The Rash Problem

Camille is a sensitive baby.

Not emotionally. No. Emotionally, she's a viking.

WHO WANTS TO GO TO VALHALLA?!!?!

Baby, It's Cold Outside

I went shopping yesterday. I probably don't have to tell you that retail therapy is the best way to de-stress (except maybe a deep-tissue massage on the beach somewhere fabulous), and yesterday I de-stressed a lot.

I went to Ikea for some shelving stuff (which is technically shopping), but the big wonderful purchase occurred at Target.

Jogging stroller!

I purchased the BabyTrend Expedition jogging stroller. The link is to Amazon.com, but I bought it at Target for the same price. The only upside to ordering it from Amazon would have been that I wouldn't have had to drag it inside from my car. The box is huge and ungainly!

It was a total breeze to put together, and I took it for its first road test this morning. It was awesome. If you don't care about bells and whistles and want a jogging stroller for a great price, this one is it. Two thumbs up!

I wanted to road test it yesterday when I first put it together, but I really didn't have the time. So last night, I set my alarm with the intention to get up early, strap Camille in, and go for a nice walk/jog. I was woken up an hour before my alarm (Camille decided that an early-morning party was in order), but I got up and got ready for strollering.

Then I checked the weather.

30 degrees.

Shit! That's cold!

You said it, adorable kitteh.

Now normally, I'd be a weenie and say it's too cold to go outside, and I'd promptly turn on Netflix study for my physio test. But today, I was hellbent on taking the stroller for its maiden voyage, so I put Camille in, wrapped her with blankets, and off we went!

My goal today was to find a geocache that's nearby. I read about it whenever I look up caches, but I just never got around to it. Well, it happens to be right along the Bonneville Shoreline Trail, which is a bike/walking path that is nice and smooth and wide. Perfect for a stroll!

The cache is called the Suicide Rock Book Exchange, and is a large weatherproof box full of paperback books (and one hardcover Book of Mormon). Since I'm a genius and I know everything, I didn't consult my GPS as I struck out on the trail. I thought, "Suicide Rock, eh? I know just where that is!" and off I went. Well, the cache isn't all the way down to Suicide Rock, so I went aaaaaaalllllllll the way there for nothing.

OK, not for nothing. I did get some nice pictures. :)

Don't worry: none of these pictures shows where the cache is. In fact, none of them are even near it!

Suicide Rock

The path down to Suicide Rock.

View of the valley from the trail.

The trail is very nice and scenic. I walked it almost every day when I was pregnant.

I found a coin in the cache. It's not a GeoCoin; it's called a PathTag. I looked it up and logged it, and I guess PathTags are different from GeoCoins in that you don't have to place the PathTag in another cache. You can keep it forever if you want! Well, I'm not sure if I want to keep it. It's cool and all, but I feel like I should keep it going. So hopefully I remember it the next time I go caching.

I just had a great idea. I'm going to crochet a geocaching bag. I will keep swag in it. Yesssssssss.

Amazon Mom

No, I'm not talking about this:

But I kind of wish I were.

I'm talking about this:

Amazon.com (which I lovelovelovelovelove) has a new feature called Amazon Mom. It describes itself thusly:

"Amazon Mom is a free membership program aimed at helping parents and caregivers, from the prenatal days through the toddler years, use Amazon to find all the products their family needs. To join, simply sign into your Amazon account and tell us whether you are a Mom, Dad, or other caregivers of a child. By providing some optional information about your family, you can help us personalize offers, e-mails, and product recommendations to help you find exactly what you need at just the right time. Amazon Mom members receive benefits such as 30% off diapers and wipes, FREE Two-Day Shipping with Amazon Prime, as well as exclusive offers via e-mail."

I thought I'd sign up for it and give it a whirl. It's entirely possible that I won't even use it, because I'm pretty bad at planning ahead far enough to order something before I need it. I'll probably be digging around in my last box of diapers only to find it empty, and only then think, "SHIT I should have ordered more, like, a week ago." Then I'll toss the Beast in the car and drive my happy ass to Walmart or Costco or wherever I can buy a shit-ton of diapers for cheapsies.

I imagine Amazon Mom might come in handy for things other than diapers, though. I registered for and bought only the bare essentials, so I expect I'll soon be lamenting that I didn't buy this or that or stuff. And eventually, the Beast is going to need toys. I didn't get any toys for him/her (although I was gifted several stuffed amninals and a couple of bouncy chairs with dangly fun things) because I didn't think a newborn would have any interest in alphabet blocks or... whatever it is childrens play with these days.

Back in MY day, we didn't HAVE toys to play with. We played with ROCKS. And you know what? We were damn grateful just to HAVE ROCKS!

Also, I'm counting on the dog to provide a lot of entertainment for the Beast. I'm creating prototype Velcro suits for both dog and baby, so we can just Velcro them together. Sophie can be the babysitter (because if I don't know where she and the Beast are, I can just shake her treat can and she'll come running) AND entertainment.

37 Weeks

On time!! Hells yuh.

Sweet Jesus! 37 weeks! I'd like to say that time has flown, but it hasn't. It's been soooo slooooow. Especially these past few weeks. But now there's only 3 weeks to go and I'm kind of freaking out a little bit. In a very short period of time, I'm going to be responsible for a tiny screaming thing. Come oonnnnn motherly instincts!

My Facebook status yesterday read: "When is nesting supposed to kick in? I turned the bassinet into a laundry basket, which is, I believe, the opposite of nesting."

True story.

The crib is currently a receptacle for all the baby clothes, blankets, toys, etc, that I just didn't feel like putting away properly. The Pack 'n Play downstairs holds those same type of items (baby stuff) that hadn't made it upstairs yet.

I guess I'm waiting until after the Baby-Que to really let myself start to get ready. Or perhaps I just lack the motivation because I'm in some kind of weird denial. The giant belly I have isn't being caused by a baby, but rather a tumor. With a heartbeat. Yeah, yeah, that's it.

Doc appointment tomorrow. I get my Group B Strep test (mrrg), and also checked to see where I am as far as effacement, dilation, blah blah blah. I'm expecting the report to be that I am neither effaced nor dilated at all, but a small part of me has been allowed to hope against hope that the doc will say, "Well holy shit, you're practically ready to deliver." Wouldn't that be nice!

Jake's birthday prezzies arrived today, and I quickly realized that there aren't a lot of places around the apartment that I could hide them where he wouldn't stumble across them. So I left them in the box they were delivered in (Amazon.com - squissshhhh with love) and told him that box was off limits because it contained his presents. I told him he could have them now if he wanted to, but he declined. I think I'll give them to him on his actual birthday, or whenever the Beast decides to make his/her exit. Because I think after the Beast is here, Jake's birthday present might slip my mind.

I hate Comcast. There, I said it. We signed up for cable TV last Saturday, and thus far I've been to the Comcast office every day this week, and have changed out the cable box once. I suspect I'm going to have to do it again tomorrow... get a new box, that is. Ours won't work. The first one wouldn't properly display the Guide screen (everything showed up as "To Be Announced"), and we weren't getting some of the channels we're supposed to get. The new box today does even less than that... it's stuck on Channel 1, promising that in just a moment, there will be picture. There isn't. The Comcast box is a goddamn liar.

My hunger is. I must raid the skeeter-eeter for noms before I start to devour the mouse pad. O_o

Treasures

I was over at Jake's mom's house yesterday, and she fished out a couple of boxes of baby pictures, and we spent a couple of hours going through them. She ended up giving me a bunch of Jake's baby pictures (which I'm sure he's going to be just thrilled about)!

My favorite of Jake's baby pics

I think it's my favorite because he looks like he's striking a pose. "Oh, a camera. One sec. OK, here we go. Hey baby, how you doin'?" Also, he has mad scientist hair, and I think it's adorable!

Not to leave myself out of the baby picture fun, here is one of me! It's the only one I have right now. The mustachioed dude holding me is my dad.

According to my mother, I was 3-4 days old in that picture. According to Jake's mom, he was 2-ish months old in his picture. We were both pretty adorable, and also pretty hairy. I hope the Beast follows suit.

But that's not the end of the treasures I received yesterday! Jake's mom presented me with an outfit that Jake wore when he was a baby. It's still in awesome condition! And it's cute, to boot.

Jake's baby outfit

Closeup of the embroidery

The Beast will totally wear this. But not too often, as I am afraid of ruining it somehow.

Oh, and as a kind of P.S. update type of thing, Amazon.com is maintaining its status as my most favoritest online shopping site ever. My mom e-mailed them re: the missing mattress on Saturday evening, and on Sunday morning, they responded with the "we show it was received on June 19th" e-mail. When my mom replied with, "Well, my daughter still doesn't have it," they promptly responded with, "That sucks! But we're awesome, so we're sending her another one, free of charge, and we're one-day expressing it, also at no charge." I less than three Amazon.com.

I went to my apartment's office this morning, just to double-check for the mattress (as you may recall, I went in there about a month ago asking about it, and they told me it wasn't there), and lo and behold, there it was, sitting in the corner all alone, crying quietly. So I took it home and put it in the crib (and poked it several times), and then I called my mom, who e-mailed Amazon.com and told them the missing mattress had been located. I hope we caught them before they sent it out to be shipped!