The little monster is on vacation for a few days at my parents' house in Cleveland. I went home this weekend and Molly and I went to visit a friend; I came back yesterday and Molly will continue to hang out with grandma and grandpa for a few more days. So far during her short visit, she has decided to go on the potty ALL THE TIME (today at least) - two pees and a poop by nap time and the SAME DIAPER ALL MORNING!!! Of course, all this excretory excitement had to come when they were 1) at the mall and 2) at a restaurant. The child has impeccable timing. But whatever works. She had to call both daddy and I at work to tell us alllll about it so I pity my coworkers who have to listen to me exclaiming "REALLY??? How MUCH poopy??? That's SO EXCITING HONEY!!!!"

She also sat on Santa'a lap, rode the Christmas train at the mall, and learned how to walk up steps backward. All today. She helped grandma and grandpa decorate their Christmas tree by putting about 45 ornaments on two low hanging branches, all in a very concentrated mass but dammit she DID IT HERSELF, she told me about 100 times this weekend. Too funny.

I am still pregnant, and crabby. I've been having some braxton hicks contractions, I think - and for the non mommy readers out there, those are very annoying little "fake" or "practice" contractions wherein your uterus suddenly turns into the consistency of titanium and you feel like it's having steel-coated seizures. You know what? I had plenty of REAL contractions last time. I don't need any damn practice. GO AWAY stupid contractions. You are freaking me out. I drink enough water to fill a fish tank already, so it shouldn't be a sign of dehydration. We are just a few weeks away from finding out what the little alien is sporting genitalia wise, so that I know if I should curse "him" or "her" for making my existence miserable, my bladder depressed, my sleep schedule disastrous and my face the consistency of a land mine that has just been run over by obese elephants wearing cowboy spurs.

Argh.

I just spent half an hour attempting to play Dora Candyland with a not quite 2 1/2 year old. The game is for 3+ but that did not deter miss Doraobsession, who spotted the box and wanted to do NOTHING else but "play wif my Dora game pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!!!!!!" She can get the color thing down, where you draw a card and move your piece onto the corresponding colored square. What's missing is the ability to understand that you are following this colored path to and END POINT; that you only get to be one piece at a time; that no, Murphy does NOT want to be Boots this time; that you cannot walk on the board "like a balance beam mommy!", that you do in fact have to take turns with the other person (or dog) playing with you, etc.

Unrelatedly amusing moment from this week's adventures in Pottyland...we have been able to get her to at least AGREE to sit on the potty lately, but only on the BIG potty - no more potty seats, thank you very much. Despite the fact that her skinny little butt fell right in a few days ago, she is undeterred. She holds onto the big potty porcelain seat with both hands and reminds me "I am NOT falling in dis time Mommy!!"

She accomplished a great big poop on the potty the other night (by coincidence, not by telling us she had to poop or anything helpful like that) and we did the whole routine - "now we wipe! and now we get a STICKER!!" I reminded her that we had to flush the poop away so I pulled the handle and she sticks her head over the bowl watching the poop go away and yells "BYE BYE POOPY!!! HAVE A NICE WEEK!!!!!!!!!"

She is nothing if not polite.

I came, I saw, I scoffed...I shut up.

My own personal kiwi/avocado/kumquat/4 oz beef patty was obviously not amused with my last post, and in the last hour has taken to kicking me in the damn belly button. Sorry, bloblet, if I offended you. I guess you can feel it at 15+ weeks. Or I need to lay off the chili, as it may be attacking from the inside out. But having been down this road before, I venture to say that the internal assault (well, ok, teenytinylittlepops, not exactly tae bo) is coming from the bloblet.

Doritos Dancing In Utero

I have a good friend at work who is also pregnant, about 2 1/2 weeks behind me. She told me this week that she has already been able to feel her baby kicking and moving...at 12 WEEKS. When I noted that I haven't felt a thing thus far, at 15 weeks, she reminded me that "you DO tend to feel it earlier with the second child - hmm!"

Now OK, I can buy that. But 12 weeks??? At 12 weeks your fetus is roughly the size of a DORITO. Unless it has detached from your uterus and lodged itself just on the other side of your belly button AND your skin is the consistency of Saran Wrap, you are not feeling a baby kick at 12 WEEKS!!!! Maybe you are feeling the effects of eating pickles and mountain dew simultaneously - it's called GAS. But whatever, maybe she is growing a monster in there.

I love that the pregnancy progress sites like to give you weekly updates as to the size of your little uterine alien, in terms of food. For example, at 15 weeks, my baby is apparently the size of a kiwi. This would be fantastic knowledge to possess, if I actually 1) cooked or 2) consumed any fresh produce. At 16 weeks you graduate to an avocado. I wouldn't know what an appropriate sized avocado looked like if it jumped up and bit my ass. All I know about kiwis is that they are little and hairy. But how little? Am I growing a mutant kiwi in there? Is it a California kiwi or an import?? When you tell me the thing is a size of an apple -- what the hell kind?!? Granny Smith? Red Delicious? Little sour green kind??

Could they not give you measurements that a more in tune with what the average pregnant woman might encounter -- say, at XX weeks, your fetus is roughly the size of a junior bacon cheeseburger! Or...at this stage, your baby is the length of an Oscar Meyer hotdog bun. The normal kind, not the footlong ones. Or the size of a deluxe Hershey bar. THESE things I can picture.

So far I have managed not to kill anyone, and more importantly, no one has (successfully) attempted to murder me, which is impressive given that I have been having mood swings and conniptions of cartoon-character proportions, complete with steam exiting cranial orifices and separation of head from body while it spins in circles before coming back to rest in proper location. I hate all my clothes, I hate work, I hate getting up, I hate trying to fall asleep, I hate food but if I don't eat it I still turn wretchedly green.

By this time next week, I will reach the "more than halfway" anniversary from Molly's 31 week birth. SCARY. We are hoping that halfway this time around will be 18 weeks, with a nice problem-free delivery around 36-37 weeks. However, we all know my history with problem-free (or "nice" for that matter) so we shall see!