Saturday, December 30, 2006

Christmas Bug

We have a family tradition around here on Christmas. Every year, at least one member of the family must be sick, sick, sick. On especially good years, we are all sick, like the year my ailing wheelchair-bound grandparents came to visit, and the entire family came down with the stomach flu. We had six very sick people, and only three toilets. Fun times.

This year, it was my turn to catch the Christmas bug. The day before my sister and her family arrived, I came down with a horrendous head cold. The bonus of being pregnant with a nasty stuffy head is that anything that even barely touches your gag reflex (like the stuff draining out of your head) makes you very sick, in an unmerry, Scrooge-riffic way.

We've done all the traditional Christmas things - we made a Yule Log and had a huge Christmas Eve feast of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and more green bean casserole than you can imagine. (I prepared the food, but couldn't really taste it. No sense of smell = no sense of taste.) We attended a candlelight Christmas Eve service where I couldn't smell the melting wax of the candles. We had an extravagant Christmas morning brunch and opened stockings and gifts for something like 4 hours straight.

We have gone snow tubing, ice skating, bowling, Christmas lights looking, to museums, national parks and the ever-popular Ikea.

It has been a very, very good time. But I wish this Christmas cold would vanish before 2007 shows up.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Home for Christmas

Guess who is supposed to be coming home today???? Zoe, my beloved laptop. Hopefully, she has a new, super duper screen. (Preferably an ubreakable one. Ha ha.)Hopefully.

If everything works the way that it is supposed to, this will mean more posting on my part! Yay! More pictures, including some of our tree, and the massive number of gifts that will not fit under the tree.

It will mean being able to make shirts for my nephews after all.

This would be a Christmas dream come true.

Friday, December 15, 2006

Life's a Gas, Literally

During this pregnancy, I have had more (excuse me) ... urrrrp ... gas than I thought any human being could produce. Homer Simpson, with his lips vibrating, wavelike, while he belches, would be a good comparison to how I look most evenings after 5 p.m.

We've been joking that the baby wants to learn to burp the alphabet. Precocious boy that he is, he's having mommy learn now, so that she can teach him later. Tom is learning his alphabet the old-fashioned way, but not this baby. Nuh uh.

It seems that I will be out testosteroned in the Wishful Thinking household, with a male dog, two sons and a husband.

Our technician yesterday was absolutely wonderful, and took her time poking around to get excellent shots of all the important things - the cerebellum, the arms, hands and fingers, the eyes and mouth, the four-chamber heart. Baby's spine and femur were measured, and she even took a peek to make sure his kidneys were where they were supposed to be.

It took a couple of passes between the legs before anything was visible. For quite some time we didn't see any boy parts, and we all wondered if this would finally be the first granddaughter. But then, with the wizardry that is ultrasound, we saw the unmistakable sign that we would be having another son.

Our littlest man did not like the ultrasound wand, and kicked like crazy whenever the tech tried to focus in on him. I thought this was great, since my anterior placenta has kept me from feeling much movement to this point.

He is healthy, and sound, and likes to suck on his fingers. I can't wait to meet him, and at least I won't have to worry about Bratz dolls.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Absent

A busted computer really cuts into your Internet time.

Sorry I've been gone for so long, brave and faithful readers. But I'll be back, and soon, I hope. Still no word on when Zoe will make it back home, but I'm hoping before Christmas. I really, really miss her.

On the good news front ... today is the big ultrasound! I am hoping this baby will be less modest than the Tominator, and I will be able to share with you what variety of baby we will be expecting in the spring. If you read this before 1:30 EST, think PINK please. (Boys are lovely too. But healthy is the most lovely, really.)

Ok, I hope to have something interesting to tell you in a few hours.

Monday, December 04, 2006

When Toddler Met Laptop

It doesn't end as well as When Harry Met Sally.

In short, our laptop has been Tominated.

Our brand-spanking new super-computer, Zoe, once looked like this:



Now, thanks to a toddler who is 1/3 monkey, 1/3 destructo bot and 1/3 highly energetic boy, it looks like this:



I have spent two days on the phone with Dell trying to figure out where to send the thing to get it fixed. I learned that our lovely four-year warranty doesn't cover the LCD screen. So, while it will be fixed, it will cost us a pretty penny. Merry Christmas.

On top of that, Tom's biting habit has resurfaced and become really bad.

Things are not looking so good in the Wishful Thinking household right now. Anybody have some happy stories they can share to cheer me up? (Or suggestions for dealing with biting?)