...well, i'm back in the saddle again...i guess the week off my feet was good for me...my ankles are back to normal believe it or not...my sciatic nerve will probably keep bothering me until the baby moves out of my womb...that's another 11 weeks...i'm seriously considering acupuncture at this point...i can't remember the last time i slept through the night...between getting up for potty breaks and painfully switching what side i'm lying on, it hasn't been easy to get a good night's rest...teddy's been very supportive, making me rest and scolding me when i try to do things like washing the dishes...



...we are currently mulling over our future parenthood...there's so much we don't know, and there's so much information on what to expect or what might happen, it's all rather overwhelming...we started our bradley classes on natural childbirth, and i'm scared...i don't know how women go through with this...and not just the birth part...the whole diaper thing and feeding thing and being responsible for another human being thing...yikes... 

....well, so guess what i've been ordered to do by my doctor?  i've been ordered to stay in bed and off my feet until next monday...i went to see her on monday morning, and when i told her my sciatic nerve was buggin me, and she looked at my puffy feet and ankles, she ordered me to take strict bedrest beginning immediately...i told her i'd talk to my boss about it, and she laughed at me...i guess doctor's orders override whatever bosses might say...not that my boss would've said no...



...so i've been home laid out on the couch all week bored out of my skull...i think i've seen the same episode of law & order twice already this week...i am so sick of tv...i rehooked up my internet to my work laptop using a longer ethernet whatever cord so i can actually still do some work while lying on the couch and surfing the net and stuff...i mean, it's nice to not have to go all the way into the office for the week, but not being able to do anything, not even wash the dishes, is hard...you get so lethargic you don't wanna do anything...



...i have to say though that my feet and ankles are back to almost normal size now...none of that puffy baby look any more...poor teddy...he has to do everything now...cooking, dishes, cleaning...but he's a sweetie and is happy to do things for me...he's worked all week, so i've been home alone for the most part, but he's off tomorrow so i'll have some company, although we'll be spending 3 hours back at the doctor's getting my blood drawn for the long version of the glucose tolerance test...



...in other news, there's a band coming to town next wednesday @ the subterranean called GONER...the frontman is scott phillips, the brother of dan the frontman for zapruder point, one of my local faves...i have both of goner's full lenght cds and i really really love their stuff...the songs are totally singable and have great harmonies and clever lyrics and are just all around fun to listen to...i highly recommend this show...thanks god my bedrest orders are up by next monday, in time for wednesday's show...

 
...folks, i would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to...THE TUMMY...yes, that's right...that's MY TUMMY...look at the size of that thing!  my left foot looks so tiny it may as well be in frickin' timbuktu!  yeah, that's MY foot, not my baby's foot somehow sticking out of my belly...that foot is attached to my leg on the very body that bears that belly, and it's an adult woman's size 7 foot...isn't that weird?  i just thought i'd take a few shots of my belly for posterity, and i kinda freaked out at how tiny my little footsie looks, and how HUGE my belly looks in this photo...
 
...and so continues the saga of my fascination with my everincreasing belly...stay tuned for more updates on this enthralling topic...
 
...little baby d. is not so little any more...baby is about a foot long and weighs about 2 lbs...that may not seem like a lot, but keep in mind that the brand new baby white-tip shark @ the shedd aquarium also weighs 2 lbs...and that's after a month of being outside the womb in the real world...baby d. still has 3 whole months in my tummy to keep on getting bigger and bigger...as long as the head doesn't get too big, i'm okay with that...
 
...this is opening weekend for millennium park in chicago's downtown lakefront...it's that huge park mayor daley jr has been working on for years...it's late opening (surprise!) but it's supposed to be really awesome...we'll see...i don't know if teddy & i will make it down there this weekend...it'll be so damn crowded...but the weather is supposed to be lovely--in the 70s and low humidity--so who knows...
 
...my only mandate for today is to get all my cd's in order...i pulled about 100 out of their cases to take on our honeymoon, and it's just a mess right now...i promised teddy i'd get them put back where they belong, as well as the 100 other cds that have been lying around various parts of the apartment for the past few months...i've got 4.5 hours to do that before i go pick teddy up from work so i better get on the ball right now...

...i am on a michael moore kick...teddy, dave, ellen & i saw bowling for columbine a couple weeks ago...we saw farhenheit 9/11 last saturday...i just bought stupid white men on sunday and have about 30 pages to go...on monday night teddy & i happened to catch the big one (about corporate downsizing by companies reporting record profits) on IFC...now i know a lot of people think mr. moore is full of hot air, and actually, i don't think even HE'D dispute that...and i'm not saying that i agree with everything moore says...but there's something about him that just really really reaches me in the gut...



...maybe it's his frumpy clothes...or his undying love for the impoverished community of his hometown flint, MI...or that he doesn't pretend to be a liberally correct left winger...i mean, he's a lifetime member of the NRA...he doesn't recycle...he eats meat...he drives a minivan...he lives in manhattan...



...but there's something about michael...sure, he may not have all his facts straight, and his stuff comes off as being extremely biased...but if there's one thing that's unmistakable in all his work that i've seen/read so far, it's his heart...he's pretty transparent...and yes, he roots for the underdog...always...and i think that's what i admire about him, is that he gives voice to those on the fringe of society, and he has the balls to walk into places of power and greed where he's not invited and brazenly accuses them of turning his country into a den of robbers...if jesus had been an overweight near-sighted college dropout, michael moore could've definitely played him in the movie version...



...i don't think that F9/11 is pro-democrats either...michael moore has explicitly stated his position that the democrats have been no better than the republicans...his chastisement of the democratic party and bill clinton in his SWM book is just as harsh, if not harsher, as that of his chastisement of the republicans & GWB...



...i think everyone who cares about this country, our troops, truth and integrity should see F9/11 regardless of their political leanings...at least don't bash the movie until you've seen it...and if you don't agree with what you see in the movie, do some research..get informed...liberals and right-wingers alike have been guilty of just taking our daily dose of information from mainstream media without questioning whether there's more out there that we're not being told...don't just vote for someone because of your personal party affiliation...you may be sorely disappointed to find out that the person you voted for is no different from the other party's candidate...



here are just a few links that may get us thinking more about all this:



http://www.michaelmoore.com/index_main.php

http://www.alternet.org/

http://www.globalissues.org/

http://www.citizen.org/

http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm

http://www.fair.org/ (fairness and accuracy in reporting)

the corporation: the patholigical pursuit of profit and power (a film)

...well, we're back home safe and sound...it was a long drive back from maine, but we broke it up into 2 segments and stopped off midway in dansville, NY (50 miles south of rochester) and spent the night @ ryan beatty's...ryan just got married 6 months ago and he & his wife jenny took good care of us...jesse was unfortunately out of town attending joel v's (of 7 head division) wedding in michigan...of all the weekends to be out of town! oh well...it was good to see ryan & jenny though...and dansville is a sleepy little town nestled in the lovely valleys of midstate new york...i think our drive through new york was one of the prettiest, esp. out by the adirondacks & finger lakes region...







...we're settling back into our daily lives here in chi-town...i finally went through my photos from the trip, and you can go see them right over here...it's not much...i've been known to come home w/ 24 rolls of film from a vacation...but being pregnant really does get in the way of taking photos as freely as i used to...



...and there's a lot more that's different now that i'm pregnant...here are just a few observations i've made as an average pregnant lady...



* instead of sucking in my tummy to try to appear slimmer, i now stick my tummy out as far as it will go cuz my teddy likes my round tummy...the rounder the better he says...go figure...



* due to my ever increasing uterus pushing against my bladder, i now have to pee like every 90 minutes or so...and to further aggravate my spatially challenged bladder, i have to drink about twice as much water as i used to...



* it takes a certain amount of vigilance not to lapse into waddling...



* i now have a place to rest my hands folded all nice and lovely and ladylike...it's also the perfect place to rest my bowl of ice cream...



* despite its environmental detriments, i thank god for air conditioning like you wouldn't believe...esp. central air in a chicago apartment...



* teddy lets me eat whatever i want now (within reason)...granted, i haven't had crazy cravings like pickle w/ ice cream...mine are much more sane...like a bagel & cream cheese...or pizza...



* and my favorite observation so far was made actually by teddy...when i complained how i was swelling up everywhere--ankles, hands, face, tummy--he said that i was merely getting 'puffy' and that it was cute, that this was the time i got to LOOK like my baby, cuz babies are puffy all over too...i guess i never thought of it that way...