Happy Birthday Mom

It's my Mom's birthday!

Anyway this is what's been happening this week:

I've started working at this financial company. It's a place where rich people hide their money from being taxed by making charitable donations. I got this job throught one of my many temp agencies who recently decided "Hey, this girl's pretty cool. We should give her work."

My job is looking through files to find specific documents, faxing the documents to the next room, then putting the files back where they came from. It's meanial, but it's easy and the people I work with are friendly.

The good thing about my job is that it's right near the lake, so I always eat my sandwich there at lunchtime. One time I saw a whole flock of monarch butterflies, beautiful. They must have been migrating because the very next day it started getting cold.

I work with this Irish lady who is totally amazed at how unpregnant I look and how enormous my breasts are. Yesterday we went to the employment agency together to pick up our cheques, and she told the employment agency that I was pregnant. I hadn't told them yet, and my Irish colleague felt bad to have outed me. "It's okay", said I. If I wanted to keep it a secret I wouldn't have worn my "Yummy Mummy" t-shirt. "Aren't her boobs massive?" said the Irish lady.

Anyway, once again, happy birthday MOM! (My Mom is the greatest. All my friends know my Mom and say how cool she is, even when they only met her once or twice. I'd give examples, but you'd really have to meet her to experience her full coolness.) Go Mom!

BTW: Yes I know this post wasn't really about my Mom, but she likes to know what's going on with my life.

The Name Game

As you can see on the right, my husband has created a mini poll so all you bloggers can have a say in the naming of our baby. I predict that all the names Adam likes best will win (he likes to cheat and vote several times). Oh look, I see the vote is 100% William. What a surprise. Anyhoo, I thought I'd provide you with some pros and cons to influence your voting.

William
Meaning "helmet of will" or "determined protector"
Pros:

• It was my grandfather's name
• It was Adam's uncle's name
• It has a bunch of different short forms to choose from: Will, Willy, Bill, Billy, Liam
• It's been around forever and nobody is likely to think that it's a weirdo name or an old man's name

Cons:

• My grandfather went by his middle name (Allen) anyway
• Our friends Becca and Drew are probably going to name their son William (and Becca's going into labour first)
• I'm worried that it will be too common. As a Jennifer among millions, I wouldn't want to do that to my son
  

Payton
Meaning: Village of the Warrior
Pros:

• I dunno, it's okay

Cons:

• But only okay

Rogan
Meaning: red-haired
Pros:

• It sounds okay

Cons:

• Our child is unlikely to have red hair
• It sounds a bit like a girl's name. I'm reminded of Rogue from X-men

Eret
Meaning: Honour
Pros:

• It's actually a fun bastardisation of my Mom's maiden name "Ehret"
• Other children are unlikely to have the same name
• The meaning is cool

Cons:

• I don't think my mom even likes her maiden name
• My husband's Polish relatives are unlikely to pronounce it properly

Allen
Meaning: Precious
Pros:

• It was my grandfather's name (or, you know, his middle name)
• It sounds good

Cons:

• It doesn't go well with Adam, which Adam wants to be the middle name.

Clayton
Meaning: clay settlement
Pros:

• It sounds okay
• We can call him Clay

Cons:

• I can't stop thinking of the kid from the Adam@home comic
• The meaning is lame

Bruce Wayne
Meaning: Thicket, woodland (Bruce), wagon-maker (Wayne)
Pros:

• My nephew will be super-pleased because it was his suggestion
• Batman's cool
• It actually doesn't suck as bad as 98% of the names out there

Cons:

• Oh, come on, it's not as if we'd actually consider it

Something Else
Your suggestions are welcome. Keep it mind it must go with the last name Filipowicz (so Philip is out, as is anything that starts with F.)

Bullets but no points

• I got a job and then lost it without working a shift. It was part-time office work through one of my employment agencies, a trucking company that needed a "woman's touch" in the office (no kidding that's how the job was described to me). Apparently the truckers randomly decided they needed someone who had worked at a trucking company before.
• This morning my husband made himself a sandwich for breakfast: swiss cheese, turkey meat, and strawberry creamcheese on a cinnamon raison bagel. Ew!
• I'm going to see a movie this afternoon with my sister and my nephew. Something called Everyone's Hero. Looks cute.
• My husband made a looping version of my ultrasound DVD. Now I can leave it on the tv all day and see my son everytime I walk by.
• For about $150 I can get a 3-D ultrasound (where the baby actually looks like a baby rather than an alien skeleton). I think I'll ask for it for my birthday.
• We're having trouble with names. We had picked out William, but suddenly I'm seeing Williams everywhere. As a Jennifer, I know how sucky it is to have a common name. I don't want to do that to my son. My husband doesn't care as long as his Polish relatives can pronounce it.
• My nephew wants his cousin to be named "Bruce Wayne". It was also the name of his fish.

Jailbreaks, Geishas and Hamburger Yogourt

I dreamt last night that me and my friend Eireann were cell mates in jail. Except our "jail cells" were more like the pens you find in petting zoos. At first we were just hanging out, doing our make-up to look like geishas (because we thought there might be some activity at the jail where we had to look like geishas) but then we decided to escape.

All we had was a backpack each. I pulled something out of my backpack and picked the lock on our pen and we ended up in the pen right beside ours. Our plan was to convince the guard, who was a geisha, to let us out of the building. When the geisha/guard came, she stepped over the the fence to join us in the pen (yes, it was that low). She was nice, but she wouldn't let us out of the building because she was afraid to get in trouble. The warden came by just then and all three of us hid (really obviously by ducking down and covering our heads, since there was no furniture or anything to hide behind).

Seeing that we had managed to get out of our cell, the warden put Eireann and I in another cell. This one was outdoors and was basically a chain-link fence with a hedge on top of it. The warden wanted to be sure we wouldn't escape, so he asked us (first Eireann, then me) to demonstrate how we might climb the fence to get out. I climbed over easily by grabbing onto the hedge and putting my feet in the links of the fence. The warden left, to get some barbed wire or something.

Fortunately there was a very obvious hole that someone had cut in the fence and it lead right onto the street. We were going to leave but we didn't have our backpacks. I called for the warden and told him that I needed a change of clothes and could he bring me and Eireann our backpacks. He agreed and went to get them from the trunk of his car. Our plan was to leave through the hole as soon as we had our stuff.

The warden got us our backpacks but he didn't leave. Instead he sat down with us to eat some yogourt. I kept wishing he would go away so we could escape. I took a yogourt that looked like peach but when I opened it, I saw that it had pickles, grated cheese, and a little hamburger meat in it. I realized that I had picked hamburger flavour by accident. Gross. I ate it anyway.

BTW: If anyone wants to view a slightly better resolution of my ultrasound, check out this google video link:
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-1013516036862659327

It's a boy!

My son (that's right SON) is now the star of his very first film! Hopefully you can view this masterpiece above, I don't know, I'm a video-posting virgin (though obviously not an actual virgin). The husband transferred it from the VHS they sold us at the ultrasound place (VHS is all they had. I think they just upgraded from cave painting.)

Anyway I'm super duper excited that there's a real person in my uterus, with genitals and everything! I really hope the video shows up, you can see his little hands, and his little feet, and his little brain (well, actually it's quite a large brain, you can tell he'll be a smart kid). It's a boy! Woohoo!

My life as a working mom (temporarily)

For the past two days (Mon, Tues) I've been temping at this place called Claybrooke, enjoying many hours of mindnumbing menial labour. My duties included:

• Rolling up posters,
• Sorting posters and other in-store signage for Future Shop and Telus Mobility,
• Taping up boxes, sometimes using that super gluey tape that makes fingers all uggy,
• Putting stickers on boxes,
• Packing skids with boxes (this is kind of like setting up to play Jenga).

Not too bad, easy stuff. My body isn't used to working though and I'm pretty tired. Especially since yesterday I had to go directly to class afterwards. When you start work at 8:30am, getting home at 11pm is just not cool.

The offspring has been kicking a lot lately. Not while I was working, but on the train to class, during class, and at around three in the morning when I was sleeping. I think that last time the little tyke was providing a service, waking me up to tell me I had to pee. What a good little baby. Even though it's way too early to feel the baby move from the outside, Adam puts his hand on my belly everytime I say I feel a kick. Pregnancy is a little one-sided and I can see how a guy can feel left-out when he gets none of the signs that his kid is on the way (other than the fact that his wife is getting curvier and occasionally pukes). Adam also got a stethoscope because he read somewhere that at this time you should be able to hear the baby with it. (BTW: the brand of the stethoscope is "Colorpro". The hell? What kind of colours can you get from a stethoscope exactly?) Anyway, the husband had fun listening to me digest pizza and pretending it was his son/daughter.

Pig update: Lokai seems okay, not showing any signs of sickness, or grief. With Bele gone though, he does seem a bit bored. He chases himself around the cage and it's just not the same. I've been feeding him carrots to ease the pain (he'll have fewer treats now that he has noone to steal them from).

Adam's got a blog too

Not to steal to much limelite from Jen's Blog, but I have one too
and ive just posted! http://simianguy.blogspot.com

Bele Filipowicz 2005-2006

Yesterday he was his usual chubby furry self. Today...

I went to the Lokai and Bele's cage to make sure they had enough food and water. Lokai squeaked and chirped the way he always does when there's even a slight possibility of carrots coming his way. Bele has always been the shyer, more skittish of the pigs so I didn't think it odd that he wasn't coming out of his hut to greet me. Then I saw him, lying stretched out, not moving or breathing. I knew he was dead, but I didn't really believe it. I still don't.

The thing is Bele was so young, a teenager by guinea pig standards. So why, why, WHY, did he go so soon? I don't know. Here's some things I do know:

• Bele died in his favourite place, his Riu Palace wooden hut.
• He had plenty of food and water, so he didn't go hungry or thirsty.
• He was loved.

Bele is survived by his adoptive parents, myself and Adam (though my husband hates it when I refer to the rodents as his children), and by his brother Lokai.

Algonquin Anniversary

It seems like only yesterday that Adam and I knotted ourselves together, but it's actually been a whole year (and one day). We celebrated the milestone by taking a weekend camping trip (bonus that our anniversary falls on Labour Day Weekend). I still have that cold (no pukies though), but at least I had plenty of used Kleenex with which to kindle our campfires. Anyhoo here are some pictures:


Some fine campfire cuisine. No, we were never able to get the corn quite right even though we tried soaking it, not soaking it, wrapping it in foil, not wrapping it in foil, and cooking it at various lengths of time. We finally declared it the fault of the corn and vowed never again to buy corn for 99 cents/dozen. The potatoes turned out yummy though. And the S'mores. Yum!


No moose this trip, but we did enjoy the antics of the chipmunks that lived around our campsite. Here they are having a meeting. Even they wouldn't eat our corn.


I asked Adam to send me some pictures that truly represented our trip and he sent me this one. I assume it represents our trip because a) it was taken during our trip and b)I am wearing Adam's shirt in the picture, something I often do while camping. He also sent me a picture of yours truly coming out of the washroom. My darling husband pointed out that I spent most of my time there. True, my bladder isn't what it used to be, but to be fair my body is trying its best to get rid of a nasty virus (and whose fault is that Mr. Filipowicz?). Anyway, I looked horrible in the washroom shot and refuse to post it.

In other news, I heard on the radio on the way home that The Crocodile Hunter was killed by a manta ray. I saw a documentary on manta rays not too long ago and they seemed like such nice folks. You just never know.

Sick Mummy

So the man responsible for impregnating me has now also given me his sore throat and cough. (I love you, Sweetie). All the delicious decongestants, and cough suppressants that the hubby has lying around are off limits to preggers girl, so I have to resort to non-medical remedies. Unfortunately, for some reason my first-trimester queasiness is back with a vengeance and so far most of the home remedies I've tried have lead to various flavours of puke. These include:

• gargling with salt water
• tea with lemon and honey

Oh well, upchucking is one way to get rid of a virus, right? Anyway my doctor says that none of this will harm the offspring. He also says that it's cool if I want to take tylenol. I'm afraid to ingest anything right now, medical or not.

In other pregnancy-related news: I've recently purchased my first pair of ugly elastic preggers jeans, but haven't yet worn them in public. I'm on the cusp of needing them (I'm a wee bit too big for many of my jeans and shorts but not big enough for strangers to ask to pet my belly). I also bought two preggers t's, one that says "What's Kicking?" and another bearing the heroic image of Strawberry Shortcake (who looks way too young to be having kids if you ask me) and the slogan "Yummy Mummy". Maybe I'll wear them next month.

Speaking of preggers shopping, my already oversized girls have grown to gigantic proportions. On Saturday I went to the specialty bra store (the word specialty here meaning expensive) and purchased two 100-dollar H-cup bras. That's right, H-cup. Who knew the alphabet was even that long? Certainly not Sears or La Senza. I'm four cup-sizes bigger than the largest available in the department stores and I'm not even nursing yet. My husband is thrilled.

The Alien that Lives in my Uterus

So we didn't find out this time what kind of creature is growing in my belly (girl, boy, nerd, conehead). Though you can clearly see that my offspring has quite a handsome spine, and a possible future as a contortionist.

Everytime my doctor sends me to book an ultrasound, I think no problemo, routine ultrasound. Then the ultrasound girl looks at me like I have three heads and asks why the heck am I getting this done now? The answer of course is that my doctor LOVES doing tests. He orders chest X-rays when I have a cough. Sometimes he gets my blood tested for HIV just for kicks. Anyway, I might need another ultrasound in a couple weeks so the doc can enjoy more pics of my insides.

Usually before an ultrasound or doctor's appointment I have this irrational fear that they'll tell me that I'm not really going to have a baby and there's just a dead fetus floating in there. But I think I may have felt it move this morning. I can't be sure, it was quite subtle and might have been a gas bubble or my imagination. I choose to believe it was my baby. It's alive, Igor! It's alive!

Oh, and they also took my blood. Vampires.

No Fridge No Phone

So the day before yesterday the fuse blew that connected our fridge. No problem, says my handy husband. We shall replace it. Unfortunately, even with power going to the fridge it was not its normal chilly self. It's then we noticed a gross oily smell.

We called the repair man and described the oily smell. They said such a problem would cost 400$ plus labour to fix. GAH! We had to make a decision fast. Already the popcicles had melted into a mult-coloured puddle that would make you weep.

So I called my mother, who has power of attourney over my grandmother (which extends to our appliances). She agreed that the only course of action was to buy a whole new fridge. So we did. A nice stainless steel one with the freezer at the bottom. It gets delivered on Saturday.

So for the next few days we get nothing to eat but cupboard food. No veggies. No nothing. The only cold thing we have available is the one bag of milk that we squeezed into our super-mini mini fridge.

In other news, still waiting for our phone service. I borrowed my Mom's cellphone to stay connected with reality.

Disconnected from reality

Tommorrow we have one of them nutty all day appointments to install our cable internet. Unfortunately the brainiacs at Cogeco have suddenly discovered that our building won't let them install their phone service. (Where was this illuminating fact 2 weeks ago, I know not). My grandmother's phone company, on the other hand, has been very diligent and has promptly cut off Omi's service (our only link to the outside world).

So we signed up for Vonage. Same price as Cogeco for phone but with more goodies. Like, I can call Italy for free. Because I know SO many people in Italy. I think we can also call Scotland, so I might just randomly call Scottish Carol once our phone is installed. Who knows when that will be.

Hopefully this is the last time I have to sponge my family's internet. Cheers!

Stuck in the dark ages

I'm using my father-in-law's laptop, with a frustrating "lite" internet connection, to inform you of a tragic happenstance. On Friday we moved into my grandmother's condo (which shall henceforth be known as Jen and Adam's condo). I had to hang out all day to wait for the COGECO cable guy because we had an "appointment" to install our cable sometime between 8am and 5pm. First of all, what the heck kind of appointment time is that? Come on now.

Around noonish the security guard called from downstairs and said there was one of those cursed "Sorry we missed you" notes outside the door to the building. GAH! I figure he must have come when I was on the telephone for two minutes. He could have gotten security to let him in (the guard knew I was home) or waited a few minutes and tried to buzz again. But of course the cable guy didn't actually want to get in. He wanted a smoke break instead.

So I called the COGECO customer "service" hotline and was informed that they couldn't get the technician to come back that day. "He's on to other appointments," they said. "He's way too busy for you." They also said that he couldn't come back until the 17th! Now, for the sake of cheapness and "convenience" (but mostly cheapness) we have our internet, tv, and telephone bundled through COGECO. That's right. It's the dark ages for me for 2 whole weeks.

I tried every tactic I knew to persuade the customer service rep to give me a MUCH earlier date. I pleaded, I argued, I wept, I was polite, I was impolite. It was no use. I might as well have been trying to reach the Maharaja.

"The Maharaja is very busy. The Maharaja will be able to see you on the 17th, sometime between 8am and 5pm."

Omi's got a home

My sweet german grandmother has been in the hospital now for two months waiting for a place in a home care facility. Today she's finally moving! She'll have a private room and we can set it up with some of her furniture and pictures and things. It will look a lot more familiar to her than the hospital (which is über-important for alzeimers people). I've seen the home. It has cute male nurses and serves yummy Polish food. Perfect for Omi!

This is also super convenient for us, because this is the week me and Adam are moving into Omi's condo. Now we can move some of her furniture into the home at the same time.

I love my Omi. I hope that she's happy in her new place and isn't too nervous about moving.

Scary Miscarriage Dream

I dreamt that when I woke up in the morning I was bleeding as if my period had just started. I guess I forgot I was pregnant because I threw on a maxi pad and didn't think about it.

Later I was out walking with my husband and it suddenly hit me: I shouldn't have my period, I'm pregnant! I turned to my husband and said "I have to go to the hospital right now!" My husband said "Okay" in that calm tone he always has when I'm freaking out.

In front of the hospital there was some event going on. Tonnes of people were hanging out in their bathing suits having some kind of beach party or something. We were on the wrong side of the hospital to get to the emergency room and it took us forever to get all the way around the people.

When I got into emergency there were all kinds of tables laid out and people were doing crafts and fundraising for something. My brother was there and he said "Hey Jen! You're here to help with the fundraiser!"

"No!" I screamed and told him to shut up. Then I felt bad for being mean, because he didn't know and was just being nice.

Some nurse piped in and said something like "Emergency is being used for the fundraiser today, you should go to--"

"No!" I cut her off. "This is emergency and I'm having an emergency! Help me! Save my baby!" I was crying now.

Finally a young doctor came. We sat down in what looked like a large craft closet. I told him about the bleeding and he asked when my due date was. "February 5th," I said and he started counting on his fingers to finger out how far along I was. "3 months!" I told him, getting frustrated.

The doctor said "No need to worry. There's less risk of miscarriage after 3 months."

"But I'm bleeding!" I said. "I shouldn't be bleeding. Aren't you going to examine me or sew me up or something?" But you could tell the doctor considered the visit over. GAH!

I woke up terrified that I was going to miscarry, but I checked and there was no blood so I think I'm okay.

Caught in the Rain

Today I had an appointment at yet another employment agency, the purpose of which is to find any old office job as quickly as possible and get myself some mat leave. Today's agency is about a 20 minute walk from my apartment so I didn't have to borrow a car or use up bus moneys.

As is routine when going to any kind of job-getting meeting, I dressed in my finest interview duds. My fave interview pants are these grey pin stripe babies that make me look like an office panthress on the prowl. I looked hot (in a good way) but I was a little afraid that I would be hot (in a bad way) from the burning July sun.

On the way there I was feeling a bit toasty and had to stop on the way for a bottle of iced tea, but there was a bit of a breeze which increased my comfort level and preserved my panthress hotness.

The agency gals were impressed by my test scores (which I assume the grey pin-stripes had a lot to do with) and after only 2 short hours of mindless testing I was totally ready to take on the world (and the heat) once again.

The thing about Canadian weather is that one can never assume anything as the sky radically changes personality every hour (or sometimes every few minutes).

When I got outside that nice breeze had turned into a monstrous wind that made every tree along the road look like it was having a temper tantrum. Great clouds of dust were blowing off the road construction onto the sidewalk. In the distance, fork lightening lit up the sky. For the love of Spock, thought I, please don't let it start raining until I get home!

Unfortunately the Star Trek gods were unresponsive, and in about five minutes the skies opened up and poured liter after liter of water on my poor little head. By the time I got home, the panthress had become a drowned kitten.

Oh well, at least it didn't happen on the way there, or my test scores wouldn't have been quite so phenomenal. And don't worry, I changed into dry clothes right away so I won't catch a disease that causes me to give birth to a deaf dumb flipper baby.

The condo

My sweet German grandmother is still in the hospital, awaiting a place in a home. She can't live in her condo anymore because she is too alzeimerish and needs too much care. It was my uncle who initially got the idea that Adam and I should take care of her condo. We don't want to sell EVERTHING she has out from under her and besides, Omi proclaims to everyone who'll listen (and many people that don't) that I am her favourite grandchild (though, trust me, her other grandkids are just as fab).

Omi's condo has all the luxuries I dream about: washer & drier, dishwasher, balcony. And the building has all the luxuries I wouldn't even dream about: outdoor pool, exercise machines, pool table. The deal is we live there for what we're paying in rent now (substantially less than what the condo is worth). At first I felt a bit guilty taking advantage of my poor grandmother's situation, but Adam and I are doing a lot of work packing up her stuff and fixing up the place. Plus I couldn't say no, not with the baby coming.

Anyhoo. We've been spending the past 2 weeks transforming Germangrandmotherland into Jen and Adam's happening pad. First we had to tear out the carpet (it was stained and made the whole place smell like certain bodily fluids) and find a place that would put in nice laminate flooring for not too much money.

The floor goes in Monday, so we packed up all the furniture, photos, and nick nacks and stuffed them into the bedroom. Then we took down some grandmotherly wall paper and painted the pink living room walls a gorgeous shade of lime green. To be fair, Adam did the painting. We're both afraid that if I pick up a roller, our baby will come out with a lime green head or something.

Speaking of the baby, check out the ticker at the top of the page. It's counting down to my due date, February 5th, but I highly doubt that I'll have baby in my arms by the time the stork reaches the finish line. Children in my family are too lazy to leave the womb on time. On the other hand, Adam was 3 weeks early. You never know.

Highlights of the week

Fri-Mon : Camping!

We went up to Grundy Lake (near Sudbury). We being, myself and Adam, Becca and Drew, and Kerri and Kevin. We chose Grundy Lake because it was the only park that had a site available on the Canada Day Long Weekend, so we were pleasantly surprised at the park's coolness. It's part of the precambrian shield (left here by glaciers for our enjoyment) so there's a lot of magestic smooth rocks everywhere. Trees are able to grow in the super shallow soil because of the moss, which holds 16 times its weight in water (I read the placards on a hike). Anyway it's pretty. There was a really nice beach right near our site and the washrooms were reasonably close (though never close enough for the pregnant girls).

While camping for me usually involves lots of zoodles, kd, beans and spam, Kevin preferrs playing gourmet chef. We had (among other things) pancakes with homemade strawberry sauce, homemade bread, and a ham cooked right on the fire (and not one of those pre-cooked ones either). Everything turned out delish (even the ham, which I'm not the biggest fan of). Unfortunately most of the time I felt too pregnant to truly enjoy it (I had to buy beans and spam to satisfy a craving). I was really glad Becca was there to be preggers with me.

We did a lot of swimming and fishing. I think I was the only one fishing who didn't catch a fish (the fishes that were caught by others were too small to keep). I caught a turtle though. Twice. I think he was playing a game with me. I saw his little head come up right near the bobber then a minute later I had a bite. I reeled it in and yelled "Holy sh*t! It's the turtle." I didn't really hook him, he was just holding on and taking a ride. He let go before I got him, but that's okay since I wasn't really fishing for turtles anyway. I cast again, and again I saw his tiny head peaking out near my bobber. Here we go again, thought I, as a reeled in the mischievous turtle. I think he had a good time. He never did get my worm though.

Wednesday: Adam's birthday

I wanted to make my cuddly bear's birthday special. I made a cheese cake, with strawberry sauce (the strawberry sauce I learned how to make from Kevin on the camping trip, and I thought it would be tastey on cheese cake and I was right). For dinner I made corn, garlic bread, and cabbage rolls. I hate cabbage rolls, but they are Adam's favourite. I cheated and bought the frozen kind because I figured Longo's can make them better than I can. Adam loved everything (it's all about the food). For his present, I got him some motorolla walkie talkies. I knew he'd like them because they were expensive, and yet mostly useless. The range on them is supposed to be 16km, but it's probably closer to 2. He liked them anyway. This morning I was woken up to the sound of a walkie talkie sitting on my pillow going "hissss. Are you awake yet?"

Today

My boss at the census enumerating place called and said I don't have to work tonight or ever. Though this means I'll have a lot less money than I anticipated, I'm taking this as a good thing. Apparently they got everything done yesterday (when I was home celebrating my hubby's b-day) and now there's no work at all. I find this difficult to believe, but then they keep changing their mind about stuff. Last week, they allowed everyone to take off the long weekend if they wanted it. When everyone did (duh) they threatened to close up the call centre. Now it seems they're closing up because we were too efficient and finished everything (we were supposed to work until the 21st). I'm glad it's over. About the only thing I'm bad at, and what I seem to keep having to do, is talking to people over the phone (especially when I have to sell, or convince people to do something). I'm getting better at it, because of all the unwanted practice, but I'll never be super talented at it or anything.

Today I also went with my mom to visit my grandmother. Omi was delighted to see us. I showed her my ultrasound photo, and an album of mine and Adam's baby pictures (we put that together for the wedding). She likes looking at photos, it's an alzeimer thing. Everytime I see her she asks me if I want to have a boy or a girl. I always say "a healthy baby", and she says that I'm very smart. She doesn't always remember when we visit, but she still remembers me, and tells me how nice my husband is and that I'm her favourite grandchild (unfortunately she often says this in front of my siblings and cousins).

Anyway, after we looked at photos, my mom put in My Big Fat Greek Wedding on her laptop. Unfortunately Omi's in a special bed now that's filled with air, and for some reason needs a loud fan to keep it inflated. Even with the volume turned right up on the laptop, we couldn't hear. The bed looks comfy though. Omi fell asleep and we left.

Baby picture!

As you can see the offspring (that grey blob at the bottom of the black circle) is quite photogenic. Already it's 2 centimetres long! Okay, so it's less than an inch, but considering that whole sac was 7mm less than three weeks ago, I consider 2 cm huge. The coolest part was the tiny heart beat, I could see it pulsating in the middle of the blob. That proves that there really is a baby in there (and they aren't just tricking me by showing me pics of my kidneys or something).

I'm doing much better than last time I posted. Today I puked for the first time since Friday and that was only because they made me drink a whole bunch of water right around lunch time. The idea is my bladder should be full so the ultrasound lady can see stuff better. Unfortunately, the water never really ended up in my bladder. Oh well.

This weekend we're going camping with two other couples. There's a limit of six people per camp site. Little do they know, that we're disobeying the rules. Including unborn children, there'll be at least eight people on site!