Writing in Circles

So, my big writing project today was (supposed to be) completing this week’s discussion board post.  I wanted to submit that as early as possible so I could spend maximum time writing my paper.

I should have done the paper.

The assignment sounds simple.  Normally, I’d be all about explaining the “why” of something.  But, the way the assignment was phrased, it is so vague that I have been writing for at least 6 hours total and have no idea what I’m saying at this point.  So, during my insulin shot tonight, I decided that it was time to put the brakes on this project and e-mail my professor for clarification.  A girl only has so many hours anyway, and I feel like I’ve totally wasted the ones I’ve put in so far.

Speaking of insulin, it seems to be helping quite a bit.  *Knock on coconut.*  I had some weird numbers today, but my doctor is happy overall with the way they’ve looked since we started shots.  Yay!  The bad news is that I’m really craving my Grammy’s lemon meringue pie with ice-cold milk…and the closest I’m going to get to that is sugar-free lemon instant pudding a couple of tablespoons a couple of bites at a time unless I can figure out how to make it with almond milk.  Do you think lemons and almonds go together?  I’m on the fence about it.  I can’t tell if it sounds good because I’m pregnant or not.  It could be worse…I could be craving chocolate cake with ketchup or broccoli and cheese with caramel corn.

New Baby is already performing above average.  His estimated weight at this point of the game puts him in the 87th percentile.  Seriously, he weighs nearly as much at this point as I did when I was born.  We still have a little way to go, so…ouch.

I think it’s time to go lie down and read a book until I fall asleep so I don’t keep obsessively checking my e-mail every five minutes to see if my professor has responded yet.

I couldn’t help myself.  I just checked.  He hasn’t.

Good Morning, World!

Good morning…and a happy Monday to you!  Mondays are one of those things that I feel would be better off occurring on an annual basis, but because the calendar mandates that they happen weekly, I am attempting to meet it with a stiff upper lip.

Side note: using idiomatic expressions like this often send me off on a tangent to find out the origin.  In case you were wondering, although this expression is used most commonly to describe British stoicism, it apparently originated in America and its first documented usage occurred in 1815 when some guy applied for a business license.  (Yay, red tape!)  According to Wikipedia, anyway.  If this were my public speaking class, I just would have lost 50 points off of my grade for using that as a source.  However, I couldn’t find anything better than that during my cursory search this morning…so, that’s what you get.

Wow.  I’ve completely forgotten what I set out to write about in the excitement of etymological discovery.  [Insert pregnant pause here whilst I try to recover that thought…]

Since I still can’t remember, let’s talk about hydration for a second.  Back when I wrote my non-resolutions, line item 5 was about drinking more water.  I’ve been doing pretty well at this for the last month.  This morning, in the two-ish hours I have been up and at ’em, I have managed to drink no less than 60 ounces of water.  I don’t feel that it would be too much of an exaggeration to say that I feel like my tonsils are floating.

And on that note, have a wonderful day!

To Recap…

I really could have sworn that I had posted since Monday.  However, the dashboard does not lie.  All of that writing I did this week was apparently for class, not for this blog.  At least I know I posted it to the correct website…I’m pretty sure you would not be interested in the responses I had to write for my discussion board.

This week has been a roller coaster ride of epic proportions in the blood sugar department.  I had four days of awesome, followed by four days of “what the heck?!!” which was then followed by a “Go directly to Insulin.  Do not pass go.  Do not collect $200.00” card from my doctor on Thursday.  I may have mentioned this before, but when it comes to needles, I’m a big sissy.  Possibly the only thing that paralyzes me more than needles is spiders.  Seriously, I still can’t watch Shelob try to eat Frodo.  I have to cover my eyes and ears during that part.  She moves and hisses just like the tarantula that moved into my apartment when I was stationed in Puerto Rico.  Enough with the arachnophobia.  Moving along…I know I’ve mentioned this a few times before, but my husband is awesome.  He gives me my shots at night so I don’t have to give them to myself.

We had our first field trip of 2013 yesterday!  It was Homeschool Day at the aquarium.  My husband had the day off, so he got to go with us, which doesn’t happen very often.  The boys and I were pretty dang excited about his presence.  Daddy is oodles of fun, plus he can keep up with them much easier than Momma can at this point in the game.  She waddles like a penguin with arthritis.  For me, the highlight of the day was seeing both of my boys petting the stingrays.  Oldest managed to drown his shirtsleeve, but he had an absolute blast seeing how many he could attract.  Baby seemed to think that they were very large and strange bath toys and was perfectly happy splashing away.  I got to pet them, too…it’s been a while since I’ve been able to do that and I forgot how soft they are.  Like buttered velvet.  On the drive home, I was especially happy that my husband was with us (and driving) because we found ourselves smack in the middle of a snowstorm.  I hate driving in snow around here because it completely messes with the already dysfunctional drivers populating this area.  Thankfully, we got home without anything worse than over two hours of traffic.  The best part of being home?  Ready access to a potty.  Being pregnant is…painful…sometimes.  That’s all I’m gonna say.

To close out this week’s awesomeness, I got a surprise in the mail today. Because of my “academic achievements” and for being “such an excellent student,” I was awarded…a royal blue velvet bag containing a silver thumb drive emblazoned with my school’s logo. This is possibly the most practical and yet nerd-tastic award I have ever received.  It was also as close to “A Christmas Story” moment as I have ever had.  No, it was not a risqué  leg lamp, but it made me giggle. A lot.  It also made me feel pretty good at the same time.

Plus, I can always use another thumb drive.

Monday Musings

1. Pounding out chicken breasts with a meat tenderizer (a.k.a. “The Persuader” à la Chef Anne Burrell) is amazingly therapeutic.  Watch out for your fingers, though.  Just saying…
2. Making your own granola bars is awesome.  Perhaps next time though, either the (sugar-free) honey content should be increased or the baking time reduced, because they are a wee bit fragile.  Still delicious, but fragile.
3. Making your own (sugar-and-fat-free) frozen yogurt is also awesome.  I made the base last night and froze it up this morning.  This rendition is blueberry.  It has the perfect balance of tang and sweetness.  Plus, you burn extra calories trying to chisel it out of the container if you forget to thaw it during dinner like I did.  Watch out for your fingers.  Just saying…
4. I have had to journal my usage of telecommunications systems today.  Holy bandwidth.  It doesn’t feel like much, but it takes up a lot of space on paper.
5. I can still think in binary.  After a little review, my fluency in hexadecimal returned, as did octal. Thank goodness, because that made tonight’s homework assignment much easier.  (I still prefer decimal, but binary is fun!  As is Binary Coded Decimal, a.k.a. “BCD.”)
6. There are certain artists I tend to migrate towards when I need a mood bounce.  Rascal Flatts is hitting the spot tonight.  They may be a boy band, but dude.  I heart their harmony and sheer rockingness so much.  Did I mention their harmony makes me happy?  Their rendition of “Life is a Highway” makes me bounce wherever I happen to be, which is a pretty incredible achievement considering my dwindling penchant for bouncing these pregnant days.
7. Baby has his fifteen-month appointment tomorrow.  My fingers are crossed that he doesn’t need to get any shots.  Metaphorically crossed.  It’s really hard to type that way…
8. I really want to go to the thrift store.  There are a couple of maternity refashions that I’m dying to try to do, but I don’t want to do it on anything that I currently have in my house.
9. Baby loves being pushed around while sitting in his Duplos box while he makes car engine revving noises.  It is utterly adorable, as is the fact that he has learned to give kisses and hugs for real now.
10. Oldest has discovered the awesomeness of long division.  Suffice it to say that he’s not a fan.  That’s okay…neither is Daddy.

P.S.  New Baby is dancing on my ribs.  He seems to like Rascal Flatts, too!

Time Management

Can I take a moment to gripe about a pet peeve of mine?  No?  But, I really have to get this off my chest!  Pretty please?

I have this thing about time.  I have to beat deadlines, arrive early for appointments and generally be proactive so that I am never late for anything.  When I am late for something, whether it’s my fault or due to circumstances beyond my control, it ruins my day and sometimes my whole week.  I’m not sure at what point this particular quirk of mine came into existence.  My dad has always been big on punctuality, so I’m sure that was an influence in this direction.  Definitely my time in the military contributed to it as well…you know, the whole you’re late if you’re on time and on time if you’re early kind of thing.  I’ve always kind of sympathized for the White Rabbit in the Alice in Wonderland movie (Disney, 1951).

I’m late!

I’m late!

For a very important date.

No time to say “Hello, Goodbye”.

I’m late, I’m late, I’m late.

I mentioned earlier this week that I’m taking a class.  The professor was very proactive about sending out assignment deadlines.  In fact, he sent them out more than a week before class started.  That made me happy because I could plan on the front end how to get everything submitted on time.  For example, this week we have three assignments with the following time parameters.

1. Write a discussion board post introducing ourselves and our technology background.  Due Thursday at 23:59 (11:59 PM in case you’re not hip on the 24-hour time schema).  Mine was submitted at 0645 Monday.
2. Write an essay (no fewer than 500 words) about the relevance of telecommunications to a Christian worldview.  Due this coming Monday at 23:59.  Mine was submitted at 1251 Thursday.
3. Respond to each and every classmate’s introduction post in such a way that the professor can tell that you have read each post.  This is where I’m having problems.

So far, we have nineteen people total in the class.  Out of those nineteen, two of them have submitted their initial posts today…well past the deadline.  We have had four days to submit a two-paragraph assignment that should be the easiest one in this course because it’s about…us.  It just irritates me because every time I think I can check the box and mark assignment 3 as “complete,” somebody else is jumping in the pool.  And yes, I am definitely blowing this out of proportion.  They are the ones whose grades will be affected, not me.  However, I take school seriously, and go out of my way to give myself enough room to finish assignments before the very last second even when it means hauling my pregnant butt out of bed early or staying up late to get things done, especially if my work is needed by somebody else so that they can complete their assignments as well.  Thank goodness we have no big group projects in the class, or I’d be having a major panic attack right now.  (Thank goodness that this is an online class because I don’t play well with others in the classroom…)

Phew!  It feels good to get that off my chest.  Thanks for listening!

Making a Baby for Baby, Part 1

This afternoon, I started working on prepping the construction of Baby’s baby.  This is the part of a sewing project that always takes the longest for me.  Cutting out the pattern pieces, ironing everything, laying the pieces out on the fabric, staring at the layout, hating it, completely redoing the layout…you get the picture.

I ran into a bit of a snag with my typical process because a few of the pieces need to be cut four times.  I didn’t want to cut them individually, and I never cut more than a double layer of fabric at once because it gets…messy.  So, I made extra pieces for the arm, ear and leg.  That way, I can stew over my cutting layout in peace.  And yes…I’m fully aware of how neurotic that makes me sound.

Once I get everything cut out of the fabric, I get to go through the same process for the interfacing and then have to attach those pieces to my fabric pieces.  I’ve never had a project that required said interfacing for each pattern piece, but I suppose it will make the knit “skin” more sturdy.  I ended up going with a good quality apparel knit because sadly, craft velour is not sold at any of my local fabric stores and I didn’t feel like ordering from some random website.

I’m really excited about what comes after the cutting.  I get to embroider a baby face, belly button, and other little touches that will probably not mean anything to Baby at the moment, but will make my detail-needing self really happy.  I also get to try to make baby hair, but I’m going to wait until his head is assembled and stuffed (that sounds so weird) so that I can make sure his hair fits correctly.

And that makes my baby’s doll sound like a miniature Donald Trump.

To be continued…

Sugar Gremlins

I had gestational diabetes (henceforth to be referred to as GD) when I was pregnant with Baby.  Unhappily, it wasn’t the kind of GD that was easily controllable with the modified diet.  We had to add in glyburide which helped, but not to the levels that I needed…so then came the insulin shots.  I’m a big sissy when it comes to needles, so my much-enduring husband gave me my shots every night.  (He’s so sweet…I love him so much.  Sorry…I appear to have gotten mush all over this post.)

Even with all of this intervention to try to make my body use insulin, there were days where, for no explicable reason, my blood sugars would go haywire.

I had one of those days yesterday.  Seriously, I ate exactly the same thing that I’ve eaten for three days in a row, and my numbers were all over the place.  I had one good reading out of four.  This is incredibly frustrating to me for several reasons.

1. I really take the diet seriously.  I don’t cheat.  I may sigh for orange juice and dream about chocolate chip cookies, but that is as far as it goes.
2. I use the heck out of my little food scale and various measuring devices to be absolutely certain that I’m only getting exactly what my list of “allowed” gives me.  This adds several minutes of prep time to each meal.  Plus, I have to work in three snacks that I don’t have normally into my routine.  Time there has to come from somewhere else.
3. I hate having to revolve my life around food.
4. I really like being pregnant, but stressing about blood sugar takes some of the fun of it away.  I think it’s that whole “high risk” label I have slapped on my forehead now.
5. I am a very goal and results-oriented person.  When I do something, I need to know that it’s actually working.  True story: when I was in labor with Baby and got to the pushing phase, apparently I asked the doctor if it was working.  I have no recollection of this.  (And, no, I was not under the influence of any medication.  The doctor told me that she hoped I hadn’t been planning on an epidural, which I hadn’t been, because there was no anesthesiologist on-site at the moment.  Made that resolution easy to keep…)  My husband thought it was funny.  So when I have these days where my numbers are all bouncy, I feel like a failure.
6. There is absolutely nothing I can do to prevent GD.   I’m all about Operational Risk Management (ORM…it’s a Navy thing and old habits die hard).  This means that if I am planning an evolution of whatever kind, I try to foresee every possible risk and mitigate it if at all possible.  ORM fails me here, but it works spectacularly for skiing.  I just don’t go.  Attaching myself to two sticks and hurling myself down a slope given my propensity for gravity-related disasters is just not a good idea.

Hopefully, the sugar gremlins took their labors of mayhem elsewhere last night and will leave me and my numbers alone today.  If not, there’s always tomorrow.

Flexing My Brain

My first day back to school was today.  It’s been nearly two years since I took a class.  I tried taking one last winter, but during the first week, my baby came down with a rotten case of RSV.  Between that, work, life…and coming down with pneumonia and two ear infections, school got cut from my list of things to do.  The rest of the year was spent transitioning to the homeschool mom thing.

I couldn’t remember my student ID number this morning.  I also couldn’t remember how to properly format the heading for my paper.  Thank goodness for e-mail archives.

Thankfully, I have an awesome professor for this class.  I e-mailed him this weekend and let him know that finals and D-Day for New Baby might become a conflict.  He apparently has seven kids of his own and is willing to get me through this class no matter what.  I love teachers like that…

Also thankfully, the course topic itself is something that I have a lot (a lot a lot a lot a lot) of experience in…both book and practical.  It’s going to make writing my essays and discussion board posts…not to mention my binary conversions and exams…much easier than, say, advanced Java programming.

Which is a class looming on my horizon.  I am not awesome at object-oriented programming.  My brain is not configured that way.  When I took my intermediate programming class, I cried over my homework every day.  I thought I failed after finals. I got an A for the class.  I can’t for the life of me tell you how that happened.  I have procrastinated on taking that final programming class…but, my happy days of avoidance will be gone shortly, to be replaced with much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Lovely picture, ain’t it?

“We’ll be back after these messages…”

I haven’t posted since Wednesday.  I feel kinda bad about this because I’ve been doing a fairly good job about the daily post since just before the New Year.  However, I’m giving myself a hall pass for this gap in postage.

1. Thursday: 28-week glucose test (for gestational diabetes).  In case you don’t know what this test entails, you have to drink twelve ounces of straight orange sugary-syrup nastiness.  Remember those little barrel drinks from when we were kids?  The ones in really bright colors containing enough sugar to kid-power a small village?  Try multiplying the intensity of one of those bad boys by twelve.  It’s bad.  My symptoms ran from talking really fast to being completely unable to remain motionless to nausea.  And then when the sugar high wore off, I was left with the shakes and the queasies for the rest of the day.  Plus, I got my TDAP vaccine and they took blood from me four times.  I was completely incoherent most of the day…ergo, no post.
2. Friday: Found out I have gestational diabetes again.  (Yay…)  Apparently, my body can’t make insulin and a baby at the same time.  I’ve never been terribly good at multitasking, so this makes a little sense.  So, I’m back to a very strict diet, testing my blood sugar four times a day (owie!) and I’m on medication.  The good thing about this is that it will (knock on coconut) go away as soon as I have my baby.  It did last time…and I’ve had no issues when I’m unpregnant.  I also had my blood drawn twice and got my RhoGAM shot to keep my Rh-negative self from developing antibodies against my potentially Rh-positive New Baby.  I was really crabby most of the day…ergo, no post.
3. Saturday:  Bright spot of the past three days…I made almond milk ice cream tonight.  It turned out much better than I thought it would, and that makes me really happy.  I want to try a tofu-based ice cream and frozen yogurt as well…maybe I’ll whip up those bases tomorrow.  I learned that my blood sugar tends to spike a lot when I eat or drink milk products when I was pregnant with Baby, so I’m trying to stay away from dairy as much as possible from the get-go with New Baby.

Tomorrow, we should be back to your regularly scheduled programming.  In theory.

A Baby for Baby

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been brainstorming about ways to introduce Baby to New Baby.  As Baby will be just under eighteen months when he becomes a big brother, diplomacy isn’t really a viable option.  Enter early childhood memories…

When my (first) baby brother was born, he brought my sister and me baby dolls so that we could take care of our babies while Mommy took care of hers.  I remember it (read the bribe) working really well.  When Daddy came to tell us that we had a little brother, we told him that God got our order wrong and to send him back.  Well, at the hospital, he gave us presents…and we decided that he could stay.  Plus, he was adorable.

I really think that this could be good for Baby.  We can practice how to touch and treat New Baby, and he’ll have one of his own to snuggle while Momma’s feeding or snuggling hers.  (I’ve come full circle.  Life is weirdly wonderful sometimes.)

This began a quest for a cute (read not scary) boy doll.  Lemme tell you…my dreams have been haunted by some of the monstrosities I came across during this process.  Seriously, I couldn’t find one that wouldn’t send me running away screaming except for American Girl‘s “Bitty Baby.”  As cute as they are, they’re all girls…and $55.00, which is a bit outside my budget.  So, I decided that sewing Baby his very own baby brother doll would be a better option.  And I couldn’t find a pattern that I really liked anywhere.

Until today.

I found Simplicity Pattern 2809.  It is exactly what I was hoping to be able to make (without spending hours drafting my own pattern).  The baby boy doll looks incredibly huggable, and I’m going to be able to tweak the aesthetics of his face and body really easily.  This dude’s gonna get a belly button.  I also decided that I’m going to crochet him a wig cap out of Lion Brand Fun Fur yarn so his whole head is nice and fluffy instead of attaching random bangs to a bald baby head as directed by the pattern..  I’m so excited!  I got the stuff I need to make the doll today while I was at the store picking up the pattern that I (quite uncharacteristically) had the presence of mind to call ahead and put on hold.  Once I make him I’ll move on to clothes and/or accessories.  There’s a pattern for a teddy bear and a blankie, too.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to get a start on him absolutely no later than next week.  I really want to do it tomorrow, but I have an early morning date with a disgustingly sugary drink that’s going to turn me into a shaky, wobbly mess for the rest of the day.