Frustration

I am a plus size pregnant lady.  It is very hard to find plus sized maternity clothes.  Very hard.  Especially since Old Navy just discontinued theirs and now only carries regular size maternity clothes.  Motherhood is one of the few stores I have been able to find that carries plus size maternity and I have picked up a few things from their last season clearance rack that I plan to wear once I get bigger.

So I was pretty happy this morning when I got an email from Motherhood saying their fall line of clothes has just become available and they have free shipping today.  Fall/Winter clothes are something I will need quite a bit of.  I have to keep up appearances in the office and would like to not wear the same 4 shirts over and over again.  I'm going to need some variety in my wardrobe.


Look at all the regular sized cute stuff!  These are just three examples of things that would be perfectly fine for me to wear to my office.  But none of them are available in plus size.


Oh for God's Sake!  First of all, I am very confused as to why a fat pregnant girl would want to wear horizontal stripes or a casino carpet pattern.  Second, why the lack of long sleeves?  I noticed this in the regular size girl section as well, but in the plus size section there are only a handful of long sleeve items for WINTER.

This would be one of those long sleeve items.  It is described as a Trapeze Maternity Tunic.  Translation = big ass tent of cotton with no style at all.

Why?

Preparing the MIL

On Sunday we went to my MIL's place to help her pack for the big move.  It was a true task to go thru her treasured belongings and help her decide what goes and what she can keep and fit into her new little apartment.  She became exhausted very quickly and we had to push her to keep going while she had us there to help.  I think her exhaustion triggered her anger issues and pretty soon we were packing while getting lectured for not wanting any of her discarded stuff.  Like stacks of cassette tapes, beanie babies, and collectible tins from movies like Space Jam.

In the end we made a decent dent in what is left to be done.  But she has a LONG way to go and I don't see how she will be packed by the 7th since she doesn't seem to have the energy to do it on her own.  And I don't think anyone is coming over to help her pack till we return this coming weekend.

And the awkward moment of the day happened on her front porch as we were saying goodbye.  Morgan hugged her and left to carry things to the car.  I went for my hug only to see her bend over as far as she could over her walker and wrap her arms around my middle.  Her goal was to hug the baby. Instead she face planted between my tits.  I was mortified and very confused as she would not let me back up.  She held me in place while whispering to the baby.  Then stood back up and announced "The baby just told me she wants her name to be Bernadette."  To which I laughed and told her no.  She was mad.  We left.

In Which His Will To Live Is Sucked Out

These photos are from a while ago, but I just found them this morning lurking in an ignored folder.  I got Lincoln another shirt.  Too bad I didn't post this yesterday on National Talk Like A Pirate Day.

A cute little pirate skull and cross bones.  I don't remember where I got it from.  It was probably CVS or The Dollar Store or something like that.  But I brought it home and promptly put it on the poor creature and watched as his life force was slowly sucked away.  He hates his shirt.  He pretty much refuses to move when he is wearing it.  Which is also fun to take advantage of.

Poor Lincoln.  But don't worry.  I only made him wear it for about 15 minutes and then the sad little eyes were too much for me to take.

To Give You An Idea

Just to give you an inkling of what everyone in the office has to deal with.  Just to give you a glimmer of what Crazy Ass Boss Lady is like.  This is something I overheard her saying to the office receptionist yesterday.

"The toilet paper in the bathroom is really hard to get off the roll.  Like, it only lets me take a square or two at a time.  It's really annoying.  Look into that for me.  I don't know what you have to do, just fix it."

12 Weeks Was 3 Weeks Ago

After looking back I see I forgot to post the ultrasound photos from the 12 week NT scan.  So no Aud, you won't have to wait till 20 weeks for more Mongo.  Behold, Mongo Destroyer of Wombs and Miracle of Science!

You can see definite baby shapes now.  But it still looks like he/she has goat legs.  You can kinda make out that his left arm is back behind his head.  Every time I look at that photo in the back of my mind I hear "What?  Just chillin in my womb.  What you gonna do about it?"  

In other baby news, I had my first visit to the new OB office last week.  I like them.  I hope this one works out.  Nothing note worthy really happened.  It was just a very long and detailed appointment since they were making sure they had everything that has happened up to this point correctly into their system.

One really great thing that came out of the OB meeting is some sleep relief.  She said I can stack pillows up to create a 45 degree incline and sleep on my back to help with the tossing and turning issue.  It has made a world of difference!  I only get up 1 to 3 times during the night instead of 5 to 9 times.  I feel so much better.  Morgan refers to my pillow stack as Mt. Oafmore.  He does not like Mt. Oafmore.  I think he is assuming that some night I am going to roll off of Mt. Oafmore and smother him with my gigantic pregnancy tits.  At least we have life insurance.

I'm nearing the end of the 15th week!  And I ordered a belly band yesterday.  So things here are chugging right along.

Back To Work

No one likes that first day back from vacation.  You just spent a week or whatever relaxing, maybe going on a trip, reading a book, and not even thinking about the work load you will be returning to.  Then that first day back comes and at some point that day you will look around you in disgust.  It's unavoidable.  I don't care what you do for a living.

Yesterday was my first day back.  I felt really good, well rested, upbeat.  Then my work friend Candace came to talk to me about a problem she had found.  A problem that made me feel so sick to my stomach that I wanted to march into my Crazy Ass Boss Lady's office and yell at her.  I didn't.  But that's how upset both Candace and I were about the issue.

What could be so horrible?  I don't want to bore you with mind numbing detail, but in a nut shell my CABL is a waster of money.  She is notorious for blowing our marketing budget every year.  She is incapable of making reasonable decisions when it comes to money.  I mean, this is the woman who bought a $600 comforter set for her potty training toddler and was proud of herself for finding such a great bargain.  I don't know about you, but I'm not spending that kind of money on something that is going to get pooped on.

Anyway, after 2 years of trying to get CABL to let Candace and I redesign our Santa arrival event (coming up Nov 5th) into something the kids will enjoy more, she finally agreed.  Which means we now have access to the budget files for that particular event.  Which means we now know just how much she has screwed the pooch every year on this ONE event.  For something that should cost X dollars, she has been spending 4 times that amount.  Money that could have been redirected toward other events, events we had to cancel, or even payroll for my employees so they can have more hours.  No wonder the guy who does the lame entertainment for Santa arrival is always so eager to make sure we have him scheduled months in advance.

So that was my moment of disgust yesterday.  I'm also shocked at just how close the holidays are.  For most people they don't have to start thinking about Christmas till mid November.  We have to have all of our holiday events planned and booked by the end of September.  Our first full staff holiday meeting is next week.  And I will start interviewing holiday seasonal hires in 3 weeks.  Wow.  Time flies.  It will be here and over with before you know it!  And then it'll be 2 more months till Mongo shows up!

It's a Good Thing I Don't Own a Dog

I have wanted a dog for a very long time now.  We don't have one because we are gone for 9 to 11 hours straight when we are both at work.  Not fair to the poor dog.  Plus doggy day care (yes, it is a thing) is very expensive.  And so I just steal time with my brother's dog Alex whenever I can.

Now enter Target and my endless love for that store.

Oh yes.  It is a very good thing I don't have a dog.  Cause that poor creature would jump into oncoming traffic just to avoid the humiliation of Halloween.  The cats are only mildly safe.

Williamsburg, Va

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Fingers Crossed

In about an hour we will be leaving for our vacation.  Just a quick 4 day getaway.  But I am a little nervous.  Why?  Because for the past couple of years it seems like my vacations are cursed.  Morgan got poison ivy, horrible and I do mean horrible weather, my uncle died, me dealing with the after effects of a miscarriage and  D&C, Morgan tore a ligament in his ankle, etc.  Can you understand why I feel a little cursed?

And then the 4 days leading up to our 4 day vacation have been. . .well. . .troublesome.  On the 1st our hotel called and left a voicemail to let us know they were cancelling our reservations.  They needed to close the hotel for repairs from the hurricane.  Not sure why they didn't let me know until 3 days before our check in.  But I scrambled and found reservations at a nice looking place, something I was worried about since this is a holiday weekend.
Then Morgan calls from the beach (vacation with his friends) to let me know he just finished burning his clothes because they took a hike in an area infested with Lyme Disease carrying deer ticks.  They didn't see the CDC warning signs until they had already spent several hours on the trail.  Go back and read that again.  Yeah.  They had to set off a bug bomb in Ryan's car to make sure they killed all the ticks.  The tiny little ticks that they could see swarming all over their legs once they stopped and bothered to look.  And let me remind you that Matt already has Lyme's Disease due to a hike they took several years ago, so he was freaking out.  Thank God for smartphones and quick internet searches so they could figure out what to do.

So wish us luck!  And nobody die.