I'm not crying, you're crying. Okay, I'm not crying, I'm BAWLING.

Et tu, Lauer??

Even though I have heard rumors about Matt Lauer over the years, I have to admit I was a little shocked by his firing this morning. Hell, every man in America must be shaking in their boots at this point - "who's next?" "is it me?" Certainly a culture shift. Of course, I wonder how the man occupying the White House gets to harass women without consequence, but that's neither here nor there. Fingers crossed Tom Hanks stays in the clear, or my world will completely go haywire.

Holy hand sanitizer, Batman

So apparently my adorable 13-month-old nephew has hand/foot/mouth disease from daycare, and although it's rare, it can affect an unborn baby. Great - I've made it this far and now could be deterred by something that sounds like a horse issue?? Calling my doctor today, and investing in a face mask for Christmas. #sorrynotsorry #ivfisexpensive

Thankful

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We drove down to Austin to spend the holiday with my brother and his family, which was exhausting (13 month olds are BUSY!) but nice. I didn't poison anyone with the cinnamon roll apple pie I made, and managed to eat a few bites of gluten and the baby seems to still be alive, so YAY all around!

We got the house all decorated for Christmas and I put an exersaucer together (SO handy, I tell you), so all in all a very productive long weekend.

En garde!

So apparently there's a homeless man in my neighborhood who is getting more aggressive - tried to break into a home, etc. My mom now wants me to walk with a stick when taking Charlie for a walk. As if a stick is going to protect me. (And technically the "stick" she proposed is one of those long garden stakes. Oooooh, intimidating.

Squirrel!!!

Yesterday was my dog's best day ever. Not because we took her to the dog park. Not because of the 15-minute belly rub. No, because she finally came face to face with a squirrel. Which she has been dreaming of forever. Of course, it turned into somewhat of a nightmare. She was barking her head off at squirrels in the tree in my backyard, and then just stopped barking and kept staring up. My mom called me into the kitchen to watch, and I saw her sitting there, still as a statue, as a squirrel climbed down the tree toward her. I couldn't believe she wasn't attacking it, but she wasn't. And then they both disappeared behind the tree. All I could see was Charlie's little tail wagging like crazy. Finally my mom went out there to see what in the world was going on, and she dragged poor Charlie back inside after deciding there was clearly something wrong with the squirrel. We checked Charlie to make sure she didn't get bitten/was possibly rabid, and the rest of the night she sat by the door and cried. She wanted to go back out to her friend. (or eat him)

Of course by morning the squirrel was dead. Which is now the second creature that has come into my backyard to die. Great. And sorry Charlie!

Elephants never forget.

Elephants, guys. What did they ever do to us? Nothing, except be awesome. (Aside from the occasional elephant that kills an elephant hunter, which is karma at its best.) So this new Trump business is making me angry (er, angrier than I normally am when it comes to the president). Just so his sons can hunt these beautiful creatures and bring them back to the US? For what purpose??

Go watch Dumbo and get back to me. (Also, so glad I have an elephant theme happening in the nursery. I am so topical.)

Eat your wheaties

So I've been gluten free now for almost a year, and my mom has asked when I plan on eating gluten again for...almost a year. Seriously every day. To her credit, she has gone along with it and pretty much eats gluten free as well (since she cooks most of our meals...). And it can't be fun. (It doesn't bother me much because I didn't eat a lot of bread and pasta before anyway.) So now Thanksgiving is upon us, and I had told her months ago that I would eat cornbread dressing (gluten!). I have been semi-nervous about it so asked my doctor yesterday. He gave me the go-ahead, so of course my mom was ready to buy a giant loaf of bread for dinner last night. I told her I'm just going to ease in, and Thanksgiving will be the first step. Why fix it if it ain't broke??
I do miss Frosted Mini-Wheats and Taco Cabana flour tortillas though. Not gonna lie.

Where my ho's at?

Two radio stations are already playing all Christmas music, all the time. As are two Sirius XM stations. And the Hallmark channel with Christmas movies (that I still can't watch more than 20 minutes of).

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em...

(UPDATE: wrapped packages are now under the tree. INSANITY)

Can't...quite...reach...

At 8 months pregnant, it's getting harder to put on shoes, bend down and get things, etc. So what do I decide to do? Give myself a pedicure, of course! I moaned my way through the first foot until my mom insisted on helping out. She did my big toe and it looked like a three-year-old did it, so I decided to handle the rest. And I have to say it doesn't look too bad (the one big toe aside). To my mom's credit, she probably couldn't see very well, but at least she could REACH my toe which is more than I can say for myself. Possibly time to get a pro pedicure done. (duh)

Laughter IS good for the soul

Saw Trevor Noah Saturday night - he was so great! He did a little political humor - wish he had done more - but all in all was very funny (and so adorbs). What impressed me the most was how diverse the audience was. White people, black people, Asian people, Muslim people, Hispanic people, you name it. Everyone came and laughed together. Sometimes you need that.

Sometimes I feel like somebody's watching me

I find it creepy enough when you get FB ads promoting the shoes you were just looking at. But one of my baby apps seems like it's listening in. Had our bowling tournament last night, and this morning one of the articles was "Is it safe to bowl while pregnant?" (Answer: yes.) But how freaking random is this article? Who would ever wonder about this? This has happened several other times, and each time it's super weird. How did they know?? Talking to you, big brother.

Every day is like Christmas

...because every day I'm getting deliveries from Amazon. (And no, they're not all for me.) And you know you have a problem when you don't remember what you ordered, so it really IS like Christmas.

School is in session

Took the "Babycare" class last night, completing my four classes pre-baby. (Prepared Childbirth, Infant CPR, Breastfeeding being the others.) Yes, I was the only single gal in all of them. And yes, I was probably 10 years older than everyone else. Both things I have to get used to. Similarly, giving bathroom breaks every half hour. Because a roomful of pregnant women have to pee. A lot. But I learned about swaddling, diapering, tummy massages for colic, etc. I guess I'm ready! (Or not.)

What happened to September?

Um, how is Thanksgiving two weeks from Thursday?? This year has gone by super fast, but really?? Thanksgiving? Maybe it's so shocking because it was like 90 degrees yesterday. (but no such thing as climate change, amiright) Here's hoping the cooler weather will stick around because bathing suits and turkey (and being 8 months pregnant) don't mix. Gobble gobble indeed.

At least there won't be singing. WILL THERE BE SINGING??

Friends are throwing me a baby shower on Sunday, and I don't really know what to do with myself. Never having had a shower thrown in my honor, it seems like it will be a very awkward (yet very kind) amount of attention. And as a person who blushes very easily, the photos could be disastrous. I'm sweating just thinking about it.

Also - do I get there early, to ensure I'm there when guests arrive? Or is that weird?

Am I the only person to stress out about being the guest of honor?? Probably. But also super excited and grateful. It's tough out there.

Ho Ho HOCD

Christmas shopping: DONE.  I'm usually an early shopper, but not this early. Here's hoping everything I bought doesn't go on sale on Black Friday. Which it probably will.

Curses

For at least six months, my team has been working on migrating our intranet from SharePoint to Wordpress. Literally building the site from scratch and remaking all pages, moving all documents over, etc. We are set to launch in a week and a half. And all of a sudden two days ago the head of IT decides that Wordpress is not secure and is very hackable and what exactly are we doing. Um, what? We have not only involved the Tech team from the beginning (and gotten their blessing), but we have also gotten approval from Legal/Data Privacy. This is not the first time that this guy has made my life a living hell - he tends to not bother with asking questions and instead jumps to the most illogical, panicked conclusions. Which is an excellent quality to have in a leader, no? (Sorry - can you tell I cannot stand this guy??)

Our options are: tech pays to build our own Wordpress platform and then has to hire someone to support it; we stop and stick with our current intranet; or we move forward and he just gets the hell on board. #option3

Et tu, mosquito?

Why am I still getting mosquito bites in November. No seriously, I'm asking. As if my fear of Zika isn't enough, I still somehow manage to get bites on my fingers/bottoms of my feet/other random areas where the Off don't go. AND IT'S NOVEMBER. Come on peeps. Give me a small break here.