this could be it

but who knows. I might be having contractions, but I might not be.
And what a yucky day.

I just spent

two hours on the phone with the worst company ever -- Brands On Sale. Nothing is going right today. I'm so frustrated.My entire morning was spent doing this rather than doing anything productive. I'm about to go get Emmett from school. But here's a little update.

The baby was due yesterday. I have a doctor's appointment today at 1. I think this baby is late.

Emmett is the cutest and smartest kid ever. I realized yesterday that he's popular. It's easy to identify if your kid is not popular, but it takes awhile to realize that he is popular. Additionally, he's so smart. He has been learning to write his name (I've been teaching him) and this is so much fun. He loves reading and is always "confirming facts" like "Mommy, those flowers will now grow new flowers, right"? (about flowers in a vase. Or "Mommy, when God made the flood, he did it on purpose, so it was okay right"? (that one is a little harder to explain) or "If a kid does something bad and gets a spanking and says he's sorry, then it's okay, right" (We don't spank him...I'm not sure how he knows about that).

I officially state here that Law & Order SVU is the best of them. The other one has the very strange guy on it, and I'm not sure if his mannerisms are working. The female co-part is just worthless.

On Saturday night I dropped off some CD's to my friend's warehouse show and people (mostly punkrock and younger without children) did not know what to make of me. Whenever I walked through the room, they parted like the red sea. I was behind a sound system I didn't know how to work and left early. I was having a good time and the music was okay, but I wanted to leave before Igot exhausted.

The baby's foot is pushing right at the top of my stomach, and it hurts. Tonight is my class (the one I take with Phil) and it has to be the last one before I have this baby. Doesn't it? Emmett was two weeks early. What is going on here. I'm not even packed for the hospital, so maybe it's okay.

The biggest joy for a mom

is dropping her kid off at preschool an hour late, and when she walks in with her son, seeing 15 faces light up and 15 little voices scream "Emmett!" as if he were Norm -- and to hear your son's adorable little voice say "hi guys" sheepishly, and smile as he sits at the head of the table.

And this is why my husband is so great.

Email from a few minutes ago.

...I went to the holes in our room to get down the air mattress to put in an under the bed box and they don't seem to fit underneath. I can't physically push it under. Also, there are just these hangers that you've discarded on the floor that I have to force into the baby's room because I don't know what it is. The returns..I'm not sure. They've been hanging there for more than a week with no plans to ever go back.

Mike, I need you to help me live here. I can't have it be that I am here
all day unable to physically lift and carry (although I have started to move things because I feel I have to-- I.E. The humidifier, A laundry basket of various things. In a minute, all the shoes piled at the door that I keep mentioning to you). Nothing seems to be at completion.

Elisabeth

-----

I know things aren't finished. I will run around tonight and tie up all
the quick items. There is still a lot to do, and I am not done.

A list is a great idea. Sometimes I feel that I can't start a big project
and forget that there are little things to do. You can expect some things
to get done tonight. I feel good and refreshed today. Yesterday was a
recovery day.

Love,

Mike

Whine whine whine whine

I am getting so depressed so fast, it is totally bi-polar. I cannot believe how much I want to cry right now. Everything is tipping me off. I am so frustrated with how slow I am going and how much I feel like I can't do. Everything is heavy. Everything is difficult. Bending down is a major achievement. Everything is in disaster mode, but it's not, but to me it feels like it is. I am starting to wish for the suburban dream.
I got mad at Emmett for going too slow...obviously, something I can't stand that's happening to me...and begged for his forgiveness.
Thank God Emmett's friend is over and they're having a blast playing, disgusing the otherwise obvious frustration in me.

My sister sent a photo over and in one of them, the way she's looking at her husband, with total adoration (which I commonly see in her eyes for him) is something I'm jealous of...really jealous. I feel that she continues to feel infatuated with her husband.

I'm sorry for blabbing on about this, but this is my real life. This is really it. I am a TOTAL FUCK UP. I'm insatiable. I'm overly moody. I can't handle life's basics.

When I was in elementary school,

a REGULAR report card comment code was "Does not work to potential". I never took it seriously and neither did my parents. We all knew it was true and it's because I was always taking shortcuts. When I type in the term "Does not work to potential" in google images, the photo I included comes up, along with similar ones for different products.

I see my son and husband -- the opposite of me in this way. They work to their potential at everything. The art of a "working shortcut" is something for them to learn, not something they default to. It's taken me 20 years to figure out shortcuts that don't damage, and even now sometimes my speediness causes disaster.

Loving Emmett makes me remember what I love in Mike. Because Emmett is much more like Mike than he is like me. And seeing the adorableness of these traits in my little 4 year old makes me realize why I fell in love with Mike. That for as much as I complain about Mike being slow with things, that there's a depth and an intelligence to "taking it slow" and "enjoying the trip". Emmett is just like him and is always trying to tell me how fast he's going because he hears it come up between Mike and I. But he's just like his dad and I need to encourage this.

So you couple Mike with me and my urgency to complete...my urgency to finish (which does at times produce good results) and there's a solid combination. Mike will do the taxes. Mike will cut perfect business cards. Mike will mathmatically figure out the perfect spacing for a piece of furniture. But I can come up with the ideas fast. I can paint a room quickly. I can clean a house with a timer. All the bitching I do about my speed and his speed...right now I'm realizing that I'm out of my mind.

I'm tired today, but woke up feeling very creative. When I pick Emmett up from school today, we're driving straight to Pearl to get some matted frames and good paper so he can paint pictures that we can frame and hang up in his room. But with Emmett, today when I layout his paints and paper, I know that he'll spend a good 2 hours completing his assignment. He's not trying to "get to the next thing. He's just enjoying things as they happen. There's something to learn from my family.

Today I feel like I want to really spend slow, quality time with Emmett. I know when the baby comes, my attention will be divided. I can't imagine loving anyone as much as I love my boy. And Mike continues to amaze me as he models the perfect husband for support during pregnancy. In the beginning, I felt like I was doing this "alone" and told him that. I asked him to please be in this with me. I asked him to please help me through this and angrily expected nothing. I have to say that he's doing it. It just took me six months to figure it all out. It's important that I credit him here so I don't forget it.

Random Thoughts.

1. We got new carpets upstairs yesterday and today they're coming to finish the job.
2. Mike took another day off of work because I asked him to.
3. I have to buy Nestle Quick for Emmett's school today.
4. I'm having contractions but ignoring them because today is not a good day for the baby to come.
5. I can't believe I'm admitting to number 4, but I really don't believe this is the day for the baby.
6. The upstairs of our house looks so much better with the new carpets, I can hardly believe it.
7. When I think about a healthy, problem-free baby, I feel excited to give birth. When I think about our baby being unhealthy or having problems, I do not feel excited and feel depressed.
8. I have eaten a lot of meat during this pregnancy, hoping it will help make the baby stronger.
9. Last night at my class, I told the teacher that I might not be there next week because I might have the baby, but I would try to come in anyway since he was so hardcore about us missing class. It was slightly funny, but I was kind of serious.
10. I have something to prove with having this baby. That A) I will lose the weight fast and that B) I will not take a long time to adjust and will continue doing things that I've been doing so I don't go into depression again.
11. I can't wait to be able to roll around with Emmett on the floor again.
12. The carpet installer told me that a great vacuum is this Dirt Devil Breeze Bagless that is sitting in my living room. That he's tried them all. This is something I definitely want to get and am writing it here so I don't forget.
13. It is extremely frustrating not to be able to move quickly.
14. This pregnancy was better than the one with Emmett in terms of depression.
15. I am amazed by my friends and how loyal and loving they are. In the course of one day, Shelley gave me a hug, Chris asked me for advice and then took it and told me I was a genius, Phil picked up my notebook when I dropped it and waited with me after class, Jessica picked me up from class and drove me home.
16. I am now 170 lbs, but still look better than I did with Emmett and gained less weight.
17. The doctor told me it could be today that I have the baby...or next week. Nothing would surprise him.
18. Seph wants me to go to his warehouse show on Saturday and sit behind an office window and hand things out. It feels like a repeat of 3 years ago during Halloween with me, extremely pregnant, greeting people at the front door and them thinking I was in costume -- slightly confused.
19. Emmett has these "slim fit" jeans that when, combined with his messy hair, really make him look extremely hip.
20. Mike is the best husband ever and for once I feel more content than I have in a long time. He is literally taking care of me during this pregnancy. He's given me my vitamin every night. He's gone out in the middle of the night to get me Peptobismal. He listens to every weird detail. BUT, today when the doctor was "checking me out", Mike couldn't look and just sort of slipped to the side and looked at my face. I wonder if he'll watch when the baby comes out. He and I are alike in this way. We don't really think this whole thing is "beautiful" to watch. It's just the way it happens, but we can't force ourselves to call it beautiful or want it on video.
21. We finished this year's festival magazine and it turned out really well.
22. I got scammed by a lo-priced upholstery cleaner. Here's my post: http://philadelphia.citysearch.com/review/44692950
23. I want to go to Babies R Us like I've never wanted to before.
24. Ana basically cleaned out and organized the baby's room
25. I'm starting to like our house and am having ideas.

Everything I do seems like the "last"

before I have the baby. Last weekend, it was sitting with my friend at his flea market table. "the last time" I thought, I'll be able to pick up and go on a Saturday. This morning feels like my last blog before the baby. Right now is the last morning I'll ever wake up with these aqua blue carpets under my feet. In some weird way I feel like I'm betraying them by having them replaced. They got us through. They did okay. They're not in bad shape. We created a color story with them.

I woke up this morning at 4:30 and I should have tried harder to go back to sleep but I didn't. I want to be awake. I want to be preparing. And there's a strange sadness I'm feeling at the limits on my life, even thought it could probably never be any other way. There will forever be the other side of this hill...what could have been. The things I could have done. The men I could have been with. The things I could have accomplished. Since I wrote here last, this fascination with what didn't happen has been asleep. I'm probably writing today because I woke up at 4:30 this morning thinking about the things I might have missed. And maybe I'm tired and a little poetic this morning, but each thought I have is accompanied by lyrics, so, even though it won't matter to anyone else, I have to write them (even though I hate reading lyrics mixed into thoughts with no explanation), because I thinking somehow they must be saying things I'm not, and that's why they're in my head.

why do you try to hold on
to what you'll never get a hold on
you wouldn't try to put the ocean
in a paper cup

i have had something to prove
as long as i know something
that needs improvement
and you know that everytime i move
i make a woman's movement
and first you decide what you've gotta do
then you go out and do it
and maybe the most that we can do
is just to see each other through it

And I know what all this is connected to, but it's counter productive in many ways to write it all out. On the other side of all of this is my husband, who continues to prove to be amazingly loving, caring, respectful and thoughtful. I haven't mentioned before that he's brought me fresh flowers throughout the pregnancy. He let me pick the carpet. He let me buy a $70 basket rack for the baby's room because I really love it. He's let me sleep for months, expecting nothing from me. He moved our entire office down to the basement, and asked for no help. All he wants is for me to be comfortable.

And you will take the heaviest stuff,
and you will drive the car,
and I'll look out the window and make jokes,
about the way things are.

I've never been to Camden at night,

but my doctor is part of Cooper University Hospital in Camden, and I had to go to the Emergency room last night, so we went to the one in Camden so everything would process okay with my doctor's office. I was so surprised at the entire experience.

It was a four hour stay in the emergency room -- and I might be under with my time here. It took forever, but thank God, I don't have a blood clot. I have been avoiding dealing with the pain in my right leg for a long time, mainly because it feels like a bruise. But whatever it is doesn't really matter. It's not a blood clot.

First of all, I thought the staff and people waiting would be mostly poor and black -- but they weren't. There was a good (and not tense) mix with both the patients and the staff and I felt like there wasn't the "I don't have to help you if I don't want and how dare you bother me and I will make you wait a few extra minutes because I can" attitude I've experienced in Jefferson. In fact, I expected the service to be like Jefferson, but it was so much better -- it was like we were in the suburbs. Everyone was so great, things moved (relatively) quickly, and we felt like we were being taken care of. Cooper University Hospital is WAY better than Jefferson and even may be better than Penn. Who would think I'd be a fan of a Camden hospital. But I really am.

I followed my OBGYN from Jefferson and in subsequent conversations have learned a lot about the OBGYN crisis in Philadelphia. Dr. Mama (actual name) is the BEST. I have never loved a doctor more than him. Another doctor from Jefferson followed Dr. Mama to Cooper, and they were telling me about how they just couldn't keep good OBGYN's in Philadelphia because of cost and demand. The OBGYNs that are still there seem to be underpaid and overworked.

Today, I have a sore throat, I'm extremely tired and am working on being not dehydrated (which i was last night and which can make you go into preterm labor because it dries up your uterus). Tonight I have class and Emmett has soccer.

Last note, I had to get wheeled around in a wheel chair while I was at Cooper last night. They force you to do it. Every opportunity possible I was getting out of the wheel chair, but they kept making me go back in. I felt like a proud old lady that could "do it herself".

I feel kind of sick

today. I have a sore throat and my leg hurts and I feel tired, like in a sleep deprived kind of way. I am just telling you all this because I am so tired, I have nothing more interesting to say.