Quickly! A baby!

A quick update in case you didn't get an email from me (some of them got bounced back because the pictures were too big, or the list of addresses was too long and spammy, or something):

Owen Edward (the artist formerly known as Studs) was born on 12/29/06 at 11:16 pm!
He was 8 lbs 7 oz and 21 inches long.
I thought I would never ever make it through the delivery, and yet, I did!

We got home from the hospital this afternoon. I'm too tired to finish the post I've been writing about how this all went down, so that will come sometime later.

Classical music humor

From Eve's blog, some humor for orchestra and band geeks.



I hate Pachabel's canon too.

Going in tomorrow

Ok! We're going in tomorrow night to be induced (at least to start the process). Apparently it will take a while, but Studs should be here (and have a real name!) sometime on Friday.

Still hoping I'll go into labor on my own sometime before then, but we'll see. Either way, we'll have a new baby in a few days! Wish us luck!

Still annoyed

Still no baby, still annoyed.

Jim is leaving in the morning, so he didn't get to see a baby after all. He went to the doctor with Brian and I this afternoon so I could have another non-stress test and ultrasound. Everything fine still, and still nothing is happening!

Also, Studs didn't get to make use of his Christmas outfits. If any of you have a Christmas baby in the future, I am totally regifting.

They'll induce me sometime later this week, as yet unscheduled. I would really prefer that he came on his own, but we'll see what happens.

Other than that, we've been playing Guitar Hero which I am getting better at. Its like DDR for your fingers. We've also been playing Advanced Mastermind, which I love. Its hard though when I'm playing with my brother and he SCORES SOMETHING WRONG and doesn't figure it out until I'm about ready to lose my mind. And we've watched some of the Red Dwarf DVDs Jim got us, season 7 (my favorite!) and 8.

Hope you all had a nice Christmas!

Today's update of annoyed-ness

Well. I am still here.

Ugh! Yesterday was Brian's birthday, so I thought that maybe Studs wanted to have the same birthday as his dad. Evidently I was wrong. Now Brian will be a 34 year old father instead of a 33 year old father.

Jim also arrived yesterday, and we spent the night playing Guitar Hero (which Jim brought with him) on the PS2. I took some video as I was hoping that it would be the last thing I did while I was pregnant, so perhaps we will later have 'video editing practice part II'.

The current last thing I did while I was pregnant was make muffins. Lets hope that sticks.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas and gets all the Wii they want (especially those who have solicited references And also, me).

Video test

We used our fancy new video camera at the doctors office yesterday, and this morning I figured out how to edit our video in iMovie. So here's my first video test. Watch Lisa lay there like a beached whale! See and hear Studs' heart beating! Watch Lisa's stomach undulate! Also featured: You can see that Studs is still a boy, even though I wasn't sure how to indicate this on the video (since you see it actually right before the u/s tech asks us whether we know the gender or not). Thank god, because otherwise Studs would have been a very gender-confused girl with all of the blue boy stuff we have.

Here's the video.

Zippo

Just had my appointment which was exciting, and still NOTHING. Will have another one on Tuesday unless some miracle has occurred over the weekend. Think baby, everyone!!

More Y chromosomes than allowed

I love this whole thing about the Indian runner who failed a gender test. First of all, they have a gender test? Does this sort of thing come up often?
Second of all "more Y chromosomes than allowed" is sort of hilarious. I would think ANY Y chromosomes would be more Y chromosomes than allowed if you're a woman. The way they say that also makes it sound like she might have many, many Y chromosomes, which would be more than allowed for a man too.

Oh, and those of you who were hoping for the 20th are SOL, methinks. It is 2pm and there is no action on the baby front. On the plus (?!) side, tomorrow I'll get to find out how the non-stress test and biophysical profile work. I'm getting concerned that the baby and Brian could have the same birthday (the 23rd). Or that the baby and JESUS (and also my grandmother, but I figured the general reader would be more familiar with the whole Jesus thing) could have the same birthday. Holy crap. I knew it was within the realm of possibility, technically, but I never dreamed that I might still be pregnant at Christmas.

Instead? My mom and I made pizzelles. Hurrah!

T + 2 days

Oh dear readers, it is wishful thinking on your parts to think that a few days blog-free meant that I had had Studs. No, apparently Studs did not get the memo that his due date was on SUNDAY and that my weekly BabyCenter email was entitled 'Your newborn'. However, I didn't have anything to blog about other than to complain, so I spared you. Aren't I a very thoughtful pregnant lady? Also, you'll know when we have the baby because Brian's bringing his laptop to the hospital with us and we'll use the wonderful hospital wireless internet to send an email and/or post an update and picture. Promise!

My parents decided to come up this week anyhow, even though Studs hasn't given us any indication that he plans to arrive, EVER. They left yesterday and called us shortly after take-off (well... take-off in the car) to tell us that about 20 miles from home they had hit something on the interstate and punctured their gas tank (and messed up something else, I think, although my one remaining functional brain cell doesn't recall what). They live in Sarasota, FL in the winter and thus have the requisite old person Cadillac, even though they're not really old enough to require one yet. It is huge though, which was the appeal - better to cart around a bunch of out of town visitors, like myself. This was good for their long drive up to NC with the dog, the parrot and all their Christmas presents and stuff (my brother is coming this weekend, so they had EVERYONE'S presents). However, the wrecked gas tank necessitated a shift to their other car - also a Florida requirement - a Chrysler Sebring convertible. Its not THAT small, but its not large either. They all jammed in there and kept driving, but since they got a relatively late start they didn't make it yesterday. So they'll be here by about lunch time.

Brian and I have started an aggressive campaign of walking to walk the baby out. This doesn't sound like a big deal to you normal people, except please recall that I haven't really walked much since I broke my foot almost 10 weeks ago. I can get around a bit better on the Aircast but I'm still pretty slow, so it takes us 45 min - 1 hr to walk around our development. Awesome!

And thats about it. I'll go in on Thursday for a non-stress test and other tests to make sure the baby is doing okay in there, and maybe discuss with the doctor some means of encouraging Studs to come out, like what Aimee mentioned. I am ALL FOR THAT.

Bill Gates is so dreamy!

I didn't really find this article particularly interesting, but I was really amused at the sort of Teen Beat-esque picture of Bill Gates that accompanies it. Also, he totally has a Mac behind him.

Small with a huge head

Oh. One thing I did learn at the doctors office yesterday (although it shouldn't worry me much because I'm going to be pregnant FOREVER) is that Studs doesn't seem to be too big. She didn't give me a real weight estimate or anything, but by feeling around and measuring my belly she said that he was probably on the smaller side. "Thats a relief" I thought, until I remembered that what was really important was how big his head is. My friend had a small baby with a huge head, and I think the same thing could happen to me. Lets consider the evidence:

1. Brian has a huge head. Just try and find a hat that fits him.
2. My dad also has a huge head. My brothers aren't small either.
3. Every year at Christmas we do those Christmas crackers, because I married a British guy. They have a stupid joke in them (What do you call Postman Pat when he retires?), a little toy of some sort, and a paper crown. Brian, my dad and my brothers have a 'Big Head Contest' every year to see who can break the crown just by contorting their faces. This doesn't take long because they can barely squeeze the crowns onto their huge heads in the first place without them ripping.

I thought I might have a picture of a 'Big Head Contest' in action, but I can't find one. Here's a picture of everyone in their crowns (my family and various and sundry friends and now ex-girlfriends) from a couple of years ago:



As you can see, my dad's and Brian's are already ripped, and Brian's is really just perched on top of his head. Also, Ed's (to the right of my dad) must be ripped in the back too because there's no way he got it that far down on his head without some rippage. I'd say the same about Jim's (he's on the left towards the back) but his looks pretty taut. It might be a little ripped though.

So basically, I'm screwed by genetics. I didn't get the twinning gene (this time anyway - it seems to strike on subsequent pregnancies in our family), but I bet you Studs gets the big head gene. Lucky me!

In other news: still pregnant.

Also, I am still pregnant. In fact, at my appointment yesterday I didn't even get any reassuring news so I think I will be pregnant forever. If you haven't noticed, my whiny-ness level has increased exponentially, and I'm sorry to say that it will probably continue to do so. And I was doing so well too. Fortunately, my boss told me yesterday not to worry about coming back into work anymore, and that I can just email him whatever I need to (I need to convert all the figures in my paper from RGB to CMYK so that they can now look like CRAP. Stupid journals and their stupid CMYK format). Thats good because a) I'm not feeling so super comfortable and b) I feel like I spend my whole day at work answering people who see me in the hall and say 'Oh! You're still here??' Yes. I am @#$%* still here. Shut up.

Whee!

I so want a Wii. Me and everyone else in the universe, so I am so not getting a Wii - at least not for a while. Thats okay, I'm still playing Final Fantasy XII on my PS2. Oh, and FFIII on my DS. Yes, I have a problem. And also, clearly they were exaggerating when they called the first one Final Fantasy.

Anyhow, lots of other people were lucky and did get Wiis. And then a lot of them broke their TV sets, windows, glass-topped coffee tables, whatever, when the Wiimote was not properly strapped to their wrist while playing (or... the strap broke. I'm more inclined to think 'operator error' myself). Brian just called me to tell me about one of the comments that he had read after a BBC News article about this.

I got one of the first Wii but after a few minutes playing the strap broke and the controller shot off and hit my partner in the face resulting in two broken teeth. She slipped at the same time falling into the TV set and smashing the screen. The TV was plugged into the surround sound system and consequently pulled it over and smashing into my CD and DVD collection. I advise anyone to be careful of the wii

Brian really enjoys it when other people are idiots, so he was practically wetting his pants reading this to me.

Still pregnant

In case you were thinking that a few days without posting meant that I wasn't pregnant anymore, you were wrong. I am still pregnant. And in fact showing no indications of becoming un-pregnant any time soon. Although I do think that Studs has 'dropped' now. I don't notice a big difference in anything other than that I think I look different (a little smaller, actually) in profile. Aaaaaand, that doesn't mean anything in terms of when he's going to come out, in case you were thinking that might be relevant or something. Really, nothing you learn at the end of your pregnancy is relevant to when you'll actually have the baby. I'm going to the doctor tomorrow when they'll tell me how dilated and effaced I am - two more bits of information that sound exciting but actually have no bearing at all on when I'll have the baby.

I have been working at home this week, but I'm going back in today. I think my boss is secretly thrilled when I work from home because he'd really rather that I didn't go into labor at work. Or have my water break or something. He's still adjusting to having a lab full of women, so I think this is just a little bit more female-related than he can take. Hee. I'm going to go in today and do a few last things in the lab and write out a list of what experiments I need to do when I get back, because god knows I'm not going to remember AT ALL what I was doing when I left. Hopefully then my boss will have read the draft of my paper I just sent him (he is very quick at this which is new and different for me, so this could actually happen) and I can stay home on Thursday and Friday and work on fixing it. I forget that each day that I stay home I really need to let people know that I am working and not having a baby. Everyone is relieved to find that out because there's a little pool going at work to guess when I'll have the baby. Only one person is out of it so far, she had me going a week early, on Sunday. People's guesses start to pick up again now - there's someone today and most of the rest of the days this week. Fortunately I don't think anyone has me lasting as far as Christmas (which would be a week late and while normal is not desired by me, thanks).

Biochemistry with the Celebrity Stars

And you thought that celebrities only had hidden potential as dancers.
They may also be able to solve some significant problems in molecular biology.

Rockin' the white elephant gift exchange

Last night was my work Christmas party. Last year I was on the organizing committee, and we decided to have a white elephant gift exchange. If you haven't done this before, you bring something fairly crappy (or at least unwanted) for your gift - a good way to regift something that you wouldn't actually want to give someone on purpose. Or a gag gift or something. At last year's gift exchange, I got some generic Barbie-type doll. After the official swap was over, I traded with someone else for an old fondue pot. We didn't have a decent one, despite assurances that we'd get several as wedding gifts. And I love fondue. I know who brought the fondue pot, and she thought it was a terrible gift. She had gotten it as a hand me down from her aunt or something. There was a recipe written on a card that she had included, her aunt's recipe, that called for 'Switzerland Swiss Cheese'. Heh.

The fondue pot gets a lot of use at our house, because we both go through periods of fondue addiction. We're in one right now, in fact. We had fondue for dinner twice last week (one time was during a fondue party at our house, the other time was just... Wednesday). So I was really pleased with myself last year.

This year I did possibly even better. Brian picked third, and he got a framed picture of my boss that someone had gotten in last year's swap. Ha. I'm going to display it on my desk at work, until next year when I am totally going to bring it back to the gift swap. I picked fairly far down in the order, about 2/3 of the way through. The person just before me let her young son pick and open a gift, and it was a stainless steel Cuisinart pizelle press. OMG. I love pizelles. And I do not have a pizelle press. My mom does and she always made them for Christmas when I was growing up. Yum. When my turn came up, I totally traded the little kid for the pizelle press. I was really worried that someone after me would take it, but no one did. So now, I've got a shiny new pizelle press, just in time for Christmas pizelle making! Two years in a row of awesome white elephant gifts.

His laugh really is annoying though.

Anderson Cooper could be my secret boyfriend if I was his type, which I'm pretty sure I'm not. Brian, maybe. But not me. Bit of a bummer. He's smart and funny and also totally hot - a trifecta.

Anyhow, I thought this video of him critically analyzing his co-hosting stint on 'Live With Regis and Kelly' was funny. The link to this from the CNN website was 'Anderson Cooper: Man, my laugh is annoying.'

BE ADEQUITE.

Ok, so the other week when Robert Altman died, Linsday Lohan, in the midst of her crippling grief, composed a little press release on her Blackberry so that we could all know how broken up she was by the whole thing (having just been in his movie, A Prairie Home Companion).

Read this here.

Obvy the girl didn't get much onset tutoring when she was being a child star.
Everyone? Please. BE ADEQUITE.

Oooookay. So everyone has been making fun of that pretty much ever since. Because its hilarious. And sad. And pathetic. Her publicist Leslie Sloane Zelnick, who has seriously been working overtime for this girl lately*, tried to soften the blow a little bit by saying how she wrote this right after she had heard, she hadn't had time to compose her thoughts, blah blah blah. One would think that Linsday would have learned a lesson from this, but no. Nor did she learn how to spell 'adequate'. Because she's at it again. And this one is 1000x crazier sounding than the last one.

Seriously. Would someone take away LiLo's Blackberry-ing privledges? Save this poor girl from herself. It is hard to decide what I find most amusing about this particular version, but high up on the list is the fact that she still hasn't managed to spell 'adequate' correctly, despite the fact that there are even T-shirts making fun of her about it. Also, I mean, does she even know what 'adequate' means? I don't think so. First of all, why would you encourage people to just be adequate? Just be good enough, people. You don't have to be great or anything... don't stress yourselves out. Just BE ADEQUITE. And second, a "morally/politically correct, fully adequite letter to the press". I don't really get the usage there either.

Its okay though, because she talked to Al Gore. And he totally wants to help her. And so do the Clintons. With what, I'm not totally sure. To get the media to stop bugging her, I guess? If she wants the media to stop bugging her, why doesn't she stay home and stop acting crazy. I bet that would help.

The Fug Girls want to help, at least with the editing. Hee.


*Those of you who are NOT up on your celeb gossip probably do not know that Linds has been going to AA meetings. For her drinking problem which has developed while she's not even old enough to legally drink. Ignoring the whole second 'A' there, this fact has been broadcast to the media. I also swear that I read somewhere, although I cannot find the source anymore, that her publicist said something like 'Yes, she's going to the meetings and this is a positive step. But don't be surprised when you still see her drinking because this is a process and she hasn't quite gotten to the whole sobriety part yet.'

Cast is GONE

Finally the day we have all been waiting for is HERE (well, one of the days we are waiting for anyhow). The cast is IN THE TRASH. I have a shiny new Aircast now. I get to wear this for 2-3 weeks to protect my foot, and then I'm DONE. And thankfully, this one can come off for baths or sleeping or whatever.

When they took off my cast I was a bit horrified to discover that I had also contracted leprosy sometime over these last 7 weeks. Seriously, I look like a molting reptile of some sort. Dead skin is coming off my leg in sheets. I just took a bath (both feet immersed!) and tried to get it off as best as I could, but my best was not good enough. Its still there, although it is better.

I also went to the OB this morning who said that the baby hadn't really dropped too much yet, so it doesn't look like childbirth is imminent or anything. Bummer.

Chapped lips

Over on the Consumerist, a great debate rages about lip balms and their addictive nature. I had a friend in high school who was TOTALLY addicted to Carmex. I don't know what the biological basis of this is, but I agree it is addictive.

Lots of people supported Burt's Bees lip balm as the best lip balm out there. I almost agree. I like it too. For some reason I prefer it in the little metal tub than in the tube. Application messier, but it seems like a little different product and I think it works better. I could just be making that up though.

For real lip balm action (not to mention an unbeatable price), I vote for Bag Balm. If you live in New England you can buy this at the drugstore. If you're not so lucky, you can buy it (seriously) in the horse section at Petsmart. Or I bet at some like, feed store or something. You'll notice at the top of the Bag Balm website that none of the suggested organisms to use it are people. Cows? Yes. Horses? Of course. Pets? Certainly. A big tub of it costs like, $15 tops? It will last you forever. Seriously. I have one that is like five years old and its only half empty. And my mom gave it to me partially empty. It also makes a good treatment for dry skin, in which case you'd use it quicker. But it is, hands down, the best lip balm on the planet.

I'm still here!

Yesterday everyone was surprised to see me back at work, since it seemed that the whole world had decided that the baby was coming over the weekend. Oh well. Last week I didn't really want Studs to arrive early, but once everyone started talking about it I started to get antsy. So now I'm a little tired of being pregnant.

We had come up with a name, but now I'm second guessing it. We brought a few names back into consideration this morning, so now I think there are 4 on the list. Its hard! I know many people have said they didn't decide until after the baby was born, so that makes me feel better.

Not much else is going on. Two days until cast removal!

Brian is nesting

Yesterday when I was at work, Brian called me in a mild panic.
"Are you having contractions?"
Uh, no. And where did this come from? I hadn't called him or anything, so I didn't know where he had gotten the idea that I was in labor. He said he had just been having this overwhelming feeling that Studs' arrival was imminent. He had been possessed to completely clean and reorganize his office and lab and was wanting to go home and do the same thing there. He was completely positive that I would have the baby this weekend.
Then my boss came in and said 'Uh... before you leave today please send me your figures and your paper in whatever state it is when you leave.' He was also worried that I might not be back on Monday.

Last week there was also a significant increase in the number of random people who would stop me in the hallway and say 'Well, you look like you're just about done!'

Does everyone know something that I don't? Hope not. I did get my grant application sent off yesterday (yay!) but I'd also like to finish up my paper before the baby's arrival.

Anyone else have any weird feelings when their baby was about to come?

Your celebrity gossip update

Many of my readers are not as into the celebrity gossip as I am. But what if you had to unexpectedly take a pop culture quiz? Or something? I wouldn't just leave you out in the cold. So here's a little round-up of this weeks news:

Just when I think things are starting to look up for my girl Britney, she starts to go back down again.

Divorcing K-Fed? Up!
Dressing like an even hooker-ier version of Pamela Anderson? Down!
Forgetting to wear her undies when dressing like an even hooker-ier version of Pamela Anderson? Even downer!
Hanging out with Paris Hilton and Linsday Lohan? As down as you can get!

In other news:
Speaking of Pamela Anderson, she and Kid Rock are getting divorced only four months after their multi-wedding extravaganza. I know! I was shocked too. Also, I really never saw the appeal of Kid Rock. Um... wifebeater and greasy hair? AND sort of pathetic looking facial hair?

Eva Longoria engaged to this guy who I totally thought she wasn't dating anymore!

We forgot about Anna Nicole Smith for a while, but then she randomly had her baby in the Bahamas, her son randomly died in her hospital room afterwards, had multiple men claiming they were the father of her new baby, became a Bahamian citizen and then got booted out of the house she was living in.

Danny DeVito went on 'The View' drunk. Which is actually hilarious. I'm sure Baba Wawa was really excited to hear all about his sexcapades in the Lincoln Bedroom. You can watch the video here.