Various confessions

I did make the cupcakes and I did fill them, and they were fantastic. Then I made three dozen more cupcakes for Marlo's second birthday party of the week. These ones I did not fill.  Strange, but it turned out that three dozen was overkill for 10 children and their non-pregnant parent escorts. So now I have about six frozen unfrosted cupcakes, six frosted cupcakes in the fridge waiting to be eaten when the mood strikes me, and three unfrosted cupcakes sitting on the counter waiting to either become frozen or eaten cupcakes.

Oh, and did I also mention the strawberry roll cake, or the half of it that is left, also in the fridge?

My glucose test is a week from today.

Want to know two things about me that will make you feel like you are a better person than I am?

1.    I am dreading having to breastfeed this new baby
2.    I want to get rid of my 13 year old dog.

There! Enjoy judging me.

browser history: sugar detox

I've reached the non-stop sugar craving portion of my pregnancy, the one I distinctly remember from last time. It's right on time - roughly a month before I have to take the blood glucose test. I remember the last time being scared to death I was going to fail the test because I had basically taken to eating my meals from a hummingbird feeder.

Last weekend I baked my grandmother's devils food cake, which is made extra-devily with the addition of Crisco based frosting. It sounds disgusting but it's the best thing possible. The other best part? You use regular sugar, so you have just the teensy-est sugar crunch to every bite. We ate the whole thing in under a week.

For my encore, Sunday morning I decided to make the lemon icebox pie from the cover of the most recent Cook's Country magazine. THAT is one delicious pie. It is Tuesday morning and we have a quarter of it left. A quarter! I gave a quarter to my sister, but other than that it's been all me. Now I'm trying to decide if I make another lemon pie when this one is finished, or if I branch out to try another type of pie. The only requirement is that it includes whipped cream and a graham cracker crust.

 I've actually been experiencing a little right upper quadrant pain since last night, so maybe I blew out my gallbladder? It's entirely possible. I can honestly say I wouldn't be surprised. My diet has been very butterliscious lately.

Marlo's birthday is next Monday, and she has requested that I make cupcakes out of my grandmother's cake recipe. That is all well and good, but the success of the cake depends on cutting the layers in half and having a healthy dose of frosting throughout. This is antithetical to cupcakery. Am I going to have to try and fill them, like they are Hostess cupcakes? I think the answer is a resounding yes. This is going to be intense.

Marsha, marsha, marsha

It's a girl! Another sweet baby girl. I can continue life without confronting my phobia of baby penises.

I had actually gotten myself psyched up enough to be ready for blue frosting that I had a tinge of disappointment. I had found a place where I could be excited for a boy and all the "different" that would bring. People with boys seem to like them okay, most of the time.

There are already those who tell me I can try for a boy the next time. The next time! Who suggests such a thing to a woman who is only halfway done with a pregnancy? Who is only a few weeks removed from misery on either end? Crazy people, that's who. My own husband even. I like how this baby is getting skipped over already, is not even the middle child yet but is getting treated like it. She's not even done growing toenails and we've moved on to her hypothetical baby brother. I haven't ruled it out, yet. I'm getting too old for our current childbearing pace, however, and would have to work the turnaround a little quicker next time. We'll see. I know plenty of people who declared they were going to have a million kids and then got themselves spayed and neutered after the second one was born.

I took some pictures of the big cupcake biting-into, but the light was bad and the pink didn't really show up and I haven't upgraded to Mountain Lion so my iPhoto is all screwy, etc. My super-sweet girlfriend responded to the picture I sent with the text "looks like a big pink gash," so there's a visual for you at least.

At least they're not cake pops

I've really enjoyed Beyonce-ing this pregnancy. It is much more fun to up and show up with a baby bump than to make a grand announcement and try to smile all demurely like the Virgin Mary or something. I guess, minus side, people tend to feel like they are inconsequential and get all hurt insides-feeling about it. I guess maybe it is my small act of rebellion against the culture of over-sharing in which I normally am an active participant. And whatever, I act like I kept quiet but I didn't, really. I still made the facebook announcement. But I sure as shit did not do so with the cutesy picture of me and a jar of spaghetti sauce. Prego has always been my least favorite word, anyways. 

Let's see, what else, how else can I try to offend people who possess a genuine interest in my life. I have my big 20 week ultrasound tomorrow. We're having the gender written down and I'm having cupcakes (YEAH, I SAID CUPCAKES, LAYNE) made with the appropriate pink or blue filling. That way we can be surprised together as a family at Mo's birthday dinner tomorrow evening. He didn't want the responsibility of having an appropriate reaction cutting into a cake, so we decided to let everyone focus on their own little cake. I'm excited yet terrified it's going to be blue. But then. At least blue means I get a whole bunch of new stuff. Because what is the point of having babies besides getting stuff, right? 

Speaking of gender, I have noticed an outcropping of people who feel the need to say, "we will be finding out the SEX of the baby. We will find out his or her gender when he or she identifies as one or the other." I want to make jerk-off hand motions at these people. And sometimes do. 

Lede safely buried

I have a laurel hedge outside my kitchen window. It separates our house from the very close next door neighbor's house.  I would take a picture to demonstrate the view, but I have just become aware how dirty the windows are, as tends to happen around this point in the spring every year. That, and the dog food container with the broken lid we haven't replaced since it broke several months ago is on the window sill (it's a bay window) and the wall is still not repainted from the renovations we did last August. Nothing like the idea of sharing a peek of your home with others to make you realize that your home is a disaster.

We've been thinking a lot about the disasters we ignore on a daily basis and the ways we will right them, because I've gone and gotten myself knocked up again. It actually happened quite a while ago, right around Christmas. I should have known when I woke up on New Year's Day NOT feeling like I'd been out drinking champagne all night that it was happening again. But it took me another five days before I decided to test on a whim and, voila! Pregnant.

I spent much of January and February trying not to die. Not literally, but it was tough. The husband had a busy travel schedule, including the part where he went back to New Zealand this year and we stayed home. That happened to be about weeks 6-9 of my pregnancy, otherwise known as the weeks in which consciousness is most painful. Marlo ate a lot of whatever the heck she wanted for dinner (mostly apples and peanut butter) and I did a lot of sleeping through Sleeping Beauty.

Then, toward the end of February, I caught a cold. I had this cold until, oh, about a week ago? I went to the doctor three times, got a chest x-ray, two rounds of antibiotics, you know, all the stuff that you really want to do while incubating a fetus. Finally I'm down to one coughing fit a day, and then the pollen count spikes. So now I'm back to sinus pain and general malaise, and I'm ever so happy about it.

This pregnancy has been way more uncomfortable so far than I remember the first one. I also feel like I'm about a month ahead, discomfort/largeness-wise, but I guess that's pretty common the second time around. And really, I was just checking in on my blog posts from last time and I think realistically I'm a week or two bigger. I posted at 19 weeks the last time that I needed to go shopping for maternity clothes, and this time I put on my maternity jeans for the first time last Friday, in the middle of my 18th week. It felt so good I wondered why I waited so long.

And now, you're caught up. More details forthcoming.

I'm really a very happy person, promise

Well, hard to say what's wrong with me, but I didn't even like Thanksgiving this year. It's usually my favorite holiday. But this year, I felt entirely put out by having to figure out what to cook and grocery shopping and the whole lot of it. I was glad when it was over and I didn't even cook my customary at-home turkey feast the day after. I had, like, two turkey sandwiches and NO PIE, not even for breakfast.

Did I mention I'm working again? I guess more accurately I'm getting paid to work, and falling dangerously behind, but yeah, working. Very much part time. Very much in a way that is dangerous for someone with my lack of self-discipline - that is, totally unsupervised and unchecked. If my boss were anybody other than my father, I'd probably have gotten fired already. But, bonus, I totally get to play both sides in the mommy wars now. And, also bonus, when I had to pay the vet $600 to amputate one of the cats' toes, there was enough money in the bank to do that.

I found a blog today with a recipe for diet coke brownies. Basically what it sounds like. Box of brownie mix, can of diet coke. Mix, bake and enjoy. I thought that was depressing enough on its own merits, but then I read the "about me" sidebar and discovered the woman who posted this recipe is - get ready for it - head of school lunch in her kids' school district. Sometimes I don't feel like we stand a chance in this world. And then I realize I am thinking that thought while inhaling my red dye #40 soaked Christmas M&Ms, and it all feels even more hopeless. Holiday Cheer!

Bring a nickel; tap your feet

Has there ever been a song that had you convinced it was destined to be the soundtrack to your insanity? That's how I feel about "What I Like About You" by the Romantics. Like, someday, I'm going to snap when it's on the radio and spend the rest of my days rocking in the corner. Why don't I just turn it off? Well, if only it were that easy, right? It comes on and I get sucked into some sort of maniacal anxiety cave, and there's nothing to be done but try my best to hang on to my sanity. 

Speaking of songs with weird connotations, I am deeply disturbed by the new Walgreens ads with John Corbett as the narrator and "Down on the Corner" by CCR as the jingle. Here is the reason why. That song has always conjured weird visuals of the Keebler elf factory, but in more of a sort of acid-trippy, gnome-y way (assuming that makes any sense to anyone). Couple that with the old-timey photography and the creepy John Corbett "I'm not a sex predator, I'm just a friendly dad-type who wants to make sure you are warm so why don't you just get in the shower I'll watch just to make sure you don't slip" thing and I'm beyond skeeved out. 

Welcome to the disaster that is my brain.