blog moving!
Posted on: January 9, 2013
*** disclaimer*** i started writing this post about 10 days ago but never got around to finishing it because i was busy traveling cross-country with a toddler, eating copious amounts of food to celebrate the holidays, napping, and watching television. extremely strenuous work. i am now finishing this post and will post a follow-up almost immediately after to tell you some really exciting news.
okay, i have been meaning to blog about this because it is just so unbelievably funny. i have been telling coworkers, family, and any and all acquaintances this story so i figured i might as well write it down, now, while every hilarious detail is still fresh in my mind.
about a week ago, we went to the hubs’ xmas party for work. it happened to be the same day as my xmas party for work but mine was $10 a person, some appetizers, and a wild game of white elephant. his included a full 3 course sit down dinner, open bar, and was completely free. his won (duh). so we decided to go to his since we’re a)poor and b)borderline alcoholics. ok, that last one is a little bit of a stretch but my husband always finds it his duty to drink for 2 whenever i’m pregnant.
we arrived with another couple friend and found some seats in the back. i nearly killed the hubs as we were a tiny bit late and i was terrified we would miss the appetizers. you can see where my priorities lie. we did, in fact, make it in time for apps and proceeded to mingle and jingle with his coworkers. A bit later, his boss stood up to say a few words – the usual “Thank you for being there for the children… you work so hard… enjoy the holidays…” typical shpeel (sp?). Now, one other think you need to know is that 95% of the schools here in Vegas are named after people, figures prominent in the city that have made some sort of impact on education, that sort of thing. Additionally, since so many schools are so new with the city’s recent expansion, usually the namesakes are still alive. We’re not talking George Washington Elementary here, these people could seriously just pop into the school at a moment’s notice to check in on things, send things to the students, and, as was the case here, attend the xmas party. So Mrs. Namesake was sitting at the head table, in her flashy holiday sweater and large red fabric covered banana clip adorning her hair, sipping on wine and quite enjoying the festivities. Mrs. Namesake had also wanted to share a few words but, not being terribly comfortable with public speaking had asked the principal to read some she had written down. now, you have to understand the principal is a very large and tall black woman with a booming voice not unlike, one of my faves, oprah winfrey. so ms. principal begins to read the little speech which has a lot more of the same “thank you for being there for the children” business in it and all of a sudden, it happens. the principal shouts, “AND THERE IS ALSO A CHECK ENCLOSED HERE FOR $100,000!!!!!!!!!”
Have you seen Oprah’s Favorite Things show where she gives away ridiculous amounts of gifts and the audience pretty much loses their minds and yell and hoot and holler and pass out and hug, etc, etc, etc? Seriously, pretty much the same thing. Everyone started screaming and pretty much losing their shit. Then came the breakdown of where the money was going…. $10,000 for the Library, $10,000 for the Choir and Music Ensemble, $10,000 for the Art Room….. now did I mention hubs is the ART TEACHER?? So at this point hubs turns to me and says “Did I just get $10,000??” In my best non-bitter betty voice I tell him “yes… yes you did.”
Now to review, there was an open bar at this shin-dig, and if you remember, hubs likes to drink for 2, sometimes even 3 whenever I am with child, so at this point in the evening he is slightly inebriated kind of wasted. But of course, we feel the need to go up and thank Mrs. Namesake for her generous gift. I ask him to sober up as best he can and we make our way to the head table and I am going with him. (I mean, who knows, maybe Mrs. Namesake wants to come to the baby shower?) We introduce ourselves and she holds our hands and thanks us for being teachers and all of a sudden, it happens.
She asks if we’re expecting. We tell her we are and she congratulates us and asks if we know what we’re having. We tell her we don’t know yet and she tells us SHE will tell us and I am to take a step closer to her. She then proceeds to feel me up and rub me down in ways that probably lead to my becoming pregnant in the first place. I mean full on up and down with both hands rub down. Then she asks me to TURN AROUND and rubs me down on the back side too. I mean on the bum and the hips and all over. You might be wondering what was going through my head. Well, the woman had just given my husband $10,000 so I figured I should take one for the team.
Finally after the full on body rub she gives us her verdict. “It is a girl. And when she is born, you shall name her…. TREASURE. Treasure Ann.” Hubs and I stare at each other, then look at her. Are you f*ing kidding me? is pretty much all we can think. But instead we smile and nod and smile and nod some more. Let’s just say if we name our daughter Treasure and we raise her in Las Vegas, she will most definitely end up on the pole.
Ok, I meant to post this on Tuesday after my latest OB appt. but it’s been a rough week (more on that some other time) and didn’t have a chance to. I have just been thinking about how much I thoroughly enjoy going to the doctor’s office. That might sound weird, most people hate going to the doctor’s and I will admit I, just like any other respectable pregnant lady, hate all of the mundane stuff. You know, the waiting in the big room only to then do some more waiting in the small room, the having to pee in the cup which gets harder every subsequent visit as you begin to lose visual of your private parts, and the quickly increasing numbers on the scale. But there are some pretty great and quite comical things about my appointments to.
First, it should be noted that I LOVE my doctor. It is an intense borderline lesbian crush that I have on this woman. She is so smart, so friendly, and always puts me at ease about anything related to my pregnancy. She had, even before my first pregnancy, been my gyno, but was always hard to catch because when I would show up for my appointments she was always out doing other things like, I don’t know, delivering babies. So when I did get pregnant, completely by accident, one of the few things that helped my complete and overwhelming panic was knowing I would get to see Dr. I. The very first thing she said to me when she walked in the day I saw her was “Oops baby?” It clearly was as she was the one who had prescribed my birth control shortly before. I nodded and she gave me a hug and told me it was going to be okay. For this baby, I proudly told her we had actually done some planning and she congratulated me with another hug. She asked how long we had been trying? “Ummmm about 2 weeks?” I responded, to which she immediately hit me on the arm and said “Well then fertile myrtle, you did good.”
Now there’s another Doc at the practice who is not my doctor but who I always see at the office. I am not sure of his exact ethnicity, but he seems like he could be Indian or Middle Eastern. To me he has always looked like and older version of Disney’s cartoon Aladdin, hence the title of this post. Quite simply, he is real cute. I have always enjoyed Dr. Aladdin’s presence in the office for a bit of eye candy. Yum. Well interestingly enough, at my last OB visit, my doc was out of town, so I had to see, you guessed it, Dr. Aladdin. It was ridiculous. My entire appointment I stumbled over my words, struggled with keeping eye contact, and giggled like a little school girl or Princess Jasmine, whatever. All in all though, I did have a good appointment and baby two is doing doing swimmingly. However, it wasn’t til a few days later that I had a startling revelation. What if I go into labor and my doc is unavailable? and I have to see the on-call doctor? and THE ON-CALL DOCTOR IS DR. ALADDIN? oh dear lord, what would that be like? If it is Dr. Aladdin, my husband has volunteered to leave the delivery room so that Prince Ali and I can have some alone time. (The hubs has jokes.) But seriously though, now I just have visions of giggling my way through contractions and blushing as i dilate. Can I request a more homely looking doctor if this is the case, like on that show “Up All Night”. I think I might just talk to this baby and impress upon them the importance of arriving in this world during Dr. I’s availability to avoid labor awkwardness. Not that labor is ever not awkward.
- In: Canada | The Hubs | Uncategorized
- 1 Comment
i have a pretty amazing husband. i try to tell him as much as i can how much i love him, but not too much because i know it will go to his head. it’s a delicate balance.
you should know a little bit about the first couple of actions my husband took to show me that he loved me. when we met almost 3 years ago, he was the first to say “i love you”. we were watching ‘lockup raw’ one night (quite romantic, huh?) after about a month and a half of dating and he said he had something to tell me. but he said i couldn’t say anything about it, so when he told me he loved me i said, “okay.” slightly awkward, i am aware, but i was trying to do what he told me! truth was i already loved him…. but i felt a lot better about it when he was the first to say it. 🙂 after a mere 2 months of dating, i dropped a huge bomb on him that, through a small bit of user error with my birth control, i was, in fact pregnant. then i promptly left the next day on a 5 day cruise to mexico with a really good friend. now, let’s be honest, my husband is canadian, he had only been living in our city for a few short months and hadn’t really laid down any roots (well other than the fetus i was now carrying), and he could of easily taken the first flight back to our neighbor to the north, and never seen or spoken to me again. some people might of done just that. but he didn’t. instead he sent me on the cruise with an envelope with little slips of paper, one for each day i was gone and each one with a reason for why he loved me and why i was amazing. and, he was there when i came back! he told me everything was going to be okay and that he was with me no matter what. turns out he is the amazing one.
so here are just a couple of more reasons why i love my husband.
1. i have this horrible habit of always saying NO when he asks if i want him to make me something to eat. but then, after he makes himself one, for example’s sake let’s say a sandwich, and after he has put away all of the sandwich-making accouterments, i ask for him to make me one. he pretty much wants to kill me, but he’ll make me one anyway.
2. he is funny. 99% of the time it is at my expense. but i still laugh.
3. he always makes me feel beautiful… even when i’ve got a sinus infection from hell, my hair is graying and falling out, i haven’t brushed my teeth, etc.
4. he loves our son, nuff said.
5. he sings. poorly. worse than i do, i think. but his lyrics are genius. most of the time the songs are about our dumb dog and our fat cat. the man deserves a grammy.
6. i have never felt more loved in my entire life.
there’s more, and i’d really love to list them here, but he just walked by me with some delicious looking chicken, and i’m hungry. now that he’s sat down i think i’m gonna ask him to bring me a plate. 🙂
lexus commercials
Posted on: December 3, 2011
now this may be the poor person in me talking (read: bitter betty), but no one gets a damn lexus for christmas. especially, one with a big ass red bow on it. and no one plays that stupid little jingle either. that is all.
Because I think mine is either not in the “on” position, or maybe it’s completely dysfuncitonal. Let me explain.
With Baby #2 on board, I keep getting the same question over and over again, from friends, family, coworkers, etc. “Do you think it’s a (insert gender here)?” or “Are you hoping for a (insert gender here)?” It’s driving me a little bananas.
Let’s rewind for just a second. I guess it’s important to let you know how the gender question turned out in pregnancy #1. As soon as I got pregnant, I KNEW it was a girl. I just knew it. All I knew about really, having 2 much younger sisters, was baby girls. The then-boyfriend-now-hubs picked out names for both genders, but I kept telling him it was a little futile to pick out a boy name. Maybe we’ll use it later down the line, I told myself, to keep from yelling at significant other for wasting my time. I then proceeded to have at length conversations with “Annabel”, or, as I called her in utero, “Annabelly”. We still have a birthday card for my hubs from that year that I signed… “Debbie & Annabelly”. Friends began getting me girl outfits and tiny shoes with flowers and bows on them and little sparkly pinky things. You know, cause I was having a girl. I went and spent a really kind of ridiculous amount of $$ on the Intelligender drugstore test. When I got a color that was neither boy nor girl, I looked at it at a different angle and convinced myself all signs pointed to pink. My hubs tried to argue but then just let me have what I thought was my little victory. Well, color me surprised when the ultrasound tech joyfully announced, “Let’s see…. leg, leg, oh 3rd leg! We’ve got a boy!” I was stunned. I stopped speaking. A boy?!?! Where is Annabelly? It took me a good 24 hours to get over the shock, and eventually I realized we never really had Annabel, so she never really left. We had Oliver…. or as he was known while in the belly – “Small-iver”.
Let me be the first to tell you that I would not trade my SON for anything in the world. He is, next to meeting my hubs, the best thing that ever happened to me. And really, it only takes second place because I needed to meet my husband so I could have my son. I also think it’s pretty cool that I, who always wanted a big brother, will now be the mother of a big brother. He is going to be awesome.
Fast forward to Baby 2. Here’s the deal. I’m going to be honest, I have no idea what kind of baby this is. I mean a cute one, yes… a lovable one, of course… but ask me to tell you gender and I don’t have a friggin’ clue. There are days when I am pretty convinced it’s Boy #2, for A, B, or C reasons. Then there’s days where I think I’ve got little sister in there. I have done about a million of the old wives’ tale tests, taken online quizzes, checked about 95 versions of the Chinese gender chart and my results are not surprising – about 50/50. Awesome.
So basically I feel like something is wrong with me. A friend who is farther along in her pregnancy said she always felt like she was having a girl. Sure enough, her prediction was confirmed. My MIL told me that when she went to go have my hubs, she had only picked out a boy name. She just knew. An insanely short 18 months later, she went into the hospital to have baby #2 with only a girl name picked out. Sure enough, there came my husband’s younger sister, Laura. My woman’s intuition, that thing that just lets you “know” must be switched off… or broken. It sucks.
If you didn’t think I was really bad at this gender thing, let me tell you a little story about my cat. My cat Penguin was given to me as a kitten and the lady who gave him to me told me she was a girl. A cute little girl kitten, how fun! So how idiotic did I feel when I took Penguin to the vet about a month later and was told he had testes. Thank god we had gone for the gender neutral name, I suppose.
So I guess there’s nothing to do but wait, and wait, and wait some more. It’s really just a few weeks to go. I just wish I had a feeling, or an inkling, or something…. I wish I just “knew”.
Sinus Infection 1; drivethrubride 0…. OR…. my new obsession with the neti pot
Posted on: November 27, 2011
- In: Baby 2 | The Hubs | Uncategorized
- 4 Comments
Okay, I have no idea if this has anything to do with this pregnancy, but I have had a bitchin’ sinus infection for almost 3 weeks now, and it’s killing me. This might be a good time for the “stop reading if bodily functions gross you out” disclaimer. So, you know, stop reading if bodily functions gross you out.
Most of the day, I walk around feeling like my head is all plugged up and as a result uncomfortably large (think one of those Bratz dolls with the disturbingly large heads) but at night is when the real craziness happens. All the “business” (i.e. mucus and snot) gets way up in there as I am sleeping and makes me wake up in the wee hours of the morning, panting for breath and some sort of relief. In case you were wondering, my husband sleeps like a rock. Grrrrr….
So after hearing many of my complaints at work, a colleague recommended the “Neti Pot” for some sinus relief. (Being 12 weeks prego, my options for medical treatments are kinda limited here.) She told me I would see things I had no idea were even up in there, coupled with a very STERN warning to NEVER, I repeat, NEVER, have your significant other see you during this process. Apparently her fiance had seen her “neti-pot” herself and it had changed some things in their relationship… to say the least.
For those of you who are not familiar with the neti pot, I am afraid my words would not do it justice. So here I will provide a visual aid….
What? No!? Really? To that I answer you… yes, yes, and YES. The good news is that the neti pot is providing me some temporary relief. The bad news is that I will never look a kettle the same way again. Planning on asking the doc next week to see if there is something else I can take. Until then it’s me and the neti pot and my bratz doll head.
Who is drive thru bride?
Posted on: November 27, 2011
My name is Debbie. I am a teacher who is married to a teacher. Pretty standard, right? Well, there is a little back story…
In August 2009, I got married to a man I had just met 4 months previously because not only was he going to get deported back to Canada, but I was also pregnant with his child. Oh, and did I mention? We got married at a Las Vegas drive-thru wedding chapel.
Trust me, I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.
Now here’s the update. Much to the (hopefully pleasant) surprise of our friends, families, and anyone with any sort of common sense, we are still together. We have a beautiful toddler and, we just happily announced, one more on the way. We also have an incredibly fat cat named Penguin, an incredibly dumb (albeit super cute) wiener dog named Manny, and an incredibly quiet goldfish named Eduardo who we (okay… I) often forget to feed.
drive thru bride 