who crazy.. me?

So things that seem perfectly rational at the time can sometimes look different a few hours later

Take the meatloaf incident..

Last night cooked some meatloaf, stuffing, sweet potato and sweetcorn for me and himself for dinner. All sounds good.. Then I took a bite of meatloaf and immediately took my fork and flung my portion onto his plate. He says threw, I say delicately flung..

He was a wee put out as seems my meatloaf was in one big lump and landed on his already nicely cut up into meatloaf little squares (guess who has baby Borg food cutting duties already ready to go..)

At that moment I couldn't have the meatloaf anywhere near me nor my plate. Rational thought doesn't come into it. Its chopped meat in another form and I don't like chopped meat at the moment, OK I hate chopped meat and it cant be near me. So I flung it off my plate. I thought I wanted the meatloaf but turns out I didn't...

Later on we were amused by my meatloaf throwing behavior and I imagined myself in some Olympic competition flinging lumps of food to plates for a medal.. And Sinead steps up to the plate, fork in hand and oh yesss.... ladies and gentlemen the crowd goes wild, its a straight fling onto the target plate. That's a gold record for sure... Its said she first practiced her skills when she was pregnant and avoiding meatloaf..

Then theres the bed.

Its not so much that I have a few extra pillows as it looks like I'm trying to recreate the princess and the pea or have my own fort on the bed.

I have the huge maternity pillow pictured above (that himself says looks like some 60's icon that I have no clue about - must be American...) and also long body pillow (note to self give that back to Ciara and buy another) -

I now lie on top of said body pillow with maternity pillow around that and another pillow at head and between legs. Himself is now clinging onto the queen size bed for dear life..

And that's only at 14 1/2 weeks, at the end of 9 months I'll probably just tape pillows to myself full time so I can nap anywhere - like a pillow swaddled Michelin man...

Have a good week folks.

spa day

Off to the Irish Network's dance later tonight :-) http://irishnetwork.cnchost.com/ Typically Irish style we weren't sure if we'd get enough to go. Now looks like being 78. Even I have to bang at Irish for late RSVPs..

So Looking forward to it - and also my day of indulging myself. I avoided getting my hair done for well basically last 3 months so looking like a cat is on top of my head at present. Not as cute as this cat either.

So its off to hairdresser for me and then to Le Spa Campbell to get my nails done and generally feel pampered :-) http://www.lespacampbell.com/ Its good to pamper yourself every once in a while. This time I'll remember to bring flip flops (well sandals as flip flops freak me out, hate having that toggle between my toes...) Normally they look at me with pity when I try and stick my newly polished nails into my socks and shoes... One great thing about being preggers is my nails are growing ! Even my toenails that I often tip the girl extra just because of the effort they go to trying to put nail polish on smallest surface area in the world...

Here's to being a girl and allowing ourselves that time to breathe, stop and daydream for a couple of hours under a blow dryer..

Gilroy, Payless, Walmart and R2-D2 oh my....

So yesterday was Presidents Day here, which basically means a bank holiday and chilling. It was Gra and Dees last day to seriously shop so they did.

Since they had to drop back their rental and didn't know where to go that easily (Even with the GPS who they are now on a first name basis with calling Emily...) I offered to drive them to the outlet stores as long as I could stay in car, read book and I'd drop them off and then pick them up from each area. Worked well folks as parking was scare and they zipped in and out of stores with ching ching sound of cash registers in their wake. We then hit the mother store my Mums favorite of all time, Walmart where they both bought enough shampoo and curtain type things to make me think of setting up a side business of selling it at home in Ireland via Ebay ;-) Then off to San Jose again after Best Buy at 5pm after a good 8 hours shopping and to Mervyns and then Payless to pick up sneakers Mum wanted. (My families motto being - If you can't shop there yourself, send your kids....) We fell home at 710pm, himself was home at 740pm and we went to Katie Blooms for a pint and dinner before they broke the laws of physics in getting all the stuff they bought into their bags and somehow not being overweight for luggage.


But before we went to dinner though Gra and Dee gave us a fantastic pressie - which they shouldn't have but we really really appreciated. Our own R2-D2 interactive Droid ! We screamed with joy (OK I screamed but himself did that wee jump of his)..


How frackin cool is that ! It obeys voice commands (when its in the mood, some training to do there) and is just brilliant. Dee seemingly didn't know what movie R2-D2 is from and that's just plain wrong but can be forgiven for giving us one of the coolest pressies EVER ! Thanks Gra and Dee, the permanent seat mark I have on my arse from driving around shops is forgiven and the having to get up at 6am this morning to go to airport lol (;-)


Of course we can only get this now where we still get the cool toys before we have to share or give to Baby Borg. Yep we're two big kids really... It dances, plays tag, puts on a headlight, moves and is very very cool ! Yep, we drooled like the two sad geeks we are. It was so nice having Gra and Dee over for the week. They saw from San Fran to Rewoods, Yosemite to Sea at Costanoa and we had great craic. Brilliant time and the perfect guests who go see lots of stuff themselves and also great fun with us in the evening.

Hope your Presidents day was a doozie and if you had to work home it was short and quick.. Till next time folks.

For those of course who want more details on R2-D2
http://www.hasbro.com/default.cfm?page=browse&product_id=9647

• Motorized, voice-activated replica of R2-D2™ will serve as your dedicated helper (an extendable utility arm holds a drink) and loyal friend.
• He obeys commands, communicates with beeps and whistles, gestures, flashes his lights, swivels his dome, dances to a cantina song, plays games and navigates with sonar and infrared sensors.
• Features three modes: Companion, where he's friendly; Game, where he plays tag, spins and dances; and Command, where he maneuvers in different directions.
• He recognizes and reacts to 30 phrases; say Princess Leia's name and R2 emits excited wolf-like whistles, but mention Darth Vader and he shakes with fear!
  Measures 16 1/2" x 11" x 11" and weighs 7 lbs. Ages 8 and up.
• (figure that its OK for us then !)

Full Bladder and Heartbeat..

We did another scan this week. The one that you do before 13 weeks that's more detailed and measures the baby's neck thickness to check its within range. So Gra and Dee were here so they went with us to the appointment. It was one of those ones where you have to drink copious amounts of water for the scan. I was told scan was at 915am then the genetic counseling at 1015 so drank 2 large cups of tea, one large glass of OJ, large cup of ginger tea and three 12oz bottles of water in the car on way over. So about 63 oz of fluid in one hour.....

We get to appointment and they put us in genetic counselor office first. Nice lady and a lot brighter than last one we went to who didn't know anything about my blood disease hereditary spherecytosis. http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=3724clekey=3724
its a hereditary blood disease, although looks like my Mum is the mutant who gave it to me and my sister Orla. Its grand and not curable but treatable. We all got our spleens out as kids and Orlas both wee ones have it so its something we have to be prepared for with our wee Baby Borg. Anyway counselor at least knew what it was and also was a nice lady however at this point I am squirming on chair with the size of my bladder overflowing...

So back to waiting room and now I am trying not to think of waterfalls as all the liquid is having me cross my legs while I walk. They take us in at 1030am to a room for first scan. I lie on table as intern tries to find the baby. After 10 minutes I get worried as she cant seem to find the baby. I cant see the monitor just himself's face and Gra is in room as well. They do however see my bladder and intern keeps saying - that's really full bladder. Yes I KNOW ! Heres how I felt. Gushing waterfalls and pressure building up...




They call in this French Doc who was lovely and amazing and found baby straight away. He turned up the monitor and we heard heartbeat for the first time. Amazing. 160 beats a minute, so really strong and baby is now 59 mm long (was 45 not even a week before). Here's a baby's heartbeat so you can hear what its like. (still trying to work out how to put our wee clip on blog). So everything looked good amniotic fluid and size of baby and placenta etc. Which is all good news. Turns out intern kept passing over the baby and himself andGra keep seeing baby and all my other organs too. They said they felt like saying you're getting warmer warmer. Of course all I could think was , well it was there last Tuesday when I was at the OB/Gyn so where is it now.
http://pregnancy.about.com/cs/pregnancyphotos/l/blheartbeat.htm

We weren't finished though - off to another room for a scan and I still haven't tinkled. I am now crossing my eyes and my back teeth are floating.... So this scan they measure the babies neck thickness so they can determine if its in the normal range of development. Problem is they have to have the baby lie flat in one certain position when they take the picture. Baby Borg decides its bouncing time and is bouncing all over the scan, curling up one minute and doing a routine for Olympic gymnastics the next. Finally French Doc again comes to rescue and gets the picture they need. At this point he's my hero and Gra is taking pics of the hunky doc instead of the scan. The main Doc a Belfast man who came here 1975 comes in and thankfully I understand him and wonder how the American patients do as he mutters low and with a northern accent that hasn't changed much since he left Belfast. They send the pics off to a special lab but this Doc reads them also and says all looks good, the thickness of skin is 1.4 mm which is normal (usually range of 1 to 3mm). So all good

They walk out and himself gets me off the table, I ask where the ladies toilet is while i run with legs crossed. Finally.. the ladies room. I was never so happy to be there. Maybe I should get one of those special astronaut space diapers/nappies so I'm prepared ;-)

Have yourselves a great day and thanks a million for all the emails and good wishes to those who called and sent a wee note.

more pics - Effies restaurant may never be the same

Deirdre and Grainne take Campbell !

So had a mixermixer last night for Deirdres bday and Grainne who are visiting me from Ireland for a week. For those who don't know mixer - I call it my rent a friend and its a brilliant concept. As we get older, ahem, its harder to meet folks especially if not into bar scene which is pretty sad here in states. So like minded social folks meet up and do activities together and you meet some really nice folks out of it. http://mixermixer.com

So last night was a brilliant night. I was completely sober being preggers and Grainne and Dee had a blast. I was laughing myself sick. Karaoke was being played and at first shy folks got up. By the end I think we needed a crowbar to get the mike out of certain peoples hands.. Ahem Dee.

glowing myths

So yep Great News folks - himself and myself are expecting a wee Borg to the family, end of August. 2007 ! Some of you were wondering why I was suddenly so addicted to Jello/Jelly :-) There ya go. Its the hormones talking. We are over the moon happy and I cant wait to get past the first 12 weeks so we can share with everyone but also

1. So I don't have to pee every two hours...
2. So I don't have to pee every two hours including every two hours at night..
3. So I have more energy than a 150 year old woman after 2pm in the afternoon..
4. So I can hopefully eat Indian food again which right now has gone to the OMG the smell of that is going to make me barf make it go away
5. So I don't have to cross my legs like a mad Michael Flatley dance when I cough or sneeze.

Pregnancy is a funny time. There's lots of things they don't tell you. Like its 10 months. Really. You're 2 weeks pregnant before you actually made the wee one so its 40 weeks, which is 10 months when you divide it up. Also I read a very funny piece in a book which I also think sums it up very well. Pregnant women are reported to be glowing, but its usually because they are trying to hold in the farts and trying not to let them off in front of others. No where did I hear about the amount of gas that pregnant women have. I could seriously be a Gold Medal winner for Ireland ! Also I've always been a very hairless person. I shave under my arms once a month and theres usually nothing there anyway but two hairs. Now I'm like one of those chia pets but just on my right arm pit. Every two weeks I now have 10 hairs growing like they were on steroids.

Also the boobies have grown heavier considerably. Those who know me know that chest area has always been on the lets say - bigger size. Victoria Secret doesn't make bras big enough for me but Fredrick of Hollywood's who also cater to the lets say erotic film industry does. Well now I need bras that could bring up the titanic.. We're wondering if we should put snorkel gear on the registry for the baby...

We told the folks at New Years in Florida since they were both together. We think himself's folks were hoping as they already had 2 bottles of champagne in fridge and it was mentioned at least 3 times every phone call... My folks were also delighted and even though it would be their 8 grandchild Please God and they are also over the moon.

Although my Mum didn't like that we're calling the bump the Hobbit. (Note she thought Fred was a good stand in name for the fetus - like that's any better ! ) Figured Hobbits live in the shire which are holes underground and our wee Hobbit is doing great.

Here's the latest dildo cam or scan from Feb 6th :-) Saw the arms move today and the heart's beating away. The Doc still has to point out which end is which, hopefully that gets better by the time they are in real space :-) For those wondering the baby is between the two plus signs in the middle there. Last scan looked like woodstock the bird that sits onto top of Snoppys house. This time looks like .. well dont know what Hobbit looks like yet. Take a while to figure that one.







So for those who were wondering - why did Sinead fall off the planet last three months and I never hear from her. That's why. Been napping in evening like a sloth. I have nap time and my snacks down to an art and leaves very little time for anything but the odd email before I fall back asleep., well that and getting up to pee. Seems its Mother Natures way of springing a joke on us to remind us of whats in store.. I don't see the joke but maybe you need an Icelandic sense of humor to get it....

More from me and the Hobbit over next couple of months. For all of those friends and family who have babies and can go hahahaha now lets see how you guys do it !.. And for those who don't - be warned - we will be calling looking for babysitters !

bucket head

here he is with same bucket.. Cruel what we adults find so funny.. :-)

cutest kid

Heres wee David - Ciara and Dannys wee boy with a bucket on Christmas Day 2006. He gave us at least an hour of amusement by running around with it on his head while of course the adults only reinforced this behavior by laughing out loud. Hes a very cute kid with fantastic laid back parents.