notes from the edge (not The Edge from U2, just the edge)

So it's Thursday, Ashley's holy day when Ben is living it up in daycare. I walked around the mall all morning (shook it up, went to Tuggerah instead of Erina - woo hoo) & was reminded that I don't do that much walking all at once anymore. Lots of starting & stopping with my usual companion but today was a pretty solid hour & a half of straight roaming. It felt really good until my feet & hands started to swell, which brought me much stress. How could I forget about this stage of pregnancy??? In this case I just sat down on a bench & rested until things de-puffed. They never got to the ridiculous stage that I used to suffer around this stage of Ben's pregnancy, working all day in an un-airconditioned office in a steamy Sydney summer, commuting 3+ hours a day, most of it on a cramped train where I couldn't elevate my feet at all. My cankles were legendary & I kind of wish I hadn't been too humiliated to photograph them because you would have been impressed. It looked like I was smuggling pasty white tree stumps under my clothes.

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So it's Sunday night & I obviously ran out of steam earlier this week & haven't had the brain power to blog anymore. Things have gone well since then - never mind the new nightly aches & pains. I'm giving my pelvic bones, muscles & ligaments little pep talks that they really don't need to stretch or do anything else drastic because ain't no baby coming down that way but unfortunately, a ladies body has a job to do & it has no time for my opinion on how things should go.

We have lost our minds in this house, by the way. We're neck-deep in organizing everything & rearranging furniture to make room for little Fonzarelli & his visiting family. Let's be honest - I still haven't planned anything for Fonzie beyond our little gorgeous corner so everything else is to make way for a guestroom where our Office of Mystery (because it's a jumble of extras & ends) once was. And while everything was in the darkest state of disarray possible, Marcel & I had a brainstorm ... hey, ya know Ben's furniture would fit in here more easily & his current room would be a much more sensible guestroom/office. So yeah, off to buy paint & to box up all of our sanity because it is of no use to us anymore. It's almost 9pm & Marcel is painting Ben's soon to be room & most of the house is in total madness! Tomorrow, Ben & I are taking a Mama/Son roadtrip to IKEA for a few little things. Luckily, our little clown car can't hold more than a few little things so no new furniture is in our future. Of course, no more furniture would fit in our tiny little Rancho Relaxo either. Did you forget we used to call our house Rancho Relaxo? It's baaaack.

Anyway, so hopefully over the next week Marcel will finish all the painting in there (I am not supposed to be around the fumes in my delicate condition) then we'll move Ben over in one fell swoop (is that the phrase? I've never actually typed it out but that's how I pronounce it), then cobble together the guestroom/office shenanigans. At some point we have to finish all the weeding & pruning back of the backyard landscaping because the weeks of rain have made everything go out of control. And yeah, I suppose we'll actually have to set up that corner of our room that I've been meticulously planning for months. Hope it actually turns out halfway as lovely as I picture it - otherwise, I'm gonna be crabby. Perhaps I should start it sooner than my plan so I can freak out & start over when I hate it! A good friend of ours has said we can use her gorgeous white wood crib instead of our plastic one draped in bumblebee fabric that we got in a sale back in the day. Oh, how I hate our plastic bassinet so I'm hoping their little man is ready to move into his real crib in time for Fonzie to steal a better bed than his fabric wonderland. I do love the idea of bumblebees taking a starring role but the bassinet itself is not so nice.

So there we are. Marcel is painting, Ben is sleeping, I am watching the Masterchef finale like the lazy jackass I am. I am slightly ashamed but I also did dump a bunch of sheets, etc. from our linen closet to donate to charity (all good quality, I assure you) & went through my giant stack of magazines to cut out the interviews, ads & spreads from my old work clients that I arranged or had a hand in. Sometime this week I will put them all in a nice presentation folder or portfolio. No, I don't think this will ever be usable in a job interview situation but it will be a nice little souvenir from my glory days for myself! And most importantly for our current situation, I could finally throw all those magazines in the recycling bin. Huzzah - have had that task on my mental to-do list for the last 2+ years so I'm stoked.

I realize this blog has been pretty darn boring recently, which is why I have kept my entires a little sparser than usual. Now that I'm getting to the final weeks of this pregnancy - did you ever think I'd make it all the way through another ding dang 9 months by the way?? - my thoughts are a jumble of complaints about my groin pains, occasional heartburn, reminding myself to be a good mom to my current child & not to rip Marcel's head off for no reason & to keep drinking water & put my feet up as often as possible to prevent the puffiness. These are not things you want to read about, I'm guessing. I'll have to take some pictures of our insane house rearranging so you can laugh at us like the mean person you are.

We're still working on baby names, by the way so you still have time to nominate any favorites you don't plan on using yourself. Marcel will poo-poo them immediately & I'll get all annoyed at him for not liking anything & he'll claim that he came up with Ben's name, which is just all sorts of an insane lie. But don't feel bad - just suggest the stinking names. And just to prove the level of my neurosis, I'd like to have a name chosen ASAP if for no other reason than I would like to order his name for the wall like we received as a very generous gift from a friend for Ben. If Ben wasn't asleep I'd go in there & take a picture of his name on his wall in gorgeous white but I'm going to steal another example from The Princess and the Pea website in a lovely shade of green that I'm currently tempted by:

Hey, did I tell you that we've had to have another bloody ultrasound rescheduled? Seriously, I don't think we've ever had an appointment just happen as originally scheduled during this pregnancy. The last place actually CLOSED DOWN the week before our very important appointment & this time the ultrasound tech is out sick for 10 days. What on earth? And why do they only have one person capable of looking at my gut baby? I tried to get in somewhere else so I could still have it done before my 32 week midwife checkup but no one could squeeze me in. The midwife I spoke to said I should avoid rescheduling one of their appointments if at possible since I'm still technically high risk so the doctor will just have to look at the films when they come in a week later. Obviously praying for good progress & that Fonzie is growing well & not doing anything stupid in there.

Now you'll have to excuse me but this heaven-forsaken Masterchef season is minutes away from ending & I'd like to watch the chef from the top restaurant in the world give these contestants skeptical looks from beneath his adorable Copenhagen-born beard. I wish I cared about either Kate or Michael at all so I would care who won but neither thrilled my soul, even though they're both very worthy cooks. I hope next season's contestants have more character. And I truly hope I don't get addicted to The Renovators, made from the same people who make Masterchef & is A-W-E-S-O-M-E quite honestly. I'm afraid it may have been the annoying fire under our ass to fix everything up around here.

Okay, seriously done rambling now. Hope you're having a more interesting end to your weekend & I genuinely pray your house doesn't look like it's been ransacked by rabid raccoons like ours does. xo