs into the living room and they were lounging around. Hoss, whose attention span is ridiculously low, came over to see what I was doing. I noticed that his foot was glowing like a little girl's night necklace at Disneyland. I yelled for Nate. We searched the living room to find that Hoss had gotten into the first aid/emergency kit and chewed on the emergency kit glow stick. Luckily these are non-toxic. The above is a picture of our couch cushion (sorry for the bad pic it was really hard to get it to show) with glowy stuff on it. The glowy stuff was also all over Hoss and the living room floor.

Happy Story:
We bought this yellow watermelon for $5 off a guy on the side of the road. He threw in a tiny cantaloupe for free. It weighed 45 lbs and was delicious!

This was meant to be a real story...

but I never got around to writing it and Nate hasn't had time to compose it for me either. Maybe the picture will be enough. This happened last week and is reasonably to scale:
PS you know you're jealous of my powerpoint prowess.

PPS I vomited into the trash can by my desk as I was writing this post. My boss seems concerned.

Things That Make My Day Better...

even though yesterday I woke up, vomited in the toilet, flushed the toilet and it overflowed.

Then later while buying food for the cub scouts to learn to "cook outside" I vomited in the Walmart parking lot. The lady getting her kid into the car next to me was not impressed.

Also vomited this morning...I thought morning sickness was supposed to get better not worse at this point.

However, these things made me happy:

1. From Amazing Mae:

Friday, March 20, 2009

from dad's shirt to a little dress

How blasted cute is that thing?????

2. This is my new background on my NEW computer at work:

Oh Madi, you make my day better!

Sickly Pregnant Woman

So yesterday I wasn't feeling so hot so I was sitting in the comfy chair watching ***dirty secret alert*** Roswell on DVD.

All of a sudden I smelled sour cream and had uncontrollable vomiting for several minutes, all over the blanket I was snuggling with. When it calmed down Nate took the blanket to be washed and I went to the bathroom to vomit some more and then brush my teeth.

Later that night I was talking to my sister and she said something about me being a "sickly pregnant person". I wondered if I was. I don't feel that I'm overly sickly. Morning sickness has been sporadic, for which I'm very grateful. I had some extreme tiredness early on but not for too long. I do have a cracked rib (or something) and bronchitis but that's hardly Peanut's fault.

I remember young women's leaders who were pregnant who couldn't wear any shoes but flip flops pretty early on because their legs/feet were so swollen, or who were on bed rest and couldn't lift their toddlers. I can still work and go to school etc.

I think what I need are some good old-fashioned pregnancy horror stories. Please share them with me. They can be yours or your friends or your moms etc.

And PLEASE don't feel the need to make it sound ok or fun, or to tell me in long sentences how it was all worth it. I know it's all worth it. I'm not complaining about being pregnant I just don't love some of the symptoms- and I don't think that's a huge deal.

So share...you know you want to.

PS Also not especially ready for labor stories - I've got a while.

Lovely Color Palette

It all started with me forgetting my wallet. I hadn't packed a lunch yesterday and then I forgot my wallet so there was no way for me to buy food. I mean, I could have asked my boss to loan me money but... Anyway I figured I was safe because we were having Food Day at work to celebrate Fat Tuesday. Food Days at my work are usually way over the top (owing to the fact that I work with a million old ladies).

So I decided it wasn't all that bad- I could just graze off of food day to get through the day and have a really good dinner when I got home. The problem was Food Day sucked yesterday! There was hardly any food and the stuff that was there didn't look that appetizing. Not good. I looked around for a while and finally decided on a rice and sausage mixture in a crock pot. It wasn't bad (wasn't really good either) but I figured I'd at least gotten something to tide me over til dinner.
Later I got thirsty so I drank some of the pink grapefruit juice I keep at the office and ate a couple of rice cakes.

Around 230 Nate and I were emailing back and forth and I told him we needed to make something really good for dinner since all I'd had was some rice and sausage and grapefruit juice. He emailed back asking what I wanted. I was in the middle of replying that I honestly couldn't think of anything that sounded good and I was starting to feel really sick when it hit me...

You know, the back of the throat mouth watering that is your body telling you it needs to get rid of something in your stomach??? I got up and started walking toward the bathroom (I can't ever remember a time I wasn't able to make it to the bathroom. Most of the time I don't even really vomit- I just salivate for a while, spit and feel better).

I few steps from my desk it happens. I start vomiting. I keep my mouth closed and start walking very quickly toward the bathroom. It's literally 20 feet from where I am- just across the hall. I am still vomiting over and over again in my mouth. Finally it is too much to hold in such a small space. It explodes out of my mouth about 7 feet from the bathroom door.

I retch over and over in the hall, not able to move to take myself any farther. I am literally bend over at the waist watching the customer service desk at my work as I continually vomit without being able to stop.

Finally it slows enough I can move. I run to the bathroom, get to a toilet and vomit a few more times. The sweet voice of some poor student probably scared out of her wits asks me if I want some paper towels. I say yes please. She brings me a whole stack. These is especially sweet since we have on of those motion sensor paper towel dispensers, which means she had to stand there, wave her hand, wait, wave her hand again...over and over. Nice girl. I try to say thank you without scaring her.

I wipe off my face as best I can and stand up. I go to the sink and then realize things are much worse than I expected. There is vomit everywhere on me. My sweater is literally covered in it. My sleeves, front, pants, shoes, face are all soaked in puke. I am actually amazed. This has never happened to me. I rinse out my mouth, wipe off my face and try to decide what to do with the rest of me. I rub a paper towel over my pants and decide they'll live.

My sweater however... it's all I wore today. It's been semi-warm so I decided I could get away with a sweater without a t-shirt underneath. I try to rub at it with a paper towel. That's obviously not going to work. Finally I give in and take it off completely. I put it in the sink and start rinsing it out.

About this time a woman that works in my office walks into the bathroom. She goes to the toilet, comes out, goes to the sink farthest away from me washes her hands and leaves. She never says one word to me! I mean she's not in my department but we see each other on a regular, probably daily basis. Next, same thing happens with a lady that is in my office. Someone I work with and talk to regularly. I once went downstairs to get her a drink because her feet were hurting her and the elevator was offline.

Finally a lady who works at the desk behind me comes in. She asks if I'm ok etc. I say I am but ask her to make sure the custodians are called to clean up the mess in the hall. She leaves. Around this time I've gotten my sweater as clean as it's going to get. I walk back from my desk and meet my boss who was on her way to check on me. She tells me to go home- even offers to drive me, even though I live over 35 miles away. I tell her I'll make it and if not I'll make Nate come get me. I leave, drive home take over everything that smells of vomit and go to bed.

Fast forward to this morning. I get into work late, can't find a parking spot, have to walk really far and then get to enjoy the embarrassment of walking by the wet spot in the carpet. Around 11 two of the young guys in my office walk by on my way to lunch. They say, "What's up Puke Dog?". Seriously.

It was probably the thing that made my day the best. They then share stories of my experience- including the fact that one of them watched my from customer service and didn't do anything cause he wasn't sure it was me. They talk about how one girl slipped in it cause she was too busy texting to pay attention. Of how the custodian got here, was grossed out, left and they had to call another custodian. All of this thankfully after I was gone.

And lastly they say one cute little girl made the comment, "At least it's a nice coral color..."