My constant companion

I'm not technically 21 weeks pregnant for a few more hours, but let's not quibble over details. As they told me a few weeks ago, we've reached the "cruise control" stage of the pregnancy. Every time I go for a checkup the nurse (that same one that screeches HELLO BABY at the ultrasounds) asks me expectantly if I can feel the baby move. And every time I remind her that I have a lot of torso real estate for him to roam around in and that I'm only 12/15/18 weeks pregnant.

And then Friday afternoon, Rich was out of town trying desperately to make his way through Philly to Montreal for his conference. And I was having one of the shittiest days I've had in quite a while at work, where I was ready take a stick to a whole list of people for being dumbasses.

Rich was fuming because US Air delayed his first flight because of a missing sticker on his plane so he missed his connection and had to spend the night in Philly, and I was fuming because I swear to God sometimes I'm the only competent person to troubleshoot a piece of software. I was sitting at my desk with my head in my hands sending text messages to my husband who was trapped in an airport and I felt something.

All the books say that it would feel like butterflies in your stomach or popping popcorn or a goldfish swimming around. They give it a fancy name called "quickening." With all those disparate descriptions, I was pretty sure I'd have to wait until you could measure his shoe size on my stomach before I'd be convinced it was him moving around and not the latest burrito I'd eaten. But sitting there it was obvious that was our son moving around saying hello. And even though Rich was hundreds of miles away, I felt like I had a little buddy in there, somebody on our team and in my corner with me.

It feels exactly like a tiny little person wiggling around in my lower belly in a sac of fluid. But when you've had a really horrible day, it feels like somebody's hugging you from the inside.

Anybody wanna come to my house for a scanning party?

I've put it off long enough, but I've got to do something about this mess (feel free to click on the photo for notes within Flickr).

The above photo is all the mail from our sofa table as well as the various documents scattered around my area of the desk at home. It does not include a much more out-dated pile of crap that is not crucial but should really be filed somehow and is currently just collecting dust on top of our lateral file. Somewhere in the more recent pile of crap pictured above is the renewal notice for my car's registration that expires today.

I used to be on top of this stuff, but over the last year or so it's just gotten out of hand. I complained before about tracking payments once we had two home-related bills each month, but I've beaten those monsters back for the most part with a lot of auto bill pay features and renting the other house so that at least someone else is paying that electric, water and gas bill. But now I have a larger goal of removing the need for our lateral file before the baby is born and frankly, I terrified of the size of this task.

Don't throw me a baby shower, just please come to my house and scan all of my Anthem Explanation of Benefits forms for me so I don't keep tripping over them.

The goal is to remove the need for the lateral file, so we can use that space in the office for a pack-n-play and new loveseat or glider. We spend 90% of our time at home in this one room so I can only imagine the baby will be here too. And the lateral file, while attractive, is a monsterous beast full of junk that we never ever look at. The amount of items that we need to keep the originals for (birth certificates, passports, Rich's DD-214) can all fit in a fire box in the closet, and the rest can and should all just be scanned.

I got as far as buying this kick ass scanner in January as a bit of New Year's Resolution, but haven't actually done much with it. And I just know that if it's this much of a mess now, it will only get worse over the upcoming year.

So help me out, Internet. How to do deal with your mail when it comes in the house? How did you get rid of all the junk mail that goes straight from the mail box to the recycling bin? Do you actually keep all your medical receipts organized in some file drawer? (If so, I hate you just a little.) Can you put your hands on your pets' rabies certificates? Do you pay your water bill on time or just send them $100 every few weeks to maintain the ability to flush the toilets and shower like some people I know (*cough*) have been doing? Where do you keep your hunter's talent tree so you'll know how to spend points once you level? (Ok, that last one is a little specific, but I hate looking it up each time online so I just keep the printout under my keyboard.)

We're drowning in paper!

It's (gonna be) a boy!

At 2:36am this morning, I turned 32 years old. At 8:30am Rich, my parents and I sat in the doctor's waiting room for the ultrasound to show whether we were having a boy or a girl (as well as some other boring medical stuff they measured about blood vessels). Our little boy(!) is 10 ounces so far and doing fine. It was a treat to get to show my parents how the ultrasound equipment works and have them see their grandson in utero.

On the way to the doctor's office, Rich was driving but he doesn't go downtown that often so I was literally being that backseat driver telling him where to turn and reminding him which lane was about to become right turn only. I told my mother that we would have to practice this route so that he had it memorized before the baby is due and we're rushing to do it in the middle of the night.

When my mother went into labor with me my father wanted her to wait until after midnight to go to the hospital so they wouldn't get charged for the previous evening. As they drove to the hospital just after midnight on May 20th, my father was on automatic pilot (and probably reduced sleep) and accidentally got on the interstate versus the turn for Thole Street that lead to the hospital. It took them an extra little bit and some panicked "where are you going?!" remarks from my mother for them to get to the hospital. Only a few hours later, I was born.

We've never made big deals about birthdays in our family. Rich and I are going out for sushi tonight and then I'll maybe do some sewing this evening. I took the day off to not be rushed for the appointment, get my nails done this afternoon and rest up a bit before the weekend. All in all, not that different from other days except for the whole window into my womb thing this morning.

But I did get a nice gift from Smashing Magazine in that they published their article today about promotional materials that features a picture of my bottle openers I made last year for BlogHer (the picture is way towards the bottom but it's a good read so keep scrolling). I think that and some fresh baked brownies this evening are all I could ask for.

And in the interest of embarrassing our son before he's even born, feel free to gawk at him while he's still in my ever-expanding belly.

P.S. While in the waiting room for the ultrasound, my father leaned over and told me the woman around the corner had a "Baby Phat" t-shirt on and he thought it was some sort of maternity line of clothing. I couldn't muster explaining "phat" to my father before 9am.