I’m a little late, but today my list is much much longer than it would have been if I wrote it yesterday.

I am thankful for…

A good hospital less than a mile from my house.

Doctors, specialists and nurses who couldn’t have been any nicer and never once acted the least bit annoyed to be working on a holiday.

Narcotics.

A healthy baby girl who refuses to be bothered by anything from contractions brought on by pain to surgery. Maybe I should add Super Woman to our possible name list.

Excellent health insurance that allows me to get all the care I need. Total out-of-pocket costs: $9 for two prescriptions. Score another BAZILLION points for socialized medicine.

More narcotics.

A husband who is an active participant in childcare duties and has no problem single parenting for two and a half days.

A bedtime routine with Little Evan that doesn’t include me, so when I have to stay in the hospital for two nights he doesn’t freak out.

Friends who might live 500 miles away but send their mom over with Thanksgiving food. Turkey, stuffing & three different delicious desserts FTW!

Text messages, emails, and comments wishing me a speedy recovery and offers to help from so so many people, many who I only “know” through the internet. I have the best friends in the world.

Even more narcotics.

My king sized bed, hot shower, super comfy couch and a week’s worth of TV on DVR.

Awesome Black Friday sales from some of my favorite Etsy/Big Cartel sellers so I can support handmade AND get my shop on from my couch.

FINALLY getting to decorate for Christmas, even if that means making E haul it all down from the attic and put it up while I point and say “No no, the COLORED lights go on the banister!”.

Only 30 more days until my due date.

Only 22 more days until my mommy gets here.

Just one more teeny tiny narcotic before bed so I can get a full 8 hours for the first time in WEEKS.

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In case anyone cares, here’s what ended up happening with medical stuff (meaning full of TMI):

The horrible painful pain in my right side was being caused by a medium sized kidney stone that had traveled down my ureter and blocked it, which is why when Man Doctor poked me in the actual kidney I said it didn’t hurt. They waited overnight to see if maybe it would come out but it didn’t budge so they went in with a ureterscope and a little basket to pull it out. To prevent any further blockage, the urologist left a stent – a plastic tube – that goes from my ureter to my bladder in place for a few days. I go in on Wednesday to have it removed…which I fear is going to involve yanking it out by the little string that’s attached. I will bring my narcotics with me, just in case.

An ultrasound shows I have at least two more large stones on the right hand side that will have to be broken up, but it’s safer to wait until after the baby is born. The real problem is I have a few small ones on the left hand side to that could either pass with little/no problem or also get stuck. The urologist couldn’t believe I had never been diagnosed with kidney stones before considering the size/number I have now. So I’m on strict orders to drink a zillion gallons of water a day and not take any more Tums – turns out the calcium in the Tums (combined with pregnancy in general) is probably what caused the stones. So pregnant ladies, watch yourselves. As bad as my heartburn is I would take it a zillion times over instead of 18 hours of undiagnosed kidney stone pain. A BILLION ZILLION TRILLION TIMES.

Thanks again for all your thoughts, prayers and well wishes!! xoxo

Do you like these posts? I do. Several other bloggers have started doing camera phone photo wrap-ups, so if someone can set up one of those reciprocal linky things (the kind that shows up on everyone’s blog) we could make it a weekly link up? Or not, since there are about forty zillion internet memes already out there.

Sunday:

I started my week off with a new knitting project - coffee coozies for my Auburn fanatic friends

Monday:

We woke up to this! (Uh, maybe it's time to bring that stroller inside)

So Little Evan and I took advantage of the snow day to work on the new nursery

Tuesday:

Naked, diaperless baby chugs milk and signs "monkey"

I LOVE getting this spot at the grocery store. I figure 1 unborn baby + 1 toddler = DON'T EVEN TRY TO TELL ME I DON'T DESERVE TO PARK CLOSE TO THE DOOR

Wednesday:

Errand day! We bought shuuuuuz at Target to replace the one he lost

And we went to the post office to mail out FOUR different presents. I love our old post office - it's a full 2 stories inside with lots of carved wood and marble.

Thursday:

E used his day off to play horsey

And I used it to get ENORMOUS in the belleh

Friday:

I worked on baby shower crafts

And went out to dinner with my friend Joy for her birthday - this is half an avocado stuffed with lobster, crab and DELICIOUS

Saturday:

I woke up to this, the view from our new 3rd floor bedroom

Despite the fact that we're a hockey family, Little Evan is in LOVE with football. BuhBaaall!! BuhBaaall!! Duh-down!! (Touchdown!)

But he still supported his daddy at the iron man tournament

Today E is competing in a iron man hockey tournament, which means he’s basically getting the crap beat out of him for fun. Men. It also means I won’t be taking any long leisurely naps to make up for the hours I spent tossing and turning (and much, much worse) as punishment for eating WAY TOO MUCH delicious food at girl’s night last night because I’m going to be child-minding and/or bandaging bleeding head wounds. I know you’re so jealous.

So between begging the toddler to stop kicking me in the face and begging the baby to stop kicking me in the liver, I could use some happy today. Here are some things that fit the bill:

I have NO PROBLEM admitting my taste in music leans heavily on whatever the Top 40 station tells me to like (also known as: songs likely to be covers by the cast of Glee). And I think Sara Bareilles fits easily into that category. ASK ME IF I CARE. This song is awesome wrapped in fantastic coated in chocolate. I dare you to not find yourself singing it in the car.

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E really likes t-shirts that say stuff on them, which can be both hilarious and horrible. For example, “The first rule of computer club is that you don’t talk about computer club” is funny. “Hey Princess, Bring Me a Beer” is not (<—— ACTUAL SHIRT HE OWNS). Neither are the various candy slogans-turned-innuendo – “How many licks does it take?” OH HAHAHAHA I GET WHAT YOU DID THERE.  So I encourage the hilarious by buying him the shirts myself.

When we were cleaning out the closets, he found these two in the bottom:

(Warner: Movie spoilers below. Although if you STILL don’t know that Bruce Willis is a ghost, I have no sympathy for you.) (p.s. At the end of Titanic, the boat sinks.)

"The mission wasn't impossible" makes me LOL every time

Best part of the shirts: can you name all the movies?

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As I may have mentioned previously, I read a LOT of blogs. And a big portion of those blogs are other moms who mostly just write stuff. They aren’t fancy or sponsored or professional photographers, but I enjoy every single one of their posts. They’re the kind of writers where I WANT to comment on what they say, rather than feeling like I have to and they post because they WANT to, not because they have to. But just like ANY blogger, I’m sure they’d love more readers.* So check these ladies out**:

1.Planet Hausfrau – Audrey is now the mom of 2, a boy and a girl, both just a few months ahead of my own. There are a zillion reasons I like her, but I think a lot of it boils down to her honesty and frankness when she’s writing about anything from growing vegetables to VBACs.

2. And Then There Were Four – I honestly can’t even remember how I stumbled across Natalie, but I’ve been reading every post (and most of her archives) since I was pregnant. She just…writes. I love it.

3. Now Showing! – Again, I’ve been reading for so long I don’t remember how I started, but I’m pretty sure Brigid falls in the same category as Holly (A Baby Grows in Brooklyn) and Amy (BabyBabyLemon) which is “people I know from a previous life where I spent WAY TOO MUCH TIME arguing about reality tv shows and feminism on a popular women’s blog”. Brigid is irreverent, honest and funny, and I often find myself trying to write more like her.

4. Tin Roof, Rusted – I KNOW I know Leah from my time on the above mentioned website and she is the first blog in my old “Mom blogs” bookmark folder. Her son is a genius named after a hockey trophy and I’m pleased as punch she is expecting her second baby right now. Every post is LOL funny.

5. Life V. 2.0 – TMae is a lovely blog friend who has supported me here on bebehblog since the beginning and now has her own little corner of the internet. She is smart and funny and a good combination of cute baby pics and deep thoughts.

*I am under no delusions that my link here will cause a sudden spike in anyone’s traffic. I am not big-time by any means. I’m barely even small time. I just wanted to show some love.

**I almost never do lists like this because I always feel like I’m hurting someone’s feelings if I leave them off, but please know I still love you and your blog too. These are just people I’ve read in the past few days who made me think “More people should read this!”

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And now I’m off to watch some hockey and check Goodwill for a lamp I can use in the new nursery. Not necessarily in that order. Happy Saturday!!

In a far off land, a long long time ago, possibly in another life, I wore a lot of REALLY ugly clothes. And by ugly I mean extreme skimpy and inappropriate for public as well as unfit for human eyes. But it seemed like a good idea at the time.

If anyone ever makes a movie about my life, “It seemed like a good idea at the time” would be the tag line on the posters for both high school AND college.

Most of the blame falls on a) being 19 b) losing a lot of weight and suddenly being about to FIT into extremely skimpy clothing and c) being a regular at a bar where a fake velvet cheetah print bell bottom unitard was considered perfectly normal attire. Did I mention this bar also had a disco ball shaped like a saddle? And that it was not just a bar but a country line dancing night club? Where I was not only a regular but once asked to take part in a “Girls of Neon Moon” charity calendar?

Are you going to stop laughing soon? I’ll wait while you go put on dry pants.

FOR THE RECORD: The calendar never happened. So stop Googling.

ALSO FOR THE RECORD: I met E at that bar. And married him mostly for his line dancing skills.

As part of our current home renovation, we needed to make room in the storage half of the attic for all the junk we need to get out of the living space half of the attic. Since I am the kind of person who Has A Hard Time Getting Rid Of Things, I found three giant tubs full of clothes I have kept for far far too long. Some are just too small (I gave them to my friend Megan who has lost like a zillion pounds and wears tiny midget sizes now), some are just out of fashion (I donated them to Goodwill), and some are so terrifically awful I kept them just to take pictures.

I present for your mocking pleasure – The black sparkly mirrored pants:

I think I mentioned before they were a size 5. Turns out they’re actually a 7. But they’re a 7 the same way fat free mayonnaise is actually mayonnaise. NOT AT ALL.

Now, you may be asking yourself “What does one wear with such lovely, lovely pants?” So I present, the matching shirt.

Still not convinced it’s a shirt?

Sigh.

Fine.

P.S. For the record, don’t expect awesome vintage pictures with future bad fashion posts. They all seem to have gotten lost somewhere between my college apartment and this house. But boy am I going to hold this against my kids some day – LOOK WHAT PREGNANCY RUINED!

THIS HAS BEEN…Extreme Moments in Bad Fashion!