So I picked a great day to be at home sick.

Okay, so I didn’t pick the day. It picked me. I woke up feeling like complete garbage this morning, having caught the plague that is going around my office. Oddly, I have been one of the last people to catch it. Must be that daycare germs are building up my resistance finally. Or something.

Anyway, I can tell when I wake up that I have a fever and somehow I am even more achy than normal. I am normally pretty achy right now, so extra achiness means I am basically barely moving. The thought of even walking from my car to the subway meant I turned the alarm clock off and went back to sleep.

So I resign myself to a day of crankiness, napping and daytime television. Except just before I get a chance to catch the new hosts on the View, the cable cuts out. When it’s not on 20 minutes later (and I’ve turned the TV and the cable box on and off like 50 times), I then realize the telephone and internet are also buggered.

Good god, I think, I’m going to have to like read a book or do some housework or something. Or write a blog entry while offline, ha ha.

I called Rogers, our sole provider of these services. Except of course I had to call on my cell phone (also on Rogers), which decided to keep cutting out. I’m thinking at this point it’s got to be a bigger issue that just my little old house. And so it was, when I eventually managed to stay on the phone long enough to speak to someone – our whole street was out. At least this means they’ll fix it fast, right? (can’t help but have that minor panic of …what if something happens to me and I need to call 911 and my damn cell keeps cutting out?! – but it’s just mild paranoia really…)

***

I think this blog is a better place than the other blog to write something about the virtues of being childless this week.

I truly had forgotten what it was like to be able to get things done when you want to do them (well, within reason, I can’t bend over or lug heavy stuff around right now).

It’s not that it’s Oliver’s fault that I don’t have the freedom that I used to. In fact, it’s really mine. I only see the kid like 2 hours a weekday. If I use that time to make a nice dinner, clean the kitchen or tidy the living room, then what kind of parent am I? That time is for him to have a quick dinner, to play, to run around, to have a bath, to look at books, to say goodnight to the frogs in the pond – and my preference is that we spend that time with him. So it’s really my choice that he is the priority and the rest of the stuff that I’d love to do comes way down the list. Because especially these days, way higher up on the list is parking my butt on the couch and not moving for the entire evening.

So although this week is a welcome break from normal routine, that has involved the ability to hang out with friends, go shopping when I feel like it, get some extra sleep and get around to random tasks around the house that have been ignored for ages, I do miss them!

***

Phew, 5 hours without cable/internet/telephone has just come to an end. Back in touch with the world. Can now resume proper couch surfing with full entertainment. Think I need a hot drink and some baked goods to make me feel better…

Evidence! (btw, it was pitch black in his room at the time – it seems our camera has a very effective night scene setting!) He’s been so great at sleeping in his bed. The best part is that he still treats it like his crib, so he hasn’t yet tried to climb out of bed when we haven’t been around. We’ve got to put a baby gate on his door just in case he does suss it out at some point, but for now, all is well. And this week he’s been sleeping and settling down to sleep particularly well – not that he’s normally a problem, but sometimes playtime goes a little past 7 or 7:30pm. Not this week. Clearly, the devil is on the way (number 2, I mean).

Treats that I’ve been enjoying so much this time that I didn’t have to endure last time:

• Cankles – thank god the weather has pretty much remained warm so I can wear sandals. Because to squeeze my foot into a shoe right now would be very uncomfortable and also make me look like I am made of sausage.
• A HUGE stomach
• Charley horses like every night – you know what? I just had to do a Wikipedia search for that term, wondering where the hell it comes from. Anyway, the point is, I don’t really enjoy having to jump out of bed in the middle of the night to stand firmly on my feet to cease the worst leg muscle cramps of all time.

The only improvement this time is that I can’t even remember the last time I was really sick to my stomach. Last time, I was pretty consistent through to the end.

I have begun to get my butt in gear, starting with sorting out a room that kind of looks like a nursery now (our spare room, with the addition of a crib, changing table, Fisher Price swing and lots of other gear waiting to be set up), and organizing all of Oliver’s old baby clothes.

I had forgotten just how much clothing he had. And LOADS of it is Early Baby or Newborn sized as he was so small. His old sleep suits are incredibly tiny. But it’s all in good nick, no food stains of course! I still need to wash all of it, I’ll do that next week when the boys are away.

My mother organized a baby shower for me the other weekend, which was really kind, and loads of her friends, our family, and a couple of my friends gifted us with some wonderful stuff. Practical things like a new infant car seat (needed that badly), a bath cradle and soap and wipes and diapers. Lots of 3-6 month clothing – which will be helpful if number 2 is a lot bigger than Oliver, as I suspect may be the case. Although I assumed Oliver would be 8 lbs so don’t even listen to me.

• I have trouble finding things I want to eat when I am pregnant. I additionally have trouble getting off my butt at the moment, even more so than usual. So lunch, every day, has been an uninspiring and expensive trip to the cafeteria downstairs. Today, however, was Mexican day and I just had this surprisingly great I-don’t-remember-what-it-was-called-except-it-started-with-an-’h'-Beavertail-type savoury fried pastry topped with beans, chicken with green salsa, and all kinds of wonderful condiments (sour cream, guac, tomatoes, feta). It was really good. I am shocked. They must have an authentic Mexican chef down there somewhere. Also, it was a decent meal for $4.99. Score.
• Last time I was pregnant, I was trapped in England craving Taco Bell. This time I have ready access to Taco Bell and NO DESIRE WHATSOEVER to cross its threshold. The thought just turns my stomach. Again, enjoying that Mexican lunch I just had was surprising. But also what I just ate does not resemble a squashed soft taco in any way.
• I’m sitting at my desk listening very quietly to The Shin’s Wincing the Night Away album. I am addicted to the song Phantom Limb. Addicted.

Edited to add: Okay, lunch was good, but now I’m snacking on Rolaids. Heartburn sucks. Need another ranitidine but they are at home.

Being completely uninspired to blog, it’s time yet again for another random post of bullet points. I can’t even face writing proper paragraphs right now. I keep getting headaches that feel like someone is sticking a fork in my left temple.

• I have 19 days of work left before maternity leave. Scary for so many reasons – mainly being I hate maternity leave and want to really stick a fork in my head? Okay, it’s not that bad, but I feel like I only just got back into the working world when I can engage my brain and mouth in issues of some relative importance, but instead I am being shuttled back into daytime television and isolation and lots of crying (by both of us!) and sleeplessness. Oh and the additional bonus of chasing after a toddler, too. But not every day. We have decided to keep Oliver full time at daycare until December, and then move to part time as long as I can afford it. Thank god.

• I’m working later into pregnancy this time – probably not a good idea health-wise, but there’s too much interesting stuff going on around here. Like a provincial election. So my curiosity is getting the better of me. Plus, we are already short staffed and I feel bad about going and there’s loads to do…

• Mark and Oliver are going to England next Friday for just over a week. Mark is completely insane. He’s trapping Oliver on an airplane for two 8 hour journeys, and he’s booked him as an infant on his lap. The ride over should be mostly okay as he’ll be sleeping for most of it. The journey back will likely be HELL. The kid doesn’t sit still. I have no idea how he is going to manage it. Also, he’s never actually taken care of his every whim for 24 or 48 hours, never mind 8 days. The kid is exhausting. But he shrugs it off! Of course, I’m a little sad not to be going back to my other home. But I have made lots of plans, including using my birthday spa gift certificate, and going to Yuk Yuk’s with some friends from work. And I won’t have to worry about coming in early to work to leave early. I can sleep in! Although I will have to worry about what the hell I am going to eat as I have been primarily relying on Mark to cook. Ewww, cooking during pregnancy really does not suit me.

• Could someone remove this fork from my head now?

We visited the hospital we are planning on using yesterday, and were pretty impressed. The first thing to note was that procedure seemed to be exactly the same as it had been in the UK (e.g call first, criteria to think about before calling, etc.) so it’s not too much new stuff to learn (which is useful when you have fewer brain cells than back then). The ‘family birthing suite’ is newly constructed- meaning that labour and delivery didn’t smell like a hospital at all. I had no post-traumatic symptoms walking in, as I had expected. It’s shiny and new and high tech and there’s a rather large jacuzzi tub in every room. Woo hoo! I could live there.

Alas the maternity ward is not updated or shiny or new, but the good news is that I should be able to at least get a semi-private room. The ward room (4 person) we saw was really small. They don’t have enough private rooms so it’s unlikely I’ll get one of those.

The most hilarious thing were the questions first time parents were asking on the tour. It’s mean, as I said to Mark, as we used to be that naive. But the best part was when someone asked ‘how can the baby be roomed in with you when you’ll be too tired to look after it?’. The woman doing the tour is like, hello, welcome to the rest of your life! We were cracking up. Alarming was the hospitals’ 50% c-section rate. Interesting was the way she would only discuss breastfeeding and not bottle/formula use. Oh so political, childbirth/ labour/parenting/everything.

And guess who’s been sleeping in a twin bed since nap time on Saturday without incident? I was worried, after reading how many blogs, about difficult transitions from cribs to big-boy-beds. Oliver kind of didn’t really notice. That and he’s enjoying his Thomas the Tank Engine sheet set my parents got him (and matching blanket we got him). We bought this and Mark built it so that the top bunk has become his normal not-a-bunk-bed, with the built-in guard rail all around it. The bottom bunk, when assembled, is another spare bed. Or future other big-boy-bed. So at least number 2 has somewhere to sleep now.

Although it wasn’t my favourite holiday ever, or even close, I still feel very relaxed from doing almost NOTHING last week. And a holiday in your third trimester where you do almost nothing is a damn good thing.

The ‘resort’, as they call it, is really geared for families with children. Like 6-12 year olds would have an absolute blast, and families that like to do things together, and compete against other families, would be right into it. Needless to say we (Mark and I) did not participate in any of the adult or family activities really. We stuck to ourselves, went swimming a bunch of times, and didn’t go to any of the evening entertainment. I wasn’t going to get a babysitter to go and see some magician.

Oliver, however, had a blast. We used about 3-4 hours of the children’s program a day. I use the words ‘children’s program’ rather loosely – for the infants, this involved playing in a room full of toys or going out to the playground and pretty much nothing else. All of the promised activities and arts and crafts didn’t materialize. It didn’t matter – all Oliver wanted to do was stay in the playground. There were tantrums when we tried to pull him away for meal times. I vowed to take a load of photos of him last week as I had been remiss in doing it lately; find some of them here.

Our hotel room, in the old inn, was basically like a 1960′s trailer or derelict teeny cottage, about to fall down, with no updating. It was kind of weird and felt like it was about to fall off the roof (we think it was an extension). The food, however, was really good – actually, the dinners specifically were really good. Three courses served, excellent choices most nights. Really good pastry chef, too. I ate really well. Like really well. Like stuffed myself every night, which is a feat when I am this pregnant. Baby probably doubled in size and hopefully got some more brain cells from all that cake…err I mean vegetables.

We left on a Sunday and got back on a Sunday, which meant that we had a day on either side at home without any rushing around. That makes a big difference to going back to work. I need to remember that.

When we got home, a bunch of my family came to visit, as my grandparents were down from Ottawa. It was my grandmother’s birthday and we went out to dinner at a local greek place. The child was rather squirmy, but we managed it make it through the meal…

I put a holiday debrief on the main blog. But mainly, Oliver had a great time. And we had lots of time with him. And he was having a language explosion last week, which was entertaining. He was obsessed with shoes and feet (because putting on shoes equals going out to the playground). I caught him mid-word:
He’s starting saying something like ‘where’d it go?’ when looking for toys or books or shoes or whatever (it seems he’s always on the search for something). He got to see an owl (one of his favourite words) in person during a birds of prey demonstration, and learned to differentiate (and say the word) seagulls from other birds. Yes, Oliver can accurately idenitify and name different warm-blooded vertebrate of the class Aves, but can not say MUMMY!!!

Mealtimes were slightly stressful, but we learned to coordinate our dinners with his children’s program, in order to stuff food in him first (from the children’s buffet, a very handy feature) and then ditch him at program so we could eat in peace. Ah, a warm main course. Such pleasures I forgot existed.

Number 2 seems fine, very active. My legs often don’t fit into my hips properly quite often. But I’ve managed to get back to getting some sleep through the help of ranitidine. I did my research before buying it over the counter. Then I asked my doctor about prescribing it and she refused, saying I should just keep taking a lot of Tums. You know what? I wanted to kill her. Having to wake up every 2 hours to take another Tums or 2 is ridiculous. Thank god for the drugs.

My mother is throwing me a baby shower on Saturday. I really don’t enjoy being the centre of attention so this is all quite embarrassing, but I think it will also focus us and make me realize that I better start getting my butt in gear about preparing. I mean, I know a newborn can sleep in a drawer, but I probably should have like some diapers or something on hand now, right? And we need to go buy that big boy bed for Oliver and see if he can handle it. Just think of the preparation that was undertaken last time…how negligent can I get.