Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Having a boy...

We found out a week ago, but I'll make the formal announcement that we will be having a boy. Oh, and my due date is August 11.I was about 99.9% sure that it was a girl (don't ask my why I thought I knew... I have no instincts whatsoever), but there was no doubting the ultrasound. The doctor got right to it, showed us the monitor and asked, "What do you see?" I shook my head in disbelief, and responded, "Junk. I see junk." Then I looked over at Josh, who had some kind of smirk plastered on his face. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it, but asked later when we left the office what his grin was all about. He nonchalantly replied, "Oh nothing. Just that there was a lot of junk. Our boy has a lot of junk." Uh huh. I'm sure.

Monday, March 23, 2009

ARGENTINA BABY!!!

So the wait is over. Here are my pictures from Argentina. This will be my narrative, and no, the pictures are not in chronological order.

Pic 1: This is a shot of Buenos Aires, a couple streets away from where my parents live. My parents live in the 'Hollywood' of Buenos Aires, and although they live in a good place, I wouldn't quite compare it to Hollywood.

Pic 2:
This is a picture of when Meg, me, and my mom went to lunch with some of the sister missionaries on their P Day. I kept telling them that they were unusually normal, not like the horror stories I've heard of sister missionaries. I think they might have been offended.

Pic 3: My dad and I both love these guys. These guys travel all over picking up cardboard or anything else they can possibly recycle for money. The horses are dirty, but lovable nonetheless. My mom's goal is to give one of the horses a carrot. I somehow think the driver wouldn't appreciate it. "Get that fluffy-haired blond lady away from my horse, please"
Pic 4: This photo was taken at La Boca (a seriously cute place with colored houses). The guy in the photo is obviously Diego Maradona, the infamous Argentinian soccer player.
Pic 5: This is the fluffy-haired mom that I love. She is posing outside of one of the side streets in La Boca. Meg and I both really liked La Boca because they love tourists and are exceptionally friendly, unlike most of the other Argentinians.

Pic 6: This is my mom, Sister Kathy Fitch, Meg and me at a restaurant. We watched Tango dancers as we ate. It hasn't arrived yet, but my mom and Kathy made the mistake of ordering the barbecue plate. It came with all sorts of mystery meats.

Pic 7: These are Gaucho dancers at La Boca. They were way better than the Tango dancers. They do a lot of stomping and I'm pretty sure one of them was gay.
Pic 8: This is on the day we left. Meg was 'helping' with transfers. Meg and I kept trying to get dad to send elders that bugged us home, but he said it didn't work like that. Too bad.
Pic 9: You can't see very well, but there are bottles on top of cars. That's how you know they're for sell. Seriously. Even at dealerships. They put bottles on top of cars, people!!
Pic 10: We went to the coast on the weekend we got there and stayed in this really cute hotel. They had one king bed and one baby tiny bed. Meg slept in the tiny bed. Surprised?
Pic 11: I love my mom. This is us at the coast in a city I can't remember the name of. There were jellyfish all over the shore. Gross.
Pic 12: Meg and I at the coast. We're so dang hot and identical. We look alike, yes?

Pic 13: The whole reason for the trip was to see these people. It was so fun just to spend time with them and see that they're still the same people. My dad still says 'Vicky!' in that exasperated tone and my mom still does weird dance moves. Oddly reassuring.

Pic 14: This was the day they picked us up and took us all over Argentina. We're tired and disgusting but we're happy to see 'em.
Pic 15: This really is quite amazing. My picture doesn't do it justice, but this is a picture of the villas that exist there, basically, the slums. People just put together cardboard, wood, and whatever and built these little shack homes. My dad says that in spite of having no running water and hardly anything else, nearly every single home will have both a dog and a tv. They pirate the electricity.

Some highlights not found in the pictures:
  • Taking the color code test and finding out that I have absolutely no ambition in life.
  • Going and getting ice cream with my mom and Meg and Meg telling me that I'm "absolutely worthless" to have around. She got mad because I was nervous to use my spanish at first. It still makes me laugh, though.
  • Sitting around at night and reminicising with my parents until late.
  • Meg and I trying to capture pictures of children in their school uniforms. Their uniforms were labcoats, which they looked ridiculously cute as mad scientists.
  • Having Meg complain that every single person in Argentina was staring at us.
  • Pointing out which missionaries were 'bad' missionaries, based on their profile picture hanging in my dad's office.
  • Teaching and then demolishing Meghan in chess.
  • Watching that lame missionary movie with my mom and Meg and my mom sprinting back and forth to kneed the dough.
  • Discussing in length how absolutely bizarre our family is and where this stems from.
I love my parents and am so glad I had the opportunity to go and see them. Thanks, Meg, for inviting me to go with you! I loved the adventure and am so grateful for what my parents are doing. They work so hard and we're so blessed because of it.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Arms of jiggle

I'm still waiting for Josh to send me my pictures from Argentina so until then, I'll update you with something of great importance.

I've come to the conclusion that I hate beyond hate, being pregnant.

I sat in bed sobbing the other day, absolutely and thoroughly discouraged by the fact that nothing looks remotely attractive on my expanding waistline. "But you're pregnant! You're supposed to expand!" If I hear something like that one more time, I will throw myself off the Coronado Island bridge and take whoever said it with me. I can't take it anymore. Every day of dressing is a demoralizing experience. My utlitmate goal now is to look more like hippo than a whale. I've never felt worse about my appearance in my life, and it is only going to get worse, since I'm only going to get more pregnant, and being more pregnant means being more fat ("It's not fat, it's baby!" Uh huh. And I suppose the baby is currently resting in my neck, then?).

I've always been able to find clothes that I like and feel good in, but that is no longer. I go to these maternity stores and try anything and everything on, only to further discover that it isn't the clothes. It's me. It's my face (usually the proud owner of a long, skinny, horse face, I now have what looks like a saturated marshmallow). It's my shoulders and arms. I've never thought twice about my arms and now I have to constantly check for wiggle, jiggle, and biggle (wanna tell me 'biggle' isn't a word? I dare you, since I could probably smash you with one of my biggle arms. Don't mess. Killing someone might make me feel better).

Josh is also at his wit's end, since he is unprepared on how to deal with a fattening, hormonal wife. Once he finds me laying in bed with an old pair of jeans half-buttoned, a baggy shirt that isn't quite so baggy, and a pillow over my face, he flees the scene. He knows he's about to walk into a deathtrap and I'm not past taking him down with me.

So I know what you're thinking. "She's really being quite shallow and vain about this..." Yeah. That's right. I am. I am shallow and vain. I care if my once-horse face turns into a bulldog face and I care if my arms are more like bags of jello than actual human arms.

Basically, I'm not liking what's happening to my body and I tell the baby (the baby can hear me) all the time to stay in my stomach and not my thighs. I don't think the baby is listening.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Small and Googly


There are some things that never fail to make me smile. The Geico commercials with the wad of money with googly eyes that follows people places is one of them. I love that little money guy and I love his googly eyes. I'm thinking about switching my car insurance over to Geico simply because the googly money guy is so amazing. He charms me.

But I've come to the conclusion that I love anything small and anything with large eyes. I love baby animals (they're small), and I love lemurs (they're animals and they have huge eyes). I love miniature hand sanitizer, small bottles of shampoo, and baby clothes (all small things). I love my niece Adelle, baby turtles, and monkeys (all owners of abnormally large peepers).

But then there are some things that I don't love. I don't love when patients come into the office and assume that since I went over their contracts with them, we must naturally be best friends. A woman comes into the office today and proceeds to give elaborate details to me of her date last night. I'm sitting there, listening to her ramble on and on, and trying to connect the dots. Now why is she telling me this? Is it because I'm wearing a name tag and she feels that since we're on a first-name basis (she knows mine by looking at my chest and I know hers by pulling up her son's account and then finding the responsible party tab. Yes, we're on intimate terms), she can tell me these confidential details? Or is it because I'm more aware of her financial situation (I know where she works, what kind of payments she can afford to make, and what dress she wore on her date last night) than anyone else in the office? I'm not really sure. All I'm really sure is that this woman had a hot date last night with a guy she met at a gas station and she smoked a cigar while wearing a sultry dress. I know a lot more, but since I was ready to shoot my brains out after having to listen to her go on and on and on, I'm pretty sure telling you anymore would have the same effect.

Unfortunately, this isn't a singular experience. The magazines in our office seem to spark discussion. From what I think about Obama (Newsweek) to why they keep putting Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie (US weekly) on the cover together, the fact that I sit closest to the patients seems to keep people turning to me with questions like, "And why is Ellen on the cover of GoodHouskeeping?" I usually have to stop what I'm doing (usually not much), and engage in some pointless conversation about celebrities, recipes, and decorating for your dinner party (no; I don't have dinner parties. Yes; I pretend that I have dinner parties when patients ask me what I think about dinner parties).

I guess the bottom line would be that when you go into your orthodontist's office, just keep your head down and read your magazine. Chances are, the girls already took the magazines to lunch and discussed everything there was to discuss. We don't want to do it again.