Agh

I got an email from one of the pregnancy websites saying YOUR BABY COULD COME AT ANY TIME NOW. My hospital bag is not packed! I still have to get baby boy clothes and a crib, and shop for a jogging stroller. Then it hit me (again), that being pregnant means you are Out Of Control.

Ultimately, you don't decide when the baby is born, the baby does. (Unless you get a voluntary c-section). And I swear, every day that baby makes decisions without asking me. He makes me take naps. He makes me too tired to do things, and starts kickboxing when I want to go to bed for the night. He also is currently using my bladder as a pillow, which makes me need the bathroom every 10 minutes.

As I am a second-time mom though, I try not to dwell to long on any of this, because as bizarre as it all is, it is nothing like the control the baby has when he gets out. That's when you REALLY can't go out, and REALLY can't sleep due to loud crying/constant feeding.

So really, pregnancy is like boot camp for moms - tough but nothing compared to the real thing. Wouldn't you agree?

these are a few of my favorite things

I am now 33 weeks pregnant and am almost as tired and cranky as I was in the first trimester. Although, some days are better than others - it depends on how much sleep I've had and how well my 3 year old is behaving.

Here's a list of things I'd rather be doing than being at work today:
1. getting a massage
2. taking a nap
3. going for a swim
4. having a snack
5. shopping for glamorous jammies to wear in hospital

Here are my favorite things to eat at the moment:
1. pineapple
2. artichokes
3. pizza
4. hummus
5. cereal

I have also have a real craving for beer - what is that about?

Conversations with babies (1)

I heard this exchange between my husband and little girl (LG) when she was about 18 months and he was changing her diaper:

H: "We've got to get you out of these nappies!"
LG: "Why?"
H: "I don't like poo, you know."
LG: "Do you like pee?"

And then there were two (more)

My sister in law had her baby today! It's weird to think we were all sitting around the table on Monday translating Wagner and Wednesday she has a little baby boy. I was so used to her being pregnant, it seemed to go on forever. My friend K had her baby on Friday too - I am the last lonely pregnant person here. However, I am experiencing vicariously that amazing happiness you feel just after having a baby. I might have a stab at putting the feeling into words after my next little baby comes, if that's possible.

Tonight I experience the creepy joy of having my entire house to myself - my daughter is with her granny and my husband is (as per usual) away doing his consulting job. He is away a lot, but I'm used to it. Besides, as he points out, the money is a lot better than if he had a regular local 9 to 5 job. He configures operational systems. A while back he printed a few business cards that said "We'll configure your ass if the money's right."

Easter in Dublin

Hello -

It is the Tuesday after Easter and I am worn out from eating so many candy-coated mini eggs, large pure chocolate hollow eggs, chocolate bunnies, and truffle eggs. I ate so much that my endorphins turned on me and actually put me in a bad mood - my husband unplugged the phone while I was talking to my parents and I was peeved for the rest of the day. Easter really is mostly about chocolate and a three-day weekend, but here is the version of why Easter is a holiday that I gave my 3-year-old:

Easter is a holiday because it's the day that Jesus went home to be with his dad and watch over everybody. Jesus was a really important teacher, and he died. Everybody was really sad, but a few days later he got up and wasn't dead any more! He went up in the sky to live with his dad again, and everybody was happy about that. That's why there's a party on Easter.

This may be oversimplifying, but that is a whole other discussion.

In her little mind, Christmas wasn't that long ago, which was all about the Baby Jesus, so she quickly fixated on the idea that Jesus used to be a little baby, but then grew up to be a big man who died for a while. Her main concern is the chocolate (on both Christmas and Easter), but at least she isn't 100% ignorant of the historical reasons we have these holidays.

Dublin is a great place to be on Easter (provided it isn't pouring down rain), because everybody leaves for a few days in the countryside. Did you ever see that movie Night of the Comet where a comet turns everybody who sees it to dust and the world is a ghost town? It's kind of like that. Normally, Dublin really bustles and we have problems with traffic, getting reservations in restaurants, long lines in the grocery store, and so on, and I always enjoy a break from that. One big drawback to Dublin at Easter is that you cannot buy alcohol on Good Friday. Liquor stores (they call them off-licenses) are closed, grocery stores won't sell it, restaurants won't sell it. The result is, most Irish people stock up beforehand so that they have something to drink at home. Someone told me that it ends up being the biggest drinking night of the year. If you arrived as a tourist and didn't know this, you'd be completely baffled. You'd be in the middle of one of the cities most famous for boozing the world over, and not allowed to drink.

Things like the non-drinking Good Friday are quintessentially Irish. Other things I would put in the same category are the fact that abortion is illegal here, and divorce has only been legal since 1995. People have their ways of getting around things though. For one, you can do whatever you like in the UK, and you can practically swim there from here.

I am going to resist the urge to cram too much into my first blog entry. Next time I log on, I'll talk about being pregnant and other fascinating topics.........