What a whirlwind! Thanks for all the notes and good wishes.

We are tired and happy. And, I feel disconnected. I vow to POST MORE.

Tomorrow.

Barenaked Ladies, One Week

Shepherd Alexander Fanning, born 21 April 2007 at 5:54 AM.

7 lbs., 11 oz., 22 inches, tastes like chicken!

Thank you for all your good wishes. More soon, when I rebuild my reserves…

Led Zeppelin, Thank You

I’m thinking a lot about Big Rock Candy Mountain these days. Trickling streams of alcohol? Cigarette trees? Sleeping all day? Yes, please.

No baby yet.

In preparation though, I decided to try and fit one more indignity into this pregnancy, by way of the BRAZILIAN WAX. When one can’t lift a leg, it’s very difficult to keep things…ship-shape down there, so I decided to enlist someone’s help with it.

Help arrived (well, I went to her) in the form of a lovely African woman with a gorgeous accent which completely disguised her sadistic and malevolent nature. Apparently (and I learned this on my way OUT the door AFTER the wax), one’s skin is extra-sensitive during pregnancy. Extra-sensitive! As in hurts! A lot! Especially if you have always “taken care of business” yourself, and not had one of these waxing events.

Add to that a waxing injury, and you essentially have the story of my entire pregnancy this time. Awkward, ugly, and extremely long and drawn out. How does one get injured during a BRAZILIAN, you ask? Who the hell knows. It happens somewhere between “okay, you hold here (during a tender reach-around. EUW).” and “Oh, dear, well, you’ll need to put some neosporin on that (insert lovely devilish accent and wild eyes).” My sister, who accompanied me, came in to help me dress (I’m injured!) and thought there had been a street fight of some kind.

I fully expected to look up at one point and see The Waxer like this, but with my actual labia attached to her face. “Psyche!” she would shriek, as she leapt out of the room. “Pregnancy and vanity don’t mix!”

So that’s it, people. No more of that craziness. I told my other sister the following morning that my downtowns felt as though someone with a sandpaper shoe on had kicked me repeatedly. Then, I just edited that to say, “No, actually, it feels like someone took hot wax, applied it to my nethers, pressed a piece of cloth onto it and then ripped it off.” Who knew?

I plan to grow the longest Jackie-O 70s bouche we’ve seen, then possibly join this. Next time I think I need some kind of ‘do down there, I’ll go visit Schmutzie and try to soak in some of her confidence. I will sit for hours and comb the hair…call it “my pretty” and never again wish it away.

Now I just need to prepare my statement for the OB today as to why an enormous part of my vagina is missing.

Harry McClintock, Big Rock Candy Mountain

Hi all.

I am so sorry I haven’t written. I wish I could convey to you in one entry how utterly pooped I am. Every morning I read something I want to link to here, or I think of something I want to tell you all. I come up with witty repartee and even take photos that I think you would be interested in. Then, somewhere between dropping Ruby off at daycare (which Shaun and I do in tandem now, since getting in and out of the car is almost physically impossible) and my late morning “lie-down,” I lose my oomph to post. Then, if I get a second wind later, it’s sucked away from me by the dinner/bath/bed routine or just the couch, calling to me.

I am doing well. Read: I am doing as well as a 9+ month pregnant woman with SPD and a toddler can do. I am actually, right now, in the part of pregnancy I have labelled WSA, for Would Suck for Anyone. Any woman who gets to this stage of pregnancy has to be pretty near off her rocker. It’s just plain uncomfortable.

Wednesday night (it’s Friday now), there was a LOT of activity in my uterus. Regular downtown nightclub in there. BFII was doing all kinds of humpty-hump on my pelvis and I was convinced that labor was imminent. At my doc appointment Thursday I practically had my little hospital bag packed, and a gurney on order. Alas, my cervix has other ideas — it’s just not giving up the fight yet. I could induce, but I have said all along that I don’t want to do that for my comfort alone. BFII will have cooked 38 weeks next Monday — and that’s the earliest I would be comfortable yankin’ him out of there. If I can make it to 40, so be it, but that feels unlikely.

Shaun and I made our last pre-BFII sojourn out of town last weekend for a co-worker’s wedding. I was really into it as it was an authentic Indian wedding and I had never been to one. Plus, the gal getting married is one I am very fond of from Shaun’s office. So, here we are, looking all gussied up for the big event:

I look like a Big Red Schoolhouse, no? We kept darting back to the room to put my feet up, so that I could make it to all the different events (according to one guest we chatted with, had we been in India? This wedding would have lasted seven days. Excellent!). Still, I can’t prevent this at the end of the day:

Mmm. Feet.

And no, I am not smuggling a corn dog in the side pocket there, it’s just fluid. Sexy. Let’s dance!

And here, just because I can, is a pic of Ruby and Shaun, because they’re cute squared.

Thank you for all the good thoughts thus far in the pregnancy, I can feel ‘em. I fully anticipate this condition will be gone within a couple weeks of delivery, and for me to be back to my postin’, smiley self. Let’s all send a little word upstairs on that, shall we?

Sweet Lord, Mama’s cooked.

Prince, Alphabet Street