The Good, The Bad and The Snotty

I finally discovered the silver lining to this bed rest situation:  When your rooftop patio floods at 4:30 a.m., causing every crevice in your four-story townhouse to leak, you don’t have to trudge into the dark downpour and bail out the knee-high water over the rooftop using a keg bucket.  Buh-bye, Mr. Candy!  Have fun!  I’ll think of you out there as my short cervix and I snuggle under the warm, dry comforter!

To be honest, I was genuinely concerned, but I’m relieved to say the keg bucket survived just fine.

At one point later this morning, as the workers dried and sanitized our rain-soaked carpet to the tune of $1200, I laughed out loud at just how absurdly bad this week has been — then wondered to myself if we should get into the carpet-drying business.  Twelve-hundred bucks!  To blow air on carpets!  Hell, I own a hair dryer and some Carpet Fresh.  And Candy’s Carpet Cleaning does have a certain ring to it.

Absurdity aside, I am happy to report I had a promising doctor’s appointment yesterday.  My cervix is slightly improved, although my amniotic fluid is still on the higher side, which may be placing undue pressure on the cervix and causing this whole mess.  (New Laughing Stork drinking game:  Throw back a Kamikaze shot every time I write “cervix!”  I’ll catch up in three months or so.)  Baby Freedom also looks healthy, measuring on the bigger side and making my vagina cringe a little in anticipation of a Kirby-sized baby.  Skye was refreshingly average at 7 lbs., 13 oz., a fact that shocked the hell out of my family.  Because they are used to popping out 9-11 lb. babies, I kid you not.  My first cousin gave birth to an eleven-pounder.  Vaginally.  Eleven pounds.  Through her cervix (drink!).

The doctor also gave me the green light to drive Skye to and from daycare the few days Mr. Candy is unable to do so, plus license to “cheat” every once in a while.  Meaning:  Sneaking outside for a little sunshine or going downstairs to microwave a soft pretzel and spend time in our living room.  Our now-filthy living room, where Mr. Candy rarely remembers to even open the curtains.  When I went downstairs yesterday for the first time in almost a week, I looked around at the dust and darkness and wilting plants and cat hairs and toys strewn on the floor and thought, OMIGOD, THIS PLACE HAS NEVER LOOKED SO GOOD.

Nothing like bed rest to make you realize how much you take for granted.

I smelled every flower in the courtyard.  Caressed my car’s leather seats.  Pumped up the volume on my iPod and yelled passionately with Ludacris:  Ee-Ee Whoo-Whoo!  Why you all in my ear?  Talkin’ a whole bunch a sh*t that I ain’t tryin to hear. Get Back, Mother F*cker!  You don’t know me like that! I mean, really, is there anything sexier than a pregnant, cervix-challenged white chick with a toddler car seat in the back of her SUV rapping deliriously at the top of her lungs?   Well, maybe if I’d had rollers in my hair and an actual toddler in the seat as I warbled Ludacris’ profanities.  HOT.

Feeling giddy after my appointment, I even “cheated” on the way home — didn’t take me long to exploit that, huh? — and swung by a frozen yogurt shop to devour a cup of chocolate and peanut butter in, oh, seven seconds flat. Seriously, I could be the Joey Chestnut of competitive frozen yogurt eating.

Speaking of good manners in our family… according to yesterday’s report from the daycare teacher, Skye’s boyfriend, Weston, wiped his nose on a tissue and generously handed it to my daughter — WHO USED THE DIRTY SNOT RAG TO WIPE HER NOSE.  Geesh.  Is that what the kids in love are doing these days?  Sharing snot rags?  A gentleman and a lady, they are.

P.S.  Cervix!  Cervix!  Cervix!  Cervix!  (Yeah, I know, I have a lot of catching up to do.)

P.P.S.  A 3-D ultrasound of Baby Freedom follows (another silver lining of bed rest and bi-weekly perinatologist visits:  lots of 3-D ultrasounds).  They can be kind of creepy — claymation baby, anyone? — so I thought I’d spare those of you whose stomachs haven’t recovered from all the talk of cervices and eleven-pound babies by posting it after the jump.

P.P.P.S.  I think we can all agree this is the cutest boy ultrasound ever taken from my womb.

P.P.P.P.S.  This is the first time I’ve ever used a P.P.P.P.S.  Fun!

My handsome little trouble-maker.  Picking his nose?  I know where he can get a used snot rag for that!