Cake-gasm

I am sure you have all missed me so very much, and I do apologize for that unscheduled break. I was the lucky recipient of not one, but two very different and very nasty stomach bugs, which apparently are afflicting every single person in the greater metro DC area. Luckily (knock on wood) though Feroze and I both got it, Leila did not, and hopefully will not. I am not letting her anywhere near any other children until this epidemic passes.
So what have I been doing? Let's see...I had the worst. birthday. ever. That was followed by three days of dry heaving and laying in bed feeling quite sorry for myself. Then three more days of weaning myself off of the Cymbalta, which left me dizzy and somewhat stupid, especially coming on the heels of the barfing flu. I have been reading lots of books, and eating lots of easter candy. Easter candy is the best kind of candy there is, people. Cadbury Cream Eggs, Cadbury Mini Eggs, Sweettarts shaped like ducks, jellybeans, pastel colored M&Ms...
I have also been working, feeling sorry for myself because all the spring clothes are soooo cute...being resentful because the least-hard-working member of our team has taken not one but two vacations this month, and trying very hard to be a better wife and mother, by cooking dinner every night, and keeping the house reasonably clean, and spending a lot less time on this here computing box.
Also, trying not to kill my toddler, who is in full terrible-twos mode, whose sleeping habits have taken somewhat of a dive in the past few days, and who, after sleeping in my bed until three this morning, woke up at five. Yes. FIVE this morning.
Luckily for her it is the third gorgeous day in a row, and I am feeling quite forgiving. We will be heading into downtown Silver Spring in a bit. I heard they are putting in a DSW and an American Apparel. Now, American Apparel, whatever, but DSW? Thank the sweet Lord. There have been about eight hundred times I have needed to go shoe shopping, but not felt like traipsing over to Montgomery (Lord knows there's nowhere to shop for shoes in my mall, White Flint) or down to Tyson's. Plus anytime I do manage to go to Tyson's I get totally overwhelmed by all the people and can't deal with the thought of having to try things on.
I live about five minutes from downtown Silver Spring, where they have recently revitalized. There's still a horrible, ghetto excuse for a mall, but I have a feeling they will be either kicking most of the current tenants out or just knocking down the whole thing and building another. In the little circle where all the new stuff is, they put in a Bombay, an Ann Taylor Loft, a Borders, several little food chain places like Potbelly and Chipotle, an Ulta, and a couple of restaurants, Macaroni Grill, Red Lobster, a sushi place, and my favorite, a little theme place called Eggspectation. The menu is huge, and it's sort of like an upscale Denny's. They serve breakfast all day, have a huge bar, a huge assortment of gorgeous desserts, andn then some nice dinner-y things like steak, etc.
In the center, they have a big fountain on mosaic tiles. Kids can play in the fountain until eight o' clock during the summer, and during the winter they turn the water off, and the kids just chase each other around on the tiles. Also, they installed Astro Turf across the street, just a huge strip of it, so kids can run around and play. It's really a charming place, though recently overrun by teenagers.
We plan to venture into City Place (ghetto mall) and look at the Nine West Outlet, and Marshalls. Then we'll eat lunch, check out the bookstore, run around on the Astro Turf, look at some makeup, and possibly grab something to compliment our dinner of steak. Wish us luck--it's so gorgeous outside, I can't wait to go!

Stoic, shmoic.

Oh, ya'all. It is not easy going around these parts lately. A round of the stomach flu knocked me flat on my rear at an inconvenient time for everyone. Leila is extra-toddler like. I tried to do our taxes and screwed something up because it came out that we owed, like, $2000 and are you kidding? 'Cause we do NOT make enough money for that. My mom had what amounts to a nervous breakdown; my brother's wedding planning is not going well. My anxiety has ratcheted itself up several notches and my entire body seems in on the act. I'm dizzy, flu-like, cranky, sore all over, and grumpy as hell. I forgot to pay my cell phone bill and damn Sprint, they didn't even send a text message, they just shut the stupid thing off. This was supposed to be a nice celebratory weekend because I was off yesterday and today, and my birthday is next week, but guess what? Feroze is down with a horrible case of the flu. My pain management appointment was supposed to be this week but I couldn't get my MRI due to the flu, so now I have to figure out where to go from there, and my pain has been exceptionally severe, but I've been trying to hold out for this damn appointment. I am not happy, chickadees, not at all.
I did get two cute shirts yesterday, though. But it doesn't make up for the fact that I'm on round two of this damn stomach pestilence.

Dude. Is this the Cymbalta speaking or what?

Yesterday, my lovelies, I woke up in the most fab-tastic mood. I out of bed at 7:30 and got dressed. I skipped into Leila's room and got her ready for a bath. Before ten I had bathed her, cleaned my kitchen top to bottom, fed both of us breakfast, picked up all the clothes from the floor and washed several loads of laundry, and cleaned all the junk from my table and "microwave stand" which doubles as "holder of recipe books and ten thousand miscellaneous pieces of JUNK." Then I called my husband and bragged. At eleven, Joy swung by and we took the girls to the park. It was eighty five degrees. We were sweating copiously, and it was fun. I made steak and baked potatoes for dinner. Frankly, ya'all, I was rocking.
Today our morning walk brought the nasty realization that it was like, thirty degrees colder than yesterday. I almost missed my bus and had to run for it, something that I never like to do, much less when I am heinously out of shape and fill the bus with the sounds of my heavy breathing. In Eatzi's, my iPod cord caught a basket of chips and pulled them all onto the floor. My lasagna was gross. I am most displeased.
This could have a LOT to do with today being my second Starbucks-free day in a row.

Morning Sickness Misnomer.

I wasn't going to update tonight because I am in a foul mood, but over at Julia's everyone is discussing their "morning" sickness and it had me thinking about my pregnancy with Leila and how, well, frankly awful it was.
Recently someone I know decided not to continue her pregnancy. This is someone I care for a lot, but I had a hard time with her decision, mostly because it seemed that her biggest motivator was that it became hard.
(Disclaimer here: I know that there were other factors. I am not judging her. I love her and support her. Please don't email me.)
When I was a wee little thing, I though that pregnancy would be FABULOUS. I thought I would be cute, all belly, glowy and sexy and rarin' to go in the bedroom. I'd read in about a million women's magazines that lots of women have increased sex drives during pregnancy, and I was sure I'd be one of them. I found the whole concept incredibly sexy and beautiful.
Delusion is so wonderful.
Here's how it played out: Feroze and I get married September 19. Around the first week of November I start thinking, "Huh. I sure don't feel too great." The week before Thanksgiving I go to the doctor for sciatic nerve pain, and hey, while we're here, I don't feel too great, let me take a pee test. The doctor died laughing. The strip changed colors the second my little pee drop hit it.
Eight weeks pregnant. I barfed in the car on the way home. I barfed every single day on the way to work. I would eat a chocolate popsicle, grab my plastic bags from the grocery store, and proceed to feel awful all the way to work.
Every. single. freaking. day. I would barf right as we pulled into the parking lot at the mall. I would throw up in the hallway trash can while waiting for my manager to arrive. I would throw up in the bathroom up to eight times a day. I lost twenty pounds. I passed out at work. Feroze asked me if I wanted to have an abortion because I was so very ill, but I told him he was crazy. I think he was pretty crazed with worry at that point. I would barf until I peed my pants, cry, go home from work, barf and cry some more.
Finally one of the midwives prescribed me Zofran. I still felt sick sometimes and I still barfed sometimes, but things were much improved.
They made me stop taking it at seven months and I barfed for a few weeks before it ended for good. At this point my sciatic nerve on my left side (the one that sent me to the doctor in the first place) was hurting like crazy. I was working tons, and at seven and a half months Leila was ridin' low, so I had to go on maternity leave.
All I'm sayin' is, it was NOT THAT GREAT.
But then she was born and I loved her and my labor (a story for another day) was not that bad. I did it totally naturally and, well, I was proud. And she's fabulous and I gladly would've barfed the whole damn time and all that schmoopy mommy stuff.
It's just like so many other things in life--what you think something is going to be like and what it actually is like are two totally different things. Nobody can tell you what your marriage or your pregnancy or your motherhood or anything will be like, because, well, you have to experience it for yourself. That's why it's good not to get too hung up on what you think your husband or your wedding or your college or ANYTHING will be like, because you might be so disappointed in the difference that you can't really enjoy it.

Feroze is totally different from the man I imagined myself with when I was sixteen--but he loves me. My life at (almost) 24 is nothing at all like what I imagined--but it's a good life, you know?

Wow, what was my point? Be grateful, I think. And also, take Zofran. ;-)

Various updates, rambling, and what I did on my weekend off.

I am such a stellar housewife. All the pillows have pillowcases on them for the first time in months. Our bed and the crib are made up. We moved the futon back into couch position and put a blanket and pillow on it to make it more comfy. And I cooked a wonderful dinner of baby bok choy/steak/veggie stir fry stuff.
What do you MEAN you do that stuff every day? Do I look like superwoman to you? Sheesh.
My visit to the pain clinic was good. The doctor was very nice, and besides sending me home with Lidocaine patches, a new antidepressant, and Percocet, he ordered an MRI for me because there's a possibility that I have a back issue or a nerve tangled in my scar tissue--two things no one had thought of before. The Lidocaine patches work really well, except for the fact that they are constantly coming unstuck, which is a problem. They cost $60 for a box of thirty, which is kind of a lot for me to have to replace one just because it got stuck to itself instead of my skin. I go back on my birthday to review the MRI and see what's working so I'm hoping his gift to me will be, "Oh, look, it's just a simple back problem! We'll fix that with one tweak!" (Of course, that won't happen, since the pain is in my back and my groin, so at the least there has to be some sort of nerve affected. L1 or something like that, he said, wraps around from your lower back to your groin and therefore ostensibly could be the cause of my problem, not scar tissue.)
Yesterday we went to Tyson's Corner (huge mall in Northern VA) with a girl Feroze works with, Angelica. She's a young little thing who works way too hard and really needed a "fun day"--so I gave her a makeover at Sephora and induced her to spend quite a bit on makeup, and it was a lot of fun. All I bought were some cute panties from Gap Body, but I found an awesome glitter eyeliner by Lorac that I will certainly be purchasing in every color as soon as I get a chance. After we were done there, we went over to the Galleria, which is a boutique mall filled with chichi little shops, and a Saks and Neiman Marcus. I'd had my eye on a charm bracelet with little shoe charms for my birthday, but the price was waaaaaaaaay higher than I'd imagined. I was really disappointed, which surprised me. I almost wanted to cry. Hopefully I can find some sort of knock off.
I did end up buying some amazing stuff from L'Occitane, their new "Mom and Baby Balm"--it is fantastic. It's got the consistency of lard, which is kind of funny, a very smooth, waxy feel, unscented, and color free, it is sooo soft and Leila loves it. I've been applying it to her cheeks all day, and she just leans into my hand and grins and says, "Ooooooh." Both of us have incredibly dry skin. Mine has been itchy and flaky and all kinds of gross lately. The other day, in a fit of desperation, I applied Vaseline to my entire body, and then threw on a light t-shirt and socks and prayed for relief. It worked. I showered and exfoliated and shaved first, which I was afraid would exacerbate the problem but instead it helped, because the Vaseline could penetrate my skin with no blockage from dead skin or hair. I've also been applying it to my lips because once again I've lost every chapstick I own, and lip gloss just isn't cutting it.
I also put the Balm all over Leila's dry little feet and then put her socks on...when I changed her into her pjs her feet were as soft as can be. Since she usually fights me like an angry cat when I try to put Vaseline on her, this balm is a winner. It was $20 for a little jar, but I'm already wishing I'd bought the big one despite the price.
I keep forgetting that I bought a few things from Clinique before I imposed the no-makeup rule, so soon I will post about that and I am still trying to decide whether or not to post about something rather serious that's happened recently...the problem with having people you know and love read your blog is that, well, they know the other people you know, and sometimes just wanting to talk about an issue becomes akin to gossip.
Oh! And despite my non-Catholicism (and apparent ignorance thereof) I decided to give something up for Lent. I couldn't think of anything I could bear to be without in my current fragile state--caffiene, refined sugar, and computer time were the usual suspects. Finally I realized that there is a habit I've been wanting to break anyway--cussing. I cuss like a sailor, and it is both unbecoming and something that could potentially cause problems for Leila. So I have given it up, and I am doing okay so far, only a few slips. I am also bothering Feroze about the whole thing too, so hopefully by the time Easter rolls around we will both be much improved.
Hope that you all are doing equally well with your fasts!

Happy National Forehead Wound Day!

In my defense, there are no Catholics in Arkansas.
Or, apparently, anywhere else I've ever lived.
Also in my defense, I AM A MORON.
Yesterday there was a young woman in my store who had a large...mole? Bruise? In the middle of her forehead. I didn't want to stare so I couldn't figure out what it was. Shortly thereafter there was ANOTHER lady with a forehead bruise. Then, as I was eating lunch, I saw yet another...and so I said to my coworker, "What is this, National Forehead Wound Day? I've seen three women with massive bruises on their heads!"
Connie stared at me, frankly flabbergasted. Then she said,
"Jackie. It's Ash Wednesday."
Me: "I know! ...Oh. Wait, they put ASH on their heads?"
Umm. And then she sort of explained about the Mass and stuff. And then she asked, "Isn't your friend Joy OF WHOM YOU SPEAK ALL THE TIME a devout Catholic?"
Uh, yeah. She sort of is. But look, I worked on Ash Wednesday last year, and I saw NO forehead smudges. Nor the year before that. And I am BAPTIST and we're not that big on rituals.
Also? I AM A MORON.