Irresponsible

One of the graduate assistants at my work is a budding photographer and asked me weeks ago if she could photograph my burgeoning gut. I told her that would be great, knowing there was zero chance of my documenting my pregnancy myself and figuring that when I'm nine months pregnant, I will remember being five months pregnant with fondness. "You thought you knew what sciatica felt like then!" I'll think to myself. "You fool!"

Being myself, I figured the most sensible time to arrange a photo shoot would be the day after the semester was over, which is also the day Ryan and I are supposed to be getting ready to leave town for several weeks. Do other people's brains work better than this?

So, this week I logged all my hours, finished a Medicaid application, saw eleven clients, facilitated three groups, went to class, wrote a client conceptualization, entered the last two months worth of client notes including three infamously time-consuming intakes, gathered the documents required to reinstate my driver's license, gained two pounds, and slept through the night once. When I crashed through the door last night at 7:30 and announced I would be showering, Ryan looked relieved.

Since I hadn't showered since Monday. Seriously, who has the time?

What he didn't know was that the reason I was showering is that I am to be photographed in public today and my haircut is so bad that last week when I showed my own sister and cherished oldest friend what it looked like pre-curling iron, they both looked genuinely concerned. Like how you would look if your sister or cherished oldest friend came before you after having had a run-in with a four year old and a pair of scissors. Because that's what my uncurled hair looks like. The curled version doesn't look good, mind you, but it does somewhat diminish the weed-whacker effect.

At least that's what I tell myself.

Where was I? I'm really tired, people.

Ah, yes, showering. So I emerged from the shower ready for Ryan to take a swing at cutting my hair. I had not received his consent to proceed with this plan, as I imagined it would be difficult to obtain. I strategized that dripping-wet, urgency-infused coercion would more likely achieve compliance. You see, we had tried this before, and it didn't go great, but, I figured, when your hair looks as bad as mine currently does, probably having less hair will be an improvement. Also, I have unwarranted faith in the ability of a curling iron to mask pretty much the entire spectrum of bad haircuts. I was uninvested. When I announced the plan, he looked panicked.

He should have known better than to attempt to resist. I am incorrigible.

After a few different methods of haranguing, he took our dull scissors and gave it his best shot. After one trip around my head he decided he had had enough, and left me there, sopping wet lunatic that I am, to finish the job.

I didn't mind. He had already cut the back.

My hair doesn't look worse, though I can't say it looks better. Again, sans curling, the effect is comical at best. But, there is less hair, and that was the only goal, which makes the event a success!

Good thing I will have my driver's license picture taken in two hours and then spend a couple hours this afternoon being photographed in public. It's nice to know you can count on yourself to be someone with consistently good judgment and plenty of dignity.

I must be missing something

Do you use Flickr to store and share photos? Or Picasa? If so, why? Aren't there equally user friendly sites that offer unlimited storage, like Snapfish or Shutterfly?

Sincerely,

Perplexed

A Moment of Triumph

Sometimes you get a moment that helps to redeem all those other moments and this here moment is one of them.

Today I spent most of the morning amassing the paperwork that we need for our Medicaid application. I spent most of the afternoon logging my internship hours so I can get them signed off before winter break and to make sure I can get my hours completed before Dweezil shows up. As tallying hours is one of The Logistics of Life, I should have been entering them weekly, but haven't entered a single one since the last week of August.

I finished entering the hours a few minutes ago, so I went to the summary sheet to see how my progress was coming along. I discovered I have enough hours to graduate.

Now.

Meaning, I have been working way more than necessary, but I can stop worrying, leave town for the holidays without a care in the world, and have time next semester to meet my obligations to my internship sites without any concern about getting my requirements met.

Because they are met.

Now.

I recognize that this could also be a tragic tale of how I pushed my pregnant self way too hard, losing undue sleep, and being irresponsible in a backward sort of ill-planned way, but I'm in a half-full sort of mood because...

the Medicaid stuff is all in a pile, ready to fax in on Monday...

And Ryan just emailed me this:

At the time, I was so sad that I didn't have the energy to make Pumpkinfest happen, but I did insist that Ryan's 399 lb. champion be carved. At 6:00 pm on Halloween. And I made us set up the self-timer so there would be proof that even though we were tired, stressed, and almost dead, we still had the biggest Jack O' Lantern in the neighborhood, and we grew it ourselves.

It can be hard to predict which days will be the good ones. Today definitely wasn't slated that way, but as I sit here awash in triumph, I'm happy it snuck up on me.

Maybe this is kind of how it feels when after a long, crappy pregnancy, you realize you get a baby at the end because you're holding one in your arms.

Sorry for comparing you to a nearly-completed Medicaid application, Dweezil. You'll understand when you're older.

Please Advise

Hello friends.

As previously declared, The Logistic of Life are not my strong suit. I am working hard to rectify the situation in the next four months before it starts to impact the innocent.

I am creating a baby registry. It seems like the responsible thing to do. Trouble is, I don't have a baby, so I'm not too hip on baby needs. Do you need 5 onesies or 500? Do you need a swing or will one turn my child into a sociopath? Are Moby wraps really as easy to use as people say, because to me it looks like they require the complex skill of self-mummification?

If you have recommendations for things you have really found useful in the care and rearing of your small people, please leave them in the comments. Think broadly here, or I will have a newborn wrapped in newspaper come Spring.

Thank you.

As payment, I hope you enjoy reading this. I thought it was quite funny and also accurate.

Incredible

It is already clear to me what will be my greatest parenting weakness, other than putting my children in doggy crates. It will be The Logistics of Life.

A few examples include my driver's license (expired one year as of my birthday), a tuition reimbursement I need to petition for (which would amount to $600), a class in which I have an "incomplete" (which, if I don't complete by May will preclude my graduation), the cars whose expired registrations only come to my awareness when, annually, they are ticketed in front of my home, and...

Ryan and I are pretty much uninsured. I have catastrophic insurance that will pay to sew my leg back on if it falls off, but only after they have collected all of our assets, including our firstborn. Ryan has a preexisting condition that makes him ineligible. I have been able to ride the cognitive discomfort of knowing that if anything bad happens we are screwed because everyone involved who has the potential to get screwed is an adult who should know better. However, having taken on the task of creating a separate-yet-dependent human being, I feel keenly my sense of responsibility for making sure that he, and his incompetent parents, don't die needlessly.

Which brings me to this moment in time. This moment, where I sit where I have been sitting for TWO! hours on hold with the Utah Medicaid office from whom I have been disconnected TWO! times. I am ready to kill someone but, as is so often the case with bureaucracy, my only hindrance is that I don't know who to kill. What a pickle!

I am practicing my deep breathing.

I know that this step isn't optional; there is no other forseeable way to insure the kid I decided to conceive. His existence wasn't his idea. I took him on, and now I will sit on hold until I am eighty five, entertaining homicidal fantasies and considering the possibility that it might actually be better to die than to complete this process. Paperwork makes my brain melt. This is not a maternally advantageous trait.

I think I have the potential to be a fun mom. I'm pretty sure I can cook food that will sustain life and I can teach my progeny appropriate table manners and grammar. Pumpkinfest alone should earn me some mom-points. What I foresee is being the mom who spends weeks planning the most fun, elaborate field trips ever devised but then forgetting to sign the permission slip so the kids stay home and watch Dora.

I can see how parenting is a refiner's fire. I'm not even a full-blown parent and already, my weaknesses! How much more difficult they are to deny!

With a little help from my friends

To those who take pictures, I salute you.

I do not take pictures. Maybe if I have a baby and a nice camera and a good night's sleep simultaneously, I will take one someday. But for now, I rely on the kindness and cameras of others.

Behold, 21 weeks:

Don't believe a second of that cheesy grin. Homegirl is a faker.

Now, at 23 weeks, I have doubled in size. By the end of this, I will require a crane to get off the couch.

Many thanks to Kate and Neil, whose combined resources made this picture happen. If you want future updates, you will have to come take them yourself or wait until I see Kate again, hopefully in January.

Also, you people need to start telling me when I need a haircut. I can't see these things until I see a photo, and, as I may have mentioned, this doesn't happen often.