Lost in Middle Earth

Top Ten Reasons Why
Pregnancy Sucks (in no particular order)
10. Swelling.  My hands are as big as
Steve’s.  Ugh.
9. Bruised ribs.  This kid is a freakin’
kick-boxer.
8. Stupid people making stupid comments about my girth.
7. Being this overweight.  My legs are
unimpressed.
6. Being too warm.  ALL THE TIME.
5. Lung capacity?  What lung capacity??
4. Stretch marks.  Everywhere EXCEPT on
my stomach.
3. Being happy with 4 hours of sleep at night.
2. Worrying.  Then waiting.  Ack.
1. Want.  Martini.

Top Ten Reasons Why Pregnancy Rocks (in
no particular order)
10. Kicking.  It is pretty cool when it’s
not at 2am.
9. Almost daily massages from my awesome husband.
8. First winter that I didn’t freeze every day.
7. No kitty litter for 9 months!
6. I don’t have to help carry heavy things.
5. I get a baby out of the deal.
4. Umm…  that’s all I can think of this
far into the pregnancy.  The list
probably could have been considerably more comprehensive if I’d written it
three months ago.  Gah.

So… 38 weeks in and I am…  horrified that most first pregnancies go about
a week past the due date.  I stopped
working a couple of weeks ago – my doctor figured that trying to function at
work on 2-4 hours of sleep was a bit silly, so I’ve mostly just been taking it
easy for the last while.  C’est tout.

Went to Jasper this weekend.  Excellent mellow weekend.  Waimak was highly impressed.  We took it easy.  And got burnt.  And ate mediocre food.   (Where in Jasper is good to eat??)

Now am tired and have to go to work tomorrow.  Ugh.

Exciting things from the last two months:

Evan! (My favorite nephew)  So cute.  And cuddly.  And smells nice.  And HUGE!  I changed a diaper for the first time a couple of weeks ago while visiting Calgary (I got to babysit for a couple of hours while Andrea went to the gym.  The gym!  At about a month postpartum!  And she is able to blowdry her hair everyday!  And wear makeup!  And go on roadtrips!  And sleep through most of the night!  Sooo not going to happen with me this summer… =)  Waimak came to visit, too, and I was quite impressed with his baby tolerance.  He ignored Evan for the most part and licked him ocasionally.  Eww.  Waimak was a bit of a jerk with Tucker (the dawg), but Tucker sorted him out.  *sigh*

The basement is done-ish!  Everything except the baseboards is done.  And we even bought/set up a couch down there.  So…  now we need a desk that isn’t hideous (Steve’s desk from junior high is currently set up down there.  Ugh.  That thing should be burned.) and Steve wants to get another tv for downstairs.  *sigh*  We also *finally* bought a matress for the second bedroom – yay no more air matresses!  And we also started to think about setting up a nursery and/or buy important baby things…  like carseats… and diapers (Happy Nappy to start out with… we’ll see…)… and other… stuff.  Have I mentioned that I despise shopping?  Ack.    Our walls are still horrifically bare after living here for two years – again, I hate shopping.

Holidays, so many holidays!  HR has told me that it’s best to take as many of my holidays as possible, otherwise they just get paid out when I start my leave.  So…  I took a week off in April (Very busy.  Scary.), I’m taking a week off in May (I plan to sleep for a week.), and I’m working 4-day weeks until the end of June.  It is VERY strange taking holidays, but staying in town.

Lucca!  K…  I’ve only ever met him once, briefly, but he was very cute.  Any TINY!  Holding a 5lbs baby is not remotely taxing.  Quite nice.  And I’m very happy for Brad & Sarah – great to have ressources assuring me that it’s normal to be an exhausted basket case.  =)

Got to visit with Mike/Lesia/Lukian for the first time in years…  Lesia is a pork-tenderlolin genius.  And the more baby/kid tips (which don’t originate with my family/Steve’s family), the better. 

2nd wedding aniversary!  Very good – can’t beleive we’ve been married/back in Canada for a couple of years.  We went out for dinner at The Cajun House to celebrate.  I love The Cajun House.  And Steve got me flowers even though I wasn’t angry.  =)

Third Trimester Hell!  Umm…  So, 1st trimester was fine (little bit queasy, but nothing too bad), 2nd trimester was great (no icky symptoms, lots of energy), and 3rd trimester is… hideous.  I stopped sleeping through the night.  I hurt everywhere.  Breathing easily is a thing of the past.  My legs cramp every night.  Kicking is starting to be a wee bit too vigorous (nice to know baby is doing well, but I would prefer not to have my diaphragm used as a trampoline).  And I am foul tempered – poor Steve. 

C’est tout.

Story of the week:  Stupid people abound!  My dog likes playing with other dogs, but he also has an excellent sense of when another dog Does Not Like Him.  He’s great at ignoring dogs who bark at him & avoiding dogs who look like they wouldn’t mind eating him.  He also doesn’t really discriminate against different sizes of dogs – if it’s a little dog who doesn’t want to play, he’ll back off as readily as he would for a 100lbs monster. (I prefer him playing with 100lbs monsters because he’s far less likely to hurt them, but…  *shrug*)  So…  We were out walking at the St Albert dog park yesterday and this white floofy thing comes RUNNING up to Waimak just looking for a good chase – and Waimak was happy to oblige.  They took turns chasing for each other for a bit, then the owner of the floofy thing starts freaking out, picks up her dog, and starts yelling at Waimak (It would be easy enough for him to hurt a White Floofy Thing, but he was being quite gentle and the little thing was having a grand time…) so I call Waimak off & we start walking away, but!  When she puts the white floofy thing down, it starts tearing across the park to get at Waimak again…  and he was quite happy to say hello again.  But the stupid woman starts freaking out again.  So we left.  Stupid people annoy me. 

Waimak also displayed a new behavior this week…  always interesting to see.  Normally when we walk off-leash, Waimak will run around, happily greet the various dogs we run into and generally have a great time.  Yesterday, though, he started acting weird as we were approaching a woman with her dog.  He would stand about 2 feet in front of me & bark – when I caught up to him, he would move up another 2 feet  and keep barking.  (Waimak doesn’t really bark unless something is wrong – like when the paper is delivered at the wrong time, or Muskeg is smelling his food, or he REALLY has to go out…)  As we got closer, I asked the woman if she wanted me to put Waimak on-leash & she said yes because her dog doesn’t like other dogs…  I put him on leash & he stopped barking as we passed the lady while she was holding her dog back (her dog was pulling & trying to murder Waimak – Waimak was ignoring them both.)  So I discovered that Waimak has an excellent sense of…  Idunnowhat. 

And…  Canmore/Banff last weekend was excellent.  Steve skied at Louise on Saturday while Waimak & I enjoyed a 4-hour walk up to the dogpark and back before lounging outside at Starbucks (the sun was amazing -It was +6 and…  well…  perfect.)  After skiing/walking/lounging, we went into Banff for (omg) good food.  I love Ticino’s.  And I love cheese fondue.  And duck.  And creme caramel.  And creme brulee. 

AND…  I gained 4kgs last month.  Yikes.  But I only gained 1kg the previous month…  And I’m already 22wks.  Yikes. 

AND!!!  Andrea & Sarah are due any second now… Soooo exciting.  I’ve completely become one of those horrible people who can happily discuss babies/bodily functions for hours.  I always said that I would never become one of those people, but…  ah, well.  At the UAPS lunch this week, I thouroughly enjoyed John/Jess’ description of labour & newborn fun.  I.  Am.  Getting.  Old.

K…  it’s 10 and I should really attempt something productive today.  *Sigh*

Is it me, or is everyone knocked up?  John’s a dad, Brad & Sarah are expecting next month, I’m gonna be an AUNTIE next month…  And I’m having some seriously fat days now.  And what do you get as gifts for new parents??? (My stupid brother said they would like throwing stars.  I said no….  Although I gave the same response to a girl at work who asked the same question today.  Tom is an exceptionally bad influence.)  *sigh*

In other news… Christmas was good.  We rented a dog-friendly condo in Canmore & spent the holidays with Steve’s and my parents.  We had a good time skiing, eating & …  well, eating.  We also told the parents on Christmas eve.  Clayton was the only one who understood.  We apparently have very thick parents.  =) 

New Year’s was…  oh, crap.  I don’t remember what we did.  Erg.  Umm…  Ah!  Steve went to Kathleen’s party.  I stayed home because I was sick/miserable.  Not the greatest evening.

And…  We went down to Calgary for Tom & Andrea’s belated birthday party in January.  At an indoor skating rink.  With fake snow (it was bubbles!!)  It was great fun – we got to visit with them for the afternoon before the party, then headed to Canmore/Banff for the rest of the (fantastic) weekend.  Waimak LOVES x-country skiing in the mountains.  So do we.  =)

I think that’s it.  Work is good, Waimak is good (we start agility in April), Muskeg is good (still spoiled), Steve is good (but works far too much overtime) and I’m just looking forward to a 4-day weekend (I have tomorrow off & I’m getting a massage tomorrow am.  Yay.)

Fin!

A few notes on air travel:
1. It sucks.
2. A disproportionate number of people on airplanes are sick.
3. It’s obscenely loud.
4. Air Canada & United are both wretched.  (Singapore Airlines should move their services to Canada)
5. Three flights in 12 hours is excessive.
6. Must.  Purchase.  Noise-canceling.  Headphones.
7. That’s all for now.

So!  The (2) flights to Kauai were fine.  Steve purchased noise-canceling headphones in San Fran.  I should have bought fancy video glasses (just like Back-to-the-Future-2…  They were awesome!)  I also met a woman on the plane who named her son Wyatt Mac (Which I found absolutely hilarious.  But I didn’t tell her that.) We got to the island later in the morning and… as always, the first day was a bit of a write-off.  Which is ok.

Then…  We snorkeled!  And hiked!  And catamaran-ed!  And Luau-ed!  And went tubing!  And beach-ed!   And ate excessive amounts of stellar food!

It was good fun.

The weirdest thing is that I was actually quite glad to be back in E-town today (the snow was beautiful!)  And it was good to see that dawg & cat.  (The cat actually got along with my mom’s two youngest cats…  WEIRD.)

Photos are at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=177507&l=d3408&id=887335640 – I can’t stand the msn uploader thingy!!

Well, not really.  But it’s been a fantastic weekend! 

We rented a canoe, I took Friday off & Steve took the afternoon off…  And we headed west. 

We
camped on Friday night at Whisler’s ($27 for a tentsite.  Ridiculous!) 
and it was FREEZING.  I think it hit -15C overnight and it was
moderately unpleasant.  In the morning, I refused to get out of my
sleeping bag until about 9 (which is quite late for me) and we headed
into Jasper for breakfast at A&W (eww) before getting our
backcountry permits.  (The nice man at Parks Canada made fun of Steve
for backountry camping/canoeing so late in the year – I beleive he said
that there are no refunds if the lake is frozen =)

So…  We
headed up to Maligne Lake and were on our way by about noon.  (It was
actually good that we had such a late start because it did get
pleasantly warm during the day…)  It was a beautiful paddle.  The sky
was blue, the wind was minimal, there was a fresh dusting of snow on
the mountains and the commercial trips were fininshed for the year, so
it was eerily quiet.  Perfect Saturday afternoon. 

We got into
Fisherman’s Bay camp by about 3:30 and had the first pick of
tentsites.  We ended up camping & sharing a fire with a great bunch
from Jasper/Edson (They thought that they’d be the only crazies out
this time of year, too. =)  and a couple of climbers showed up quite
late in the day…  Busy-ish campground for this time of year, but very
pleasant.  Dinner was our typical camping fare of spagetti with meat
sauce and we used the backcountry oven for the first time – brownies
rock my world.  Because there were people around the fire, we actually
stayed up later than we would have normally & headed to bed around
8:30 where we watched last week’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy on i-pod
(how odd is that??) 

The night was warm!  The clouds came in
around the time we came to bed & we woke up with a half-inch of
snow on the tent. (Waimak has decided that he loves snow =)  We had a
great breakfast of eggs/sausage/salsa & cheesebread before slowly
packing up to head back.  We had a very warm & leisurely paddle
back to the parking lot at which point we realized that we’d forgotten
the two drybags full of our clothes.  Eugh.  Fortunately, we are
obscenely lucky when it comes to situations like this…  The Parks
Canada guy who takes care of Maligne was just about to take a trip to
the two backcountry campsites on the lake, so he let us join him for
the trip so that we could recover our gear!  (Side note: A couple years
ago when our car battery died in the middle of the mountains,
kilometers away from the highway, hours away from a city, a hunter
happened by a gave us a boost within 10 minutes of discovering the dead
battery.  It was crazy.  About a year before that, Steve was trying to
turn around on a tiny coastal road and ended up with the car hanging
off the cliffside road – within minutes, a local stopped and pulled us
off the side of the cliff.  Crazy lucky.)

So we ended up with a
2-hour personal boat tour with Michael, the Parks Canada god. 
Afterwards, I commented to Steve that I was glad that we’d forgotten
the bags – we learned tons on the boat trip! 

So…  Great trip, great weekend.  We’ll be back for longer next time!

In the past few months, it’s been great…

I have been kayaking (Jasper & Red Deer), hiking (Siffleur Falls with Tom/the dogs & Chickakoo Lake with Steve/the dogs), went to the Corn Maze  (Hilarious.  We plan on making it a fall habit),  AND I found out I was going to be an auntie! (But not officially until last week… Sooo excited!)

Steve has been way too busy… He took a two weeks of holidays & went down to Montana with his mom to visit his grandmother.  After they got back, he built a deck with his dad and has been spending most weekends helping out with replacing the deck at his parent’s… Umm…  We had a nice dinner at his parent’s for his 30th (officially old!)  And he ran the Skyline trail with a buddy – 44km through 3 mountain passes – In 6.5 hours.  DUMB. 

In other news, poor Waimak gets the snip-snip tomorrow morning.

In the next few weeks, we plan on kayaking in BC for the last proper trip in the season & we’re both looking forward to the multi-day trip that we have planned over Thanksgiving…  Should be a good time.

And…  we will be in Hawaii in two months.  Can’t wait. 

And…  we are looking forward to the x-country ski season.  Let in snow!

Busy!

Spent a week chiilin’ with the dawg!  (Lifeguarded way too much during my week off!)

Went to T & A’s cabin!  (Yay catamaran-ing!)

Went kayaking!  (Yay Mistaya in high water!)

Went camping with the dawg for the first time! (OMG fantastic.  Steve & Koee loved it, too.)

Started puppy school!  (Excellent!)

Went to Tavis & Chryslyn’s wedding!  (They looked fantastic.  Great day!)

Next weekend??   Sit & do nothing, dammit.

C’est tout!