Tuesday, December 17, 2013

{head injuries and sugar comas}

 photo 7129880A-C485-4637-9470-2763E4248C4A_zpsgrmmnyot.jpg Healing is such a miraculous thing. I've come to expect it of myself and take it for granted, but it really is amazing how we break so easily but don't stay broken.

I've spent a large amount of time in bed this week, reading and sleeping and letting my body do its whole healing thing. My constant headache is tapering off, it doesn't hurt to swallow or talk anymore (I had no idea that you could pull your throat muscles until now), and I can almost walk normally again. Like, as 'normally' as possible at this point. I've had a million people comment on my "pregnant waddle" and I haven't bothered to correct them on it. Limp/waddle, whatever. Sure.

Anyway. You've got to love progress. And it's happening just in time, because there are, what, eight days until Christmas? Family is starting to arrive in town, and I need those sore muscles to step up and shut up and be there so I can hug some nieces and nephews. (I have the most huggable nieces and nephews and most of them are quite unreachable, usually, on either end of this ridiculously big country. It'll be nice to have them all under one roof soon.)

We've already kind of kicked off the holidays with a big sugary bang. Two of Barclay's sisters, two nieces and my mum-in-law came over yesterday and we made chocolate bark of all kinds and I ate too much without really thinking about it at the time.

I feel it now. Christmas baking, you heartless fiend.  

Oh well. Bodies heal. From head injuries and sugar comas.

Friday, December 13, 2013

{a date in labour & delivery}

"Hey, Barclay. So, I don't want you to worry or anything, because everything's totally fine, and I'm fine, and I'm sure the baby's fine. So don't worry. But, uh..."

I know that people hate when you start out a phone call that way. But if you lead with the part that they're not supposed to worry about and then say the part about being fine, I feel like they'd hate that too. You kind of just have to pick the lesser of the two evils and talk really fast so you can get it all out before they have time to think about what you're saying. I'm really bad at this. I stutter and ask all of my statements like I need permission to share news if it's bad.

"...Well ok. So I fell? On some ice?"

"What? Where are you?"

"Um, on the ground?"

Because I was. I'd hit it hard and I was still there. It'd been enough to knock me out, and when I'd come to there was a little circle of concerned faces around my head. And no one was wearing jackets, which was weird because it was minus thirty-something and snowing pretty hard.

I had realized, quickly, that the reason no one was wearing their jackets was because I was wearing their jackets. There was one under my feet, and one under my belly, and the rest were stacked on top of me. What an adorable group of anonymous people. My face and back were numb from being pressed into the ice, but when I'd tried to move my head a curly-haired lady in an RCMP sweatshirt had held me still.

"Don't move your head, sweetie, okay? You need to just be still. The ambulance is on its way."

Good graish. The ambulance. I'd said thank you and asked for my phone so I could call Barclay. I'd stuck a little dinosaur arm up out of the jacket pile. He had answered on the third ring.

"The ground? Still? But where?" He sounded a little panicky, and I tried to think of a way to say that I was waiting for an ambulance without making it sound like a big deal. But even if you say you're waiting for an ambulance in the same tone of voice you'd use to say that you're waiting for a taxi, it doesn't seem to make a big difference to the person your saying it to.

The lady in the sweatshirt started yelling at people around me just then, "Sir, can you hold her head for me. She needs to not move until the paramedics get here."

I hoped Barclay hadn't heard that. "Mike's. Like, the grocery store. And they've called an ambulance. But I'm really okay. Will you come get me, please? Ambulance rides cost, like, five hundred bucks."

He said he'd be right there so we hung up and I thanked the man who was holding my head and said I could probably get up now and that my husband was coming, but he dutifully held me down like he'd been told to do. I thought about how bizarre it was to be laying there in such a public place, my head cradled in the hands of someone I couldn't see (didn't ever actually see), covered in so many strangers' jackets while the crowd grew bigger and bigger and the ambulance's siren grew louder and louder.

People were crouching by my head to touch my hair and call me Sweetheart and Honey and ask how far along I was and what gender the baby was and whether I was cold and if they could get me anything. I was so touched, but so embarrassed. I don't mind being the centre of attention if I'm telling a joke or something, but being the centre of attention for falling down in public is different somehow.

Anyway.

That was how we ended up in the Labour & Delivery Unit at the hospital an hour later. I was hooked up to a monitor having super frequent contractions, presumably brought on by the fall, and the nurse was being all calm and grinny while she checked me over, saying terrifying things like, "Well, this might be it!"

I tried to be calm and grinny too. "This can't be it," I told her. "It's not time yet."

She laughed at me and said another terrifying thing. "You don't decide when it's time," she said. "The baby decides."

It wasn't time.

But it was good. Like, in the way that things are good sometimes where they don't feel good right at the time that they happen but end up being good somehow anyway. You know? I mean, I feel like I've been hit by a mack truck, and I'm planning on spending today here, just here, with a hot water bottle and an ice pack and a wheat bag, but that's temporary and I'll be fine.

The good:

We were in that little room at the hospital for something like six hours, the baby's heartbeat printing out in little jigs and jags from the monitor screen. For the first half hour, I was freaked out of my mind. I didn't want to be there. I didn't want him to come yet. I wasn't ready. I hadn't read a single book on how to be a mom. I didn't have a crib mattress. I needed to wash his clothes. Plus, I've heard--and maybe you've heard this too--that it hurts.

But six hours is, surprisingly, enough time. It's enough time to get used to a place that scares you and to meet a lot of friendly nurses and to talk things over with your husband and for both of you to realize that you'll never actually be ready but that that's okay and to remind yourself that pain is temporary enough to not matter that much. It's enough to get a little perspective shift and to make some of the unknowns known, which takes the edge off of them just the tiniest bit. It's enough to play multiple games of 20 questions and eat the skungy food they offer you out of the fridge.

So the good is that our little date in L&D was kind of like an answer to the prayer that I've been praying every night for the past 8 months (which goes something like, "Lord, please help them to invent baby teletransportation before January 22 because I'm the biggest wuss ever").

But when we got home that night, I think we were both still thankful for another month or so to get the things ready that can be gotten ready. We fell asleep right away, and slept through our alarm the next morning.

Monday, December 09, 2013

{this year's bash}

 photo IMG_7890_zpscc0c26ef.jpg Last year around this time, a few friends and I borrowed this guy's house while he was away in Africa or someplace (he still doesn't know) and threw a Who-themed Christmas party. This year, the guy was using his house for living in, so we had to throw our annual Christmas party at Karlie's place. We tossed around a bunch of themes (I was really pulling for Christmas In Space because, I don't know, I guess I wanted to dress up like an alien, but everyone hated that idea) and finally settled on a Christmas carol theme. Not, like, Charles-Dickens-Tiny-Tim-Ghost-of-Christmas-Past Christmas Carol, but, like, come dressed as a Christmas carol.

Do you know how hard it is to think of a Christmas carol that can be dressed up as? But we did alright, I think.  photo IMG_7882_zps0af3a03f.jpg  photo IMG_7874_zps32661cf2.jpg  photo IMG_7875_zps957f10ae.jpg  photo IMG_7883_zps326bd7d6.jpg  photo IMG_7881_zpsc422a613.jpg  photo IMG_7880_zps1ffc4c6a.jpg  photo IMG_7879_zpsab69d4bc.jpg  photo IMG_7878_zpsd08c788f.jpg In case you can't tell from the pictures, we ended up with Let It Snow, All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teeth, Jolly Old St Nicholas, Rude Elf The Red-Nosed Rain Ear, Old Lang Syne, Holy Knight, Jingle Bells, Oh Christmas Tree, What Child is This, and Silver Bells.

The highlight of the evening was a game of Zip Zip Bong which, if you haven't heard of it before, is arguably one of the most painful and hilarious games of all time. You have to suck your lips in so that your teeth never show, and then you go around the circle either saying "zip" or "bong". A "zip" passes the turn to the person beside you, but a "bong" changes the direction. You're out if your teeth show or if you speak at the wrong time.
 photo IMG_7889_zpsd44a31ba.jpg  photo IMG_7887_zpsa07e91a8.jpg It starts out fairly simple, but then, inevitably, someone starts to laugh because they are struck with a sudden realization of how incredibly dumb everyone else looks. And there isn't really anything funnier than watching someone try to keep their mouth sucked in like that while they're gut-laughing. So everyone's laughing and crying and still trying to keep track of where the game's at and not show their teeth. After a while, your teeth are straight-up cutting into your lips and your belly hurts like you've just done the most intense ab workout of your life and you pretty much want to die. It's fun.
 photo IMG_7888_zpsf9ec765a.jpg
Play it sometime. Let me know what you think. Don't cheat by covering your mouth with your hand; that would be pretty lame of you.

Anyway.

It's a sweet group of people and I like them and it was a good night. And that's really all I've got to say about that.
 photo IMG_7892_zps1b7b43da.jpg  photo IMG_7891_zpse42e49fc.jpg  photo IMG_7876_zps23975bf4.jpg

Wednesday, December 04, 2013

{my neon mobile}

 photo image_zpsd20405a4.jpegLast night, I rediscovered this box of neon feathers in my office closet. I'd found them a few years ago at Dollarama and bought them with absolutely no plan in mind simply because they were both neon and only a dollar. They were stacked, neatly and auspiciously, on top of a box containing the remnants of an old bead curtain that fell apart in one of my many moves over the years.

I'd been looking online for ideas to make a mobile to hang in the nursery, but everything I came across was made of tissue paper or pom-poms or was airplane-themed or boat-themed or elephant-themed or was too much work or too much money or whatever--which are all things that are so totally fine and cute and good and all that, only not for me.

Neon feathers and beads, on the other hand. Thrifty and quick and a little bit tacky. So, I mean, perfect. (In a job interview once, I was asked to describe myself in three words. At the time, because it was, after all, a job interview for a job I actually wanted and needed, I probably said something like, "Punctual and efficient and motivated." But I should have probably said, "Definitely thrifty and maybe kind of lazy and a little bit tacky.")

So I dug further and came up with fishing line and two BBQ skewers, and spent the rest of the evening with my feet on the coffee table, threading beads and tying knots and listening to Nick Drake and eating chocolate chips. And this is what I came up with:
 photo image-2_zps119fe5c5.jpeg It might not be worthy of the chevron/owl/airplane-themed Pinterest boards I've been seeing around the internet lately, but I'm happy with the way that it moves when I open the window and pleased as punch with all the bright colours. Plus, the whole thing probably ended up costing me less than 40 cents. So. There is that.