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Open Letter: To the Man Who Came To Child Birth Class Alone

24 Jul

"Come here often?"

Hey Guy,

I know the whole group technically introduced ourselves in class today, so I’m kind of a jerk for not remembering yours. I think it was Bill, but I don’t know. I hope you won’t be offended if I call you Guy.

Not gonna lie – I was really relieved to not be the only singleton in the class today. I was a little surprised at first that the other person flying solo was male – but hey, no gender bias. Okay, a wee bit of gender bias – but you were polite and sober and took notes on the pamphlets so it was cool. You were a good table-mate.

See, I had been dreading it since Breastfeeding 101 when I saw that 95% of the people in attendance were couples. After deciding that it was best that my husband miss the child birthing class so he’d have fewer graduate classes when the baby arrived – I was not looking forward to flying solo in what I knew was going to be a four-hour “couples skate” at the “Nightmare Fuel Roller Rink”. I mean, dude, let’s be real. We knew watching a baby being born was going to be horrifying. But at least when you hose that sucker down – there’s something chubby and cute underneath the gore.

But delivering the placenta?! SERIOUSLY?! You know what you get when you hose that down? A one-legged jellyfish that just got initiated and is limping out of the human body. Gross, right? I know you agreed with me, because we both made those sounds of revulsion and we both seemed quietly apprehensive about what the next 4 hours would bring.

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Dog For Sale

20 Jul

Dog For Sale

Not really.

Though, if you had called my cell phone at around 11:24 this morning she probably would have been going home with you. At least until Corey got home and talked me out of it.

Allow me a bit of back-story, if you will.

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Mr. Big

23 May

We had our 28 week appointment. At 24 weeks, the doctor said I was measuring a bit ‘big’ and they wanted to do an ultrasound to check the growth. I also had the glucose screen which meant cutting back on my traditionally sugar-dipped diet for 2.5 to make sure I wasn’t at risk for gestational diabetes. This, actually, has been one of my major concerns. Albeit temporary, gestational diabetes has been cursed by many a mother I know. So, I went into the lab thinking sugar-free thoughts on Friday. We wouldn’t find out the results of the screen until later that day – after the appointment.

After the ultrasound technician did her thing, we met with the doctor. After some pleasantries (I love my OBGYN, btw) I asked how his measurements looked. Her response?

“You’re gonna have a BIG baby.”

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(se)Mester/(tri)Mester/(lil)Mister

15 May

(se)Mester/(tri)Mester/(lil)Mister

My oh my…what a busy three months it has been. In the (okay, I’ll admit it) hiatus since the last post, we have welcomed back shows we fell in love with (hey you and you and girl, we can’t forget about you), found out that our Baby Gaga does in fact have a penis (and we’re okay with that), wrapped up the spring semester (with graduation brings the sweet release of summer) while simultaneously wrapping up the second trimester (oh hello….you).

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Pride Cometh Before the Vom

4 Feb

It’s been a wonderfully whirlwind week for the Patterdices. We finally got to share the news of Baby Gaga with the rest of the world and our good friend Jenny, over at the Billman blog, got to interview a cast member from Glee. It’s as if in the middle of all this snow we’ve been swathed in sunshine. As I’m transitioning into the second trimester…I thought, “Wow. I may have had some nasty bouts of nausea, but I never threw up.”

Corey even asked on occasion. Inquired as to whether Mount St. Hormone had blasted forth at all during the first twelve weeks.

“Nope.” I replied. “Just nausea. Lots of heartburn, headaches, muscle pain, extreme fatigue and a chest that felt like a punching bag every morning. Other than that? Faaaaaan-tastic.”

But, o, was I fool.

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My New Appointment as Secretary of “Getting the Hell Out of Here”: Adventures in the Obama Spider-Man Variant

14 Jan

My New Appointment as Secretary of “Getting the Hell Out of Here”: Adventures in the Obama Spider-Man Variant

If you’re a big ole’ comic book geek or a raving Obamaniac – then there’s a good chance that you went freaking ape-shit crazy today over the Spiderman Obama variant cover that hit stores today. If you’re neither of the two – allow me to fill you in:

You know how sometimes TV Guide will put out a week’s issue with a series of 4 different covers with different cast-mates of [Current T.V. show]. On the inside – it’s the same T.V. Guide. Same times. Same shows. It’s just the cover that’s different. With a comic book variant – there will be something sparkly and super duper special about a cover that is different from the one that’s in mass production. So say – out of 10 issues of T.V. Guide – 9 of them have Hurley on them, and only one has Sawyer. Sawyer is the variant. Got it? Easy peasy. Comic book with an insert about Spiderman saving Obama at the inauguration. Easy. Right?

Wrong. SO wrong. Because the one variant is invariably worth more than the regular issues.

But the thing about this variant: it was an [Edit: Super special screwy] incentive plan for Marvel. Marvel tells the comic book shop, “Say you ordered x-number of Spiderman issues last time. For every, say, 20 extra issues you order, we’ll give you a variant.” Not a big deal for your gigantic comic book stores, they can easily order more, somewhat difficult for your lower sized chains. There’s the first print ultra-limited edition with a blue background, that’s the one that came out today. So folks were lining up all over the place today to get their hands on the Obama variant of Spiderman.  Here’s how I spent the most terrifying morning of 2009.

So – my resident comic book geek hubs – has been feverishly asking me to go pick up a copy of the variant for like, the past week. There’s only one comic book store in town and it opens at 10 a.m.

Hubs: “You have to get there early. Get there before 10.”

Moi: “Yeahyeahyeahwhatever.”

Hubs: “No. I’m being serious. You really need to get there early.”

Moi: “Mmmkay.”

So I get there at 9:55 and there are three middle aged men, god bless ‘em, standing in line outside the door. Part of me wanted to say, “If there are only three of you – you probably don’t need to be in a line.” But this was the Whopper Virgin in me coming out because, as I learned, fewer people does not mean less insanity.

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