A lot of bills for all of the various work and phone changes that have been going on around here have hit within the last five working days. I have only this to say: sheesh. It sure costs a boatload of money to save some money.

After his field hockey game on Tuesday, he called my phone to let me know he was heading home. I was putting Henry to bed so I didn't have time to get to the phone before it went to voicemail. I called him right back and when he finally picked up he said he had a little trouble with the call waiting. Here's a transcript of the voice message he left me: "Heya, it's me. I'm just calling to let you know that I'm on my way home and to see if you want me to pick anything up-oh wait, I'm getting another call...I think it's you.....*beep*....Hello?....what the....hold on....*beep*....Hello?....wait...*huff*....d****t!"

Getting Dave a cell phone could be the best thing we've ever done. I'm certainly enjoying it.

Yesterday we hired a guy to refinish the wood floors in our living room, back hallway, and study. He also offered to buff and put another coat of urethane on the dining room floor that Dave and I refinished ourselves a couple of years ago so it will blend in better with the living room. The best part was he said he'd do it for free. His quote came in about $500 less than a quote we got for the same work from someone else two years ago, so that was an unexpected surprise. Fifteen minutes after he left, our heat pump/electrician guy came by with the contract for the work he's going to do for us. We're having to get our box upgraded to 200 amps before the heat pump can go in. He'll be here Thursday to do that, then on the 30th he'll be back to install the heat pump. We've decided to go with natural gas because it's a lot more efficient than oil, and it's cleaner burning. The bonus of hooking up to gas now means that our dreams of a gas fireplace insert and a gas stove will be much easier to realize.

Although these are fairly minor (albeit sort of expensive) changes that we're making to the house, I'm completely giddy with excitement. I've grown really attached to this place in the six years that we've lived here. When we almost bought a house in the Spring of '08, one of the factors that made me change my mind was being completely unable to imagine anyone else living here, and it's still true. I love driving up to it when we come home, I love how Henry refers to it as "the yellow house", and I love our yard, including the insane not-necessarily-in-a-good-way flower garden. Hopefully the house loves us just as much.

Before the arrival of Chocolat:

1. Heat-pump so we can have some humidity-reducing, life-saving A/C pumping through the veins of our little house, with the added bonus of not having to spend another winter worrying whether our dinosaur of an oil furnace will poop out. In January. In the middle of a deep freeze. I hear old furnaces have a history of doing that.
2. Having the rest of the wood floors on our first floor sanded and refinished.

Sometime in the next year or so:

1. New fence around our backyard with actual gates.

Sometime, somewhere, over the rainbow:

1. Pergola over our patio.
2. Front porch
3. Additional bedroom over the front porch.
4. Small kitchen remodel, the brunt of which is opening up the wall between kitchen and dining room.
5. Some other stuff we haven't thought of yet. Consume consume consume!

Of course, now that we have the HELOC, what I'd really like to do is buy a new, smaller, neutrally-colored sofa that isn't a behemoth sectional that looks like it's eating our living room, as well as some lovely Flor carpet tiles. But I won't. I promise to be a good girl.

1. Our cell phone. We're not entirely sure what happened, but one morning while we were at the beach it decided it was moving on to the Great Cell Phone Pasture in the sky. What was really tragic was Dave had spent the previous two weeks going back and forth with the University's Verizon rep, trying to pick out a family plan that would work for us. Were we not two indecisive Libra's, we probably would have been the proud owners of two new phones by the time we went to the beach. It was weird not having a phone, mostly weird in a good, disconnected way. We do now have two lovely new phones, plus Dave is the proud owner of his own phone number. Our plan is to nix our land line and our long distance thereby whittling our number of monthly phone bills down from three to just one. I'm really looking forward to that.

2. Our washer. The night we got back, I washed the sheets that were on our bed so they'd be nice and clean and dust-free for those of us who have allergies (ahem), then I threw in a nice big load of vacation laundry. The washer pooped out in the middle of the agitation cycle. We tried a couple of different things to get it going again, but ended up wringing out the wet clothes and bailing out the water. Dave instrument of choice for doing this: an 8oz. cup. I suggested perhaps something bigger might get the job done quicker, but when he's made his choice, he's made his choice. (Which is why, in the end, he went through with marrying me despite possible better judgement.) We've been itching for a new washer since we moved in six years ago because the current washer just didn't seem quite up to the challenge of cleaning our clothes. We headed off to Sears the next night and picked out a lovely new energy efficient model. We also purchased a small chest freezer which we have high hopes of filling with all sorts of frozen dinners that we can pillage and reheat once Chocolat arrives. It's something we've been talking about purchasing since we found out we were expecting and this seemed like as good a time as any. So our new appliances will be arriving June 9th. Perhaps needless to say, we spent some serious quality time at the local laundromat on Sunday.

3. Kitchen ceiling fan. I was vacuuming the fan blades when I managed to shatter the glass light cover. We talked about replacing the glass bit, but then I suggested it wouldn't be horrible to get a new ceiling fan altogether, perhaps one that gave off more light. Which is what we did. Now when you turn on our kitchen light, you're practically blinded. It makes me very happy that I decided to go ahead and paint the walls a few years ago because I can only imagine how dingy the room would look if I hadn't.

Now we're sitting around waiting with baited breath to see what the next thing to go will be. I think Dave's hoping either the fridge or the dishwasher. I'm hoping it's the wall between the kitchen and dining room, but the likelihood of that giving up the ghost is probably pretty slim.

Henry is very much looking forward to enjoying the hot tub one day "when he's older". He spent about twenty minutes one afternoon forlornly splashing the water while his daddy stewed away in bubbly bliss. The prospect of doing it at some point in the future definitely perked him up, as did the fact that I wasn't allowed to go in either. Every once in a while we would hoist our legs up over the edge and dip our toes. It was very relaxing.

About a month ago I mentioned to my dad that I was thinking about getting a ukulele, and the day we arrived, what should emerge from out of their car but a brand-spanking new, gorgeous ukulele, complete with a beginner's book and a hawaiian uke song book. Perfect for the beach. My excitement was perhaps eclipsed only by Henry's. You should have seen his eyes boggle when I opened up the case. I'm currently working on learning Israel Kamakawiwoʻole's version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and Weezer's "Island in the Sun". One day you'll find me in the backyard swinging in a hammock, wearing frayed cut-off jeans with a straw hat over my face, while strumming all sorts of crazy tunes.

Needless to say, I'm ready to pack everything up and head back down again. Henry would agree. Next summer is a long ways away.

Tomorrow we're leaving for the beach. I'll be off-line for a week and a half. Last year when we went with Megan and her family, she and I practically free-based the amazing fudge that people sell there. Since I won't be able to do that this year, I feel a responsibility to warn Dave that I'll be filling that particular void by procuring as much seashell laden objets d'art as I can possibly get my hands on.

1) the 38-week ultrasound is something they give everyone. I had high blood pressure the first few visits I was pregnant with Henry (because of a previous pregnancy that had gone wrong) and so I received all sorts of special attention such as twice a month visits right out of the gate, early non-stress tests, and assorted other things you all don't want to hear about. That included a 38-week ultrasound which was presented as something extra I was getting along with all of the other stuff. If the Dr. had said he was going to tack on taking a close look at Chocolat's weight onto the list of other things they look at during the routine 38-week ultrasound, my head wouldn't have gone spinning off into outer space.

2) She talked to me about the glucose test, what my actual options are. There were at least three from off the top of her head, and one of those three was declining to do any of them. Then she told me what my options were based on which of those options I might choose, and one of them always included declining to do anything. Which is always nice to hear and tends to make a girl feel a lot more in control of her own destiny.

She was extremely easy to talk to and listened to me and my concerns. It was a huge relief. I asked her if I could just see her from now on and she said yes, although she was up front about the fact that she might be traveling for a vacation around the time that I'm due. At this point, I would trust anyone she recommended to be present at Chocolat's birth.

Which brings me to why I'm up at the ungodly hour of any-time-before-9AM. I have to be at the hospital by 7 to start the three-hour glucose test. I didn't sleep well last night, but have a feeling I'll be fine once the test gets rolling. Yesterday I headed to the library for some light and hopefully engrossing reading, as well as the video store for a DVD to play on the laptop. Right now I'd say I'm more anxious about having to pass three-hours worth of time in a hospital waiting room than I am about the gross orange drink and four blood draws. Anyway, wish me luck.

I think the morning must have completely wiped us out because after we returned home, we spent some time half-heartedly playing and doing some light clean-up around the house, but finally threw in the towel and hit the living room couch with snacks, the TV remote, and Dave's laptop. So far we have a list of things that we're going to do when Daddy gets home based on things we've seen. One is to make a Drumbone a la Blue Man Group, which Henry was totally into. One day when he gets over his aversion to loud noises and darkened theaters, we'll have to take him to see them perform. The other thing we decided we want to do is to make a wind chime. Dave's going to be busy when he gets home, unless he succumbs to the lure of the couch as well.

A couple of weekends ago we drove straight from my grandma's house in MA to an end-of-semester bbq bash hosted by one of Dave's colleagues. There were scintillating baked beans, juicy grilled pork loins, mac and cheese, and a killer strawberry and spinach salad that was so good I know of at least three people who left the party clutching the recipe in their hot little hands. I was one of them. (You know it's a good salad when people are asking for the recipe, right?) I made it twice that same week, once for us, and once to bring to another bbq we went to the following weekend. Now that good strawberries are showing up in the grocery store, I thought I'd share the recipe. First, a picture:

Yum! Next, the ingredients:

Spinach and Strawberry Salad
Fresh spinach, sliced strawberries, and sliced sweet onion, however much of each you'd like. I usually use one large bag of spinach, one pound of strawberries, and one half of a sweet onion.

Poppy seed dressing
1/2 C vegetable oil
3T apple cider vinegar
2T sugar
1T lemon juice
1T poppy seeds
1/2 t salt
1/2 t ground mustard

After mixing the dressing, I add about 2/3's of it to the salad, then toss it all together to coat the spinach, strawberries, and sweet onion. The first time I made it I put all of the dressing in and it was a little too much.

There you have it. If you try it, let me know!

The second thing: Dave and I have agreed that we need to be very clear about what we do and don't want for the birth of this baby (keeping in mind that we're pretty flexible people), but it seems fruitless to do that because of the way the current practice we're using works. You meet with lots of different mid-wives and a couple of different doctors because you just don't know who will be on call when you go into labor. With Henry, we had a mid-wife we'd never even met before, so we can talk to people until we're blue in the face, but in the end there's a good chance whoever we end up having for the big show won't know us and vice versa. To that end I'd be happier if we were able to meet with the same person, to get to know them as well as their being able to get a better grasp of where we're coming from. Today I found a practice who has just one doctor and one nurse who also uses the same hospital we used for Henry, so I'm going to set up an appointment to talk with them (I tried calling today but I got they're answering service).

I'll also be calling to set up an appointment with a local mid-wife who has a birthing center and also does home births. I'm not certain if this is necessarily the route I want to go, but the pros in my head right now are out-weighing the cons, most of which admittedly have to do with my own inhibitions and hang-ups.

This is the last baby we're going to have and I feel very strongly that I need to look deep within myself to figure out how I feel, to talk a lot about the options with Dave, to decide what exactly is the best route for us to take, and for both of us to not have any doubt whatsoever after that decision is made. Some fear, maybe, but doubt, definitely not.

Thank you for your kind words and emails after yesterday's post. I love you guys! *sniff*

I failed my glucose test while pregnant with Henry with a score of 165. The cut-off is 140. No one told me, no follow-up testing was scheduled.

While I was busy giving birth to Henry, it became clear that he was just not interested in coming out. Two things didn't help this situation: 1. My kid had He-man-sized shoulders; and 2. I was rendered immobile on my back in bed because I was hopped up on pitocin (which resulted in excruciating back labor) and an epidural (to help with the aforementioned pain) so I couldn't change positions to allow gravity and my body to help make my pushes more productive. Dave and I both made it very clear that I did not want to have an episiotomy, to which the mid-wife looked at us like we were crazy and said "Well, I'll try not to, but we might have to anyway." So she performed an episiotomy, I had fourth degree tearing, lost a ton of blood, but had a healthy happy baby. I was also a little annoyed that our request was met with the reaction that it was, as if it was perfectly unreasonable.

Six weeks after all 9+ pounds of Henry was born, I had my post-natal checkup, not with the mid-wife that was present at my birth, but with another one whom I really liked. She expressed astonishment at Henry's size, congratulated me on having survived it, said if they had known he was so big they probably would have suggested a c-section, but since I had proven that I could give birth to such a big baby, they wouldn't really have to worry my being able to deliver naturally if I ever got pregnant again. That rubbed me the wrong way, because I shouldn't have to prove anything. I'm a woman. Giving birth is part of what we do.

The first few appointments with this pregnancy were great. I met with a mid-wife who was very positive. She saw my history of tearing, saw Henry's weight, and reassured me that there was no way I would tear as much this time, that it would most likely be an easier birth. I'm a firm believer in anything can happen, but it was nice to hear her say those things to me at multiple appointments. The last appointment I had I met with a doctor. He read in my history the bit about the fourth degree tears, closed my file and said "Right out of the gate we offer women who've had tearing like you had a c-section. Now let me tell you what that entails..." I stopped him and said I wasn't at all interested. Then he went on to talk about all of the complications associated with tearing, while in my mind I was thinking of all of the complications associated with surgery. There was no winning me over with that argument. He said we'd revisit the option a couple of weeks before my due date. I wasn't happy to hear this response. My answer will be the same at 38 weeks.

This afternoon I got a phone call from the receptionist at my ob-gyn's office saying she was calling to schedule my 3-hour glucose test. I said "What? Does this mean I failed this mornings test?" No one called to talk to me about it, no one called to explain what happens and what it could mean. I told her I wasn't interested in taking the 3-hour test and she said one of the mid-wives asked her to set it up. I said that was fine, that I'd like to talk with the mid-wife. So a few minutes later I got a phone call and after hearing my number (169, similar to when I was pregnant with Henry) I explained to her that I didn't want to take the three hour test because the number was basically the same as when I was pregnant with Henry, that pregnancy went fine, and on top of that, I have no risk factors associated with developing gestational diabetes. Then I got to hear about their policy about diabetes testing, that if I didn't do the three-hour test then I'd have to do regular blood sugar testing throughout the rest of my pregnancy plus a couple of extra ultra-sounds. I clarified with her that those were my only two options, at which point she got pretty pissy. I then found myself in the position of validating for her the fact that I understand they're trying to provide good health care, just to save the tone of the conversation. So, right now I'm a very pissed off pregnant lady who's having to take a three-hour gestational diabetes test next Thursday.

Here are the things that worry me:

1. Numbers that indicate pass/fail have become the be all and end all without any regard for actual risk factor's or the person's medical history.

2. I don't like being put in the position of having to deal with a medical professional who's getting openly defensive when I ask if a test is really necessary, especially if I have good reason to think it's not. Talk to me about it, don't get crabby.

3. The biggest worry I now have is that I no longer trust that once I walk into the hospital that I'm not going to get bullied into a c-section. They didn't listen to me about the episiotomy, and now that I've got a doctor who's going to revisit the c-section option at 38 weeks, I feel like there's already a predisposition I'm not going to be able to fight. Wait until they hear I don't even want a bag of pitocin to so much as swing in my direction when I get to the maternity ward. That ought to make people's heads explode. I don't mind advocating for myself; I don't like when advocating starts to feel like arguing and defending.

I told Dave that the tone of this afternoon's conversation with the mid-wife has made my anxiety level for August reach a fever pitch, that I now have this vision of getting up in the middle of labor and just walking out of the hospital because my faith that they're going to do the right thing as opposed to the convenient thing is completely shaken. Right now I'm wondering if the road we're currently traveling on to have this baby is the wrong one after all.

I've been trying to figure out what we need to buy to prepare for the impending arrival of a certain Lorelei/Dale/Chocolat Meilleure and there's not too much. Fortunately babies aren't too tough on baby things what with all of the laying around and fussing that they do, so most of Henry's stuff survived relatively unscathed. The major exception is the stroller which was, by the end of it's two-year tenure, held together by duct tape. It was rendered completely useless one fateful day when Henry grabbed the cup holder/safety bar thingy, yanked it up with all of his might, and broke it in half. That was the end of that. It's just as well we get a second chance at a stroller because the one we chose for Henry was too short for both myself and Dave, and also its sad little wheels didn't navigate the uneven sidewalks of the 'burg very well. I've gotten to test drive a few different models thanks to everyone I know owning a different kind of stroller, so that's helped me narrow it down to one in particular. Naturally it's expensive, but probably worth it.

The only other things we need are new baby bottles (we're going old skool glass because we're cool like that) and we're switching to biodegradable/flushable gdiapers instead of Pampers. I still haven't purchased any little girl outfits. (Did you hear that? That was Dave, sighing with relief.) I was talking to a friend about it a couple of weeks ago and she reminded me that babies don't wear anything other than sleep dresses and those kimono shirts early on anyway, so who cares? She's totally right. Besides, I bet I'll be totally inspired once I actually meet Chocolat for the first time. (Did you hear that? That was Dave canceling my debit card.)

That was yesterday, and it was glorious. A week ago his response to each of those questions would have been "AUUUUUGGGGHHHH!" The bonus was that I had to explain to Henry exactly what I meant by "sneaking out of work to get some ice cream." Glad he's got that concept down at such a young age.

Today we pulled out our wading pool, had lunch outside, came inside to cool off, worked on filling out tax forms for Henry's school (me), tortured the dog (Henry), got sent to bed for torturing the dog and not fessing up to what exactly he did to make her bark (Henry), cleaned the kitchen when she should have been napping (me). Looking forward to an evening spent wading-pool-side while Dave bbq's, if he's up for it.