Animated

I have been a fan of graphic novels for a while, so when I heard a while back that Persepolis was being made into an animated feature I was thrilled. Jim and I saw it yesterday as part of our last-date-night-before-baby and loved it. It’s up for an Oscar, and I have to say I’ll be ticked if Ratatouille wins instead. Don’t get me wrong, the little rat movie was very cute. But in terms of artistic achievement I think Persepolis is the hands-down winner.

Other graphic novels I recommend:
The Maus series
Epileptic
One Hundred Demons
Any of the Harvey Pekar publications

Early

It’s 5:45 am and I can’t sleep. I’ve been up since 4:30 or so, surfing the web. But now I’m getting bored and am just counting the minutes until Jim wakes up and I can start banging around in the kitchen without fear of disturbing the household. We have some frozen cookies that I want to throw in the oven so I can clear out a little more space in the ‘fridge. I have a feeling my mom will be making/freezing food while she’s here and our freezer space is smallish at best. I wonder if I’m the only person in the world who starts thinks about baking cookies before the sun rises. Hmmmm.

I’m not sure why I couldn’t fall back to sleep, but I strongly suspect anxiety about what lies ahead. I’m not actively freaking out, but obviously it’s weighing on my mind. I remember how I felt after my surgery 2 years ago, and I know the c-section will be more involved and the recovery longer and more painful. Not to mention there will be a BABY this time. I know I sound like a broken record, but I still can’t wrap my head around that aspect of things.

I think I’m also a little keyed up about this weekend because Jim and I are actually going to be able to spend some time together, which hasn’t happened in a while. I’m looking forward to it. He’s been working like a fiend, trying to wrap up a big project before Max arrives. I keep wondering what would have happened if the little guy came early, but luckily that was not the case. I managed to get MOST of my work tied up before I left, but I still had to leave some things unfinished, which was annoying. I hate feeling like things are up in the air, and I know my coworker will have enough to deal with while I’m gone.

My parents arrive tomorrow and I’m looking forward to showing them the nursery and wrapping up a few last minute errands before the big day. I’m so glad they are going to be here to celebrate the arrival.

I hear rustling upstairs so I guess I’ll go deal with the dogs. They can never sleep past 6 am, even on the weekends. Silly mutts. Though I guess if I had a metabolism like that I’d want to get up and eat too.

Recovered

It’s nice to be feeling relatively normal again—something I’m not taking for granted. Of course I was initially worried about how poor Max faired the stomach flu ordeal, but he seems to be doing just fine. At my appointment last week my doctor reassured me with her complete lack of concern when I told her about The Sickness. Her response went something like, “Uh huh . . . any other issues or questions?” So I figured if she wasn’t worked up about it then I shouldn’t be either.

With my health restored, this weekend we continued our pre-baby movie-seeing quest. This time around it was “There Will Be Blood”. In a word, “WOW”. When we walked out of the theater the first thing I said was “That was NOT a mainstream movie”. Which is great, and what I prefer, but WOW. Daniel Day Lewis does an amazing job as usual, and the soundtrack alone was worth the price of admission. It was written courtesy of the guitarist from Radiohead, and it’s incredibly effective. And eerie. I would be shocked if the film doesn’t end up with several Oscars; it is definitely deserving.

I looked up the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes when we got home and thought Peter Travers said it best (as usual): “Lovers of formula and sugarcoating will hate it. Screw them. In terms of excitement, imagination and rule-busting experimentation, it’s a gusher.”

Nice.

The Sickness

Up until the holiday season I had somehow managed to not get sick once during my pregnancy. I was feeling rather smug about this fact when I got hit with a cold just after Christmas. Of course you’re not allowed to take anything (well, anything GOOD, like NyQuil) when you’re “with child” so I had to suffer through a few days of little sleep and a head that felt like a brick. But I managed to miss only a single day of work, and all in all it wasn’t TOO horrible.

I can say that with confidence because now I know horrible all too well: two nights ago I came down with the stomach flu. I wasn’t feeling quite right when we got home from work Monday evening, which isn’t that unusual for me lately. Sometimes I just feel kind of icky or only want specific foods . . . it’s been a hallmark of my 3rd trimester. Anyway, we decided to make gnocchi with pesto, and I was only able to eat about half of it. And a few hours later I started to get sick. REALLY sick. I’ve now determined that the only thing worse than the stomach flu is having the stomach flu when you’re 9 months pregnant. I was up all night long, and in-between constant trips to the bathroom I found it impossible to get comfortable on the couch. And the baby seemed rather disturbed by the activity and kept kicking me in the stomach. I felt like I was going to die.

And of course the timing couldn’t be worse. I am in the midst of wrapping up things at work (my last day will be next Wednesday) and have a ton of things to do. I’m such a busybody that it’s nearly impossible for me to sit around all day, and now sitting around has taken on new levels of discomfort because I can’t seem to find a position that doesn’t squish my stomach or hurt my hips/ribs.

Also? I would kill for some Pepto-Bismol. But that’s on the naughty list for pregnant women, along with cold meds. Oh, the humanity!

The only bright side to all of this is that the dogs have been THRILLED to have me around. They really are champion-level snugglers and seem concerned with my obvious discomfort.

I ate some real food this morning and am waiting to see how it goes before trying to head in to the office. I just don’t feel like I can miss another day, and the company is having a baby shower for us this afternoon. I hope I feel well enough to eat some cake because it’s pretty much my favorite thing. But I’m keeping expectations low.

Tick tock

Max will officially be here in 19 days. Or less. I can hardly believe it.

People keep asking me if I can hardly wait for the pregnancy to be over, but the truth is that I’m feeling pretty wistful as the final days tick by. It took us years to get to this point, and there’s no telling if we’ll be able to have additional children. I feel so lucky to have had this experience at all, and in many ways I can’t believe how quickly the months have flown by. Well, the last few months anyway. The first few months felt like eons.

Of course, I can’t wait to meet Max. I am so curious to see who he looks like and what type of personality he has. It’s still hard for me to comprehend he is real, so I’m looking forward to that moment when he arrives and I can finally lay my eyes on him. Only then will I believe it.

Business cards & architecture

Two great tastes that taste great together. These are uber-cool.