my poor neglected blog!

There's really no good excuse for my recent lack of blogging. Too busy? Nope. Too sick? Nope. Just kind of lazy and a lack of anything remarkable to write about? Ding ding ding! But just for Monica...because she asked so nicely and is buying me a Bugaboo (I kid, I kid)....a new post. This might be a whopper. Get a drink.

Thankfully, blessedly all seems to be well. 19 weeks, 2 or 3 days. As of Friday, I'll be in the second half of my pregnancy. Thank you, God. Seriously- I could NOT be more thankful for a healthy, happy pregnancy thus far. My daily heartbeat checks are reassuring. Well, to me- the cats are still a little tripped out by that creepy, wooshing doppler, and George did try to chew the cord apart the other day in protest. 2 weeks ago, at 17 weeks on the dot, I felt the little guy move! I was sitting at the computer working on a Saturday morning (woe is me) when I felt a tiny, vague rumble. Honestly, my first thought was "oh, crap!" Literally, oh- crap? Nope! A second later, another nudge. As the ingeniously funny Amy Poehler says in my recent favorite movie "Baby Mama"- indirect quote here- it's like you ate a meatball sandwich, and now the meatball sandwich is moving inside of you. I feel something every day now, nothing steady or dependable, but it's fun and reassuring. When I have a Sunkist, which is a rare but delectable treat, Baby zooms around in there like he smuggled a trampoline up there or something. I am sleeping pretty heavily these days.... The tummy is taking on a life of its own. My belly button, day by day, is shrinking and threatening to disappear. Thank GOODNESS the girls in my sorority house were wrong- that belly button ring hole (that has refused to close in the 5+ years since I removed the ring) is NOT ripping open and turning into a big, ugly hole now that I'm pregnant. I'm loving this stage of pregnancy. My sickness is all gone, I eat when and what I want, and I've got a bit more energy than I did a month ago. That said, I'd still be thrilled if I could just fast forward directly to September and be holding the little guy. The control freak in me feels like only when he's HERE, when I can micromanage his every move, will he be safe. And then I'll breathe again. When I remember to in my sleep deprived haze, i guess.

Now that I'm really showing, I have moments of feeling like a traitor- like I crossed the picket line and became "one of them". Case in point: I was at Walmart (yeah, I know, ew) last week and wearing a tank top that clearly outlined the belly. Okay, it was a wife beater. I was wearing a wife beater in Walmart. Call the cops, hand over the keys to the trailer park, whatever. I'd just run in for some Tums, that hot dog I chowed was NOT working for me. As I'm reading each antacid bottle's label for any sign of any potential danger to the fetus, I look over toward the pharmacy and notice a girl about my age glaring at "the bump". At first, I thought she was just some bitchy chick. But when I looked back a moment later and found her STILL staring at me with a mix of anger and what now looked a bit like sadness, I looked down at my obvious belly lump, and my heart sunk. Because, and it still hurts to think about this day, 5 months ago, I was glaring down a pregnant woman while waiting at the Target pharmacy for meds to kick start my period, which had disappeared seemingly for eternity after my second miscarriage. I was miserable, bloated, crushed, a little buzzed, and mad as hell that we even HAD to try again and my body refused to cooperate to LET us try again. A mom sauntered by with a cart, toddler in the front of the card, tiny baby in a baby carrier, nonchalant and in my eyes totally undeserving....and I'm pretty sure the look I gave her (through puffy, grief hazed eyes) could have melted metal. Wherever I went in those awful days, my heart sunk whenever I saw a pregnant girl. More than once, just the sight of one sent me in tears to my car or the privacy of the nearest restroom. Remember Big Butt Becky? Who knows. Maybe the girl at Walmart hated my purse or found my grown out roots distasteful. But in that moment, I felt ashamed, guilty, and sad to be "the pregnant girl" who may or may not have ruined someone's afternoon with my presence. It shatters my heart a bit to know it may be me stomping my belly through someone else's sad time with my happy pregnancy glow, it may be me who sends someone to their car in tears cursing that it's not THEM. If only they knew, I always think! How many pregnants did I let crush my spirit, never once thinking getting (or staying) pregnant may not have been a picnic for them, either? Short of donning a hooded sweatshirt for the next 4.5 (hot and sweaty) months, I'm not sure there's much I can do but remember Big Butt Becky and keep my banal, obsessive nursery decor conversations to a hushed minimum.

I'm gearing up for my big summer trip- a 3 week "Tour De Midwest". Could I BE more excited? NOPE! My baby sister graduates college, my baby brother graduates high school, and my wonderfully unbridezilla-ish cousin/pretend sister gets married (I'll be the fat one in the pink pup tent crying my eyeballs out, if you're looking for me). I leave May 22 and will be gone a whopping 3 weeks. The puppers will be safe and sound (and likely thrilled exhausted by her trademark, boundlessly energetic walks) at Grandma Frazier's. The kitties will have to deal with 3 long, boring weeks without their human entertainment/treat dispenser. They'll be lucky if J, after his 13 hour workday, remembers to dump some kibble in their bowl once a week or so. Poor guys. I'm sure they'll retaliate, like the time we left them to go to Hawaii and they clawed a hole through the back of our leather (okay...pleather) couch. The trip will be one laced with bittersweetness. In preparation for the big CA move, mom and dad's Madison house is on the market (and will quite possibly have an accepted offer in the next day or two). This house has been our "home" for longer than nearly any house we lived in as kids. There are so many memories there, and it's tough to think that there will no longer be a home there for us. We'll still have Rhinelander securing our Wisconsin roots, thank GOD- the thought of never again trolling Walmart for mullets or tasting Rhinelander Cafe & Pub's hash browns or living somewhere where a hunk of cheese is appropriate attire is heart wrenching at best. When we're homesick, the cabin on the lake will beckon, and a'home we will go. Anyway, leaving Madison in June will be tough. I'll never be back to that house, never again see the backyard ducks, and Madison will be a place we used to be, a memory, our past. Megan will depart shortly after for a yearlong consulting job, Michael will leave for college, I'll become a mama and my Lambeau Field pre-game keg stands will be history (I kid again, that never happened)...lots of changes in our happy family.

What else. It's getting hot already. It's April. It's snowing in some barren parts of the world (helloooo, North Dakota). But in Texas, we're smoldering. Can I just say how excited I am, despite my Madison nostalgia, to jet off to the 'rent's new place in (comparably) cool, coastal Orange County when I start feeling like a (gigantic, bloated) ant under a magnifying glass? Wanna guess where I'll be hiding out for a week or so come July, when it's 300 degrees in the great state of Texas and the siding is melting off of our house? Not after July, though. Mom said if the baby is born in Newport, it becomes a citizen, and is no longer allowed to leave the State of California, by law. I've never heard of that, but she sounded serious.

All right, I've exhausted myself. I hereby do solemnly swear to stop neglecting my blog. Stay tuned.

OH PS- how FREAKING EXCITED AM I THAT IT'S BACHELOR NIGHT?! SO excited, THAT'S how excited! And Gossip Girl! Off to get some Ben & Jerry's to prepare.......