Update on General Things 6/8/09

I thought I'd put a little update on here about our lives in general, not particularly dream or baby-related. First things first, Skip is trucking along with nursing school at Bryant and Stratton College. There were some setbacks at the end of last semester, and left us both (as well as our families) feeling quite disappointed with the school and how they handled some situations. Nevertheless, Skip continues with the program and if all goes as planned (ha), he will officially be finished with classes in December. He has been doing very well in his Peds/OB class this semester-- perfect timing with a pregnant wife-- as well as his Writing class. I'm so proud of all he's accomplished up to this point, and have all the confidence in the world that he will one day make a wonderful nurse. Just keep him in your thoughts during the next few months that he can do as well in school as we all know he will do in the "official" nursing world. Skip has also kept up the jamming with the newly-reorganized "The Halo Effect." It's a mature group of folks that really seems to gel musically, and it's been much more bearable for me to listen to them a couple of times a week down in my basement.

As for me, my job at the Medical College of Wisconsin has been the same. We've had some frustrating projects/audits lately that have made obvious to me the bureaucracy of academia, but that's just how things go. Gotta go through the right channels and chains of command to get the work done and our recommendations out there. It's hard as the weather gets nicer to be sitting in an interior office with no windows and being inside for 8.5 hours straight. However, I think with my wandering mind, if I had a window I would get way too easily distracted from the work I should be doing (like right now...). I also have to remind myself that this job is what will pay for this baby to be born, and I count my blessings every time I have a doctor's appointment for the benefits I have through MCW, Froedtert and Children's. I cherish my time on the weekends to spend time with Skip, family and friends, as well as getting out in the coming months to the beautiful weather. My pale skin really needs a tan... I'm thinking I'll look like a big, fat ghost in my black dress at Steph's wedding in August if I don't get some color before then! Other than work, I've been trying to keep up with the exercising, though it's been actually quite hard to stay committed with all the changes happening lately. I've had to make adjustments each month to my physical activity, which I hadn't anticipated to be so difficult (not so much physically, but rather mentally). I'm doing okay, though. I haven't been working at Meda-Care pretty much since I found out I was pregnant. I just feel, for a variety of reasons, that it's too risky at this point in time. From having to lift heavy patients (with which I have trouble to begin with) to the myriad of risks in working in some sketchy neighborhoods (crazy drivers, shootings, diseases, filth) to germy hospitals, I feel taking a break from EMT-ing for now is the best for me. Though I still have to do Advanced Skills on Friday... I think I remember how to do CPR: 37 chest compressions to 5 breaths? No wait, that doesn't sound quite right... ;)

I look forward to the coming week: 1.) I get to spend some time dress-fitting with Steph for her wedding; 2.) Skipper and I are going to get some crap out of our basement for Mom's garage sale; 3.) Jazz in the Park on Thursday to see Bonerama (trust me, they are awesome!); 4.) Catching up with MCA people on Friday at Advanced Skills; 4.) Saturday spending some time with the Dwyers and the Prestons-- congrats to my cousin Catherine on her graduation from Woodstock High School! The summer will go by fast, as I already have most weekends booked with at least one or two things, but it'll get me out.

That's the update for now!

Dreams 6/1 (So weird)

This was the weirdest set of dreams I've had in a long time. I woke up this morning in such an odd fog because I think my mind had only just recovered from constantly dreaming all night. It was a very weird feeling.

Anyways, it was all a big long series that just kept going: First, and I can't exactly remember the beginning, but I do remember having some type of a tornado dream and saying (in the dream) that I spoke too soon in my blog about not having a tornado dream in a long time. Then there were a few other little ones in there that I only remember snippets about. Then I was playing soccer with a bunch of Mexican guys (we had Mexican for dinner, so I'm sure that's why I was dreaming that). After we were done playing, I was in an outdoor kitchen with a bunch of them speaking spanish and they were showing me how to fry these donut-type things in a big pot of hot oil. I started fishing all of them out of there, and then I told them I had to use the bathroom/restroom. As one of the guys walked me to the bathroom, he asked what's the difference between saying "bathroom" and "restroom." I told him saying "restroom" was a little more polite. The bathroom was in a big park, and there was a weird attendant man in there (like there often was in South American and Mexican public bathrooms), and he had Joker makeup on-- Jack Nicholson Joker makeup. Odd. So I went into a stall and I overheard a couple of women saying how there was some rumor of a killer on the loose in the area. I got done and was walking out of the bathroom, when all of a sudden the bathroom attendant turned out to be the killer, and so we all started running away from him. He had this huge hatchet that he chucked across the field and it hit the bathroom lady and cut her leg off. Then my Mexican friend turned out to be a cop with a gun, so I told him to shoot the attendant, which he did. Then he apologized and started shooting at me and I realized he was the real killer. I kept trying to wake myself up because I was realizing it was all a very scary dream. Then I was all of a sudden back as a camp counselor, and the camp was back behind South Elementary school in CL. One of the kids was riding a little bike through the field, and I told him he needed to keep the bike on the pavement. Then a little later I went over to talk to him and he was all sad because he couldn't be talking about quantum physics anymore (or something like that, it was a very weird subject that a 6-year old would normally not have said). So I thought that was weird. Then I went over again to talk to him and he was all swollen and fat, and I asked him if he had gotten stung by a bee, and he said yes. So I picked him up and said that I was going to run him over to the Children's ER, which by now was right on the other side of the field-- by this point the kid's mom was there, and she had also gotten stung, as evidenced by a large welt on the side of her face. So I start running with this fat kid in my arms, and I get into the ER and they start working on him. The doctor was saying that if I hadn't gotten him in when I did that he would have died. I started trying to tell the kid that he would need to carry an Epi-Pen with him from then on, but he kept squirming around on the bed and wouldn't listen. I then was walking around the ER just looking around, and the doctor came up and squeezed my ass. Then all of the ER staff was goofing around with each other. Then I managed to wake myself up, thank the LORD.

I felt SO weird when I woke up.

Dreams 5/29 and General Reminiscence of D-Chi Days at Augustana

So, I keep having these recurring dreams that I am back visiting Augie, and I'm hanging out with all the current Delta Chis (I know who some of them are through my DCT family tree on Facebook). Why I keep dreaming this, I have no idea. I think the first time I started dreaming about them was when Sarah C. told me she had met a bunch of them at Augie last weekend when the 'Hams were there for Scott's graduation. Also, maybe it was because yesterday I had some strange hankering for a loaded baked potato from Arthurs or the super-unhealthy yet ever-so-tasty chili cheese nachos from the downstairs cafe at the College Center (I have craved those nachos at least once a month since I left there 5 years ago. Maybe it's because Jes and I would sit down there for hours at lunch time senior year in that back table hiding from everyone else on campus. Funny how some things stick with you...)

The first dream was thoroughly strange, as I was kind of "babysitting" the current girls in this huge hotel room... with Shay and Kim (Girls, I love you. I dream about you all the time... Just kidding, I have no idea why I thought about you when I was dreaming about Delta Chi, considering you two were Speeds). Anyways, Shay stayed up in this huge loft with the girls, and Kim and I were downstairs just about to fall asleep, when I look up and there's a huge tidal wave coming at us. I was afraid for all the girls, but I knew they would be fine because they were all so high up. However, Kim and I got soaked by the wave as it splashed into the room. After that I don't really remember much of the dream...

The latest dream was that I was back at Arthurs, but it looked like a combination of The Mark and Arthurs, like the bathrooms were back in this huge conference center-type area. And the restaurant part was like a restaurant, then all of a sudden I was talking to all of the girls who were on treadmills. I was trying to convince someone (like Sarah C. or Steph or someone, can't remember) to come and hang out with the girls with me, because I didn't want to be all by myself. I don't remember how oddly the dream must have morphed after that point...

Maybe I need to go back to Augie just to quell this strange obsession. I had thought about Homecoming, but that's not happening this year because I will look like I'm about ready to burst being so pregnant. Oh well, maybe next year. It's just very odd, but then again my dreams are always very odd. This pregnancy thing is just making them all the more peculiar. At least I haven't had a terribly scary one in quite a while (those are the worst-- I don't wish my scary dreams on anyone)... knock on wood!

19-20 Week Update

Skip and I had our 18-20 week ultrasound yesterday, as well as our latest regular appointment with Dr. Barnabei afterwards. The ultrasound went really well, and it really was amazing to see all the developments that have happened with the baby since the last one. You could see every little finger and every little toe! The tech said all was well, and everything was measuring as it should. The Maternal Fetal Care Center doc came in and took a look as well, which was a little uncomfortable, because he didn't say practically more than 5 words the whole time. So much for bedside manner. However, he did say that everything looked good! We got some great pictures of Baby Manning. For now it's going to be a surprise as to the gender of the baby. I swear I saw a certain, ahem, "structure" that would indicate this is a boy, but then I also swear I heard the tech say something about it being a "beautiful girl" which I could have imagined (and she wasn't supposed to do, since we said we didn't want to know). So now I'm totally confused, which is fine, because I still don't know what the baby is! I feel like it is a boy, Skip thinks it's a girl-- so we'll just have to wait and see!

My appointment with Dr. Barnabei went fine as well, and she said everything sounded good. Her only concern was that I was getting enough to eat, because I've only gained a total of 4 pounds so far. I told her I eat enough, but I'm also cautious not to be one of the people who just gains and gains-- I have to LOSE that weight, you know. I just said I'm keeping close tabs on everything. So she said things are on track. We are going to sign up for a childbirth class pretty soon here, too.

So that's about it! Monday will be 20 weeks, so that officially makes it 5 months. More than halfway through!!

Dreams 5/11

Just one short one from Friday night, after having been at the Brewers game (I kept a scorecard for the whole game, and was very proud of myself that I remembered how to do it! I was a great game!):

I was back in summer softball, and we were playing on one of the old grass fields that probably is now part of the parking lot at South High School. I was catching, and someone pitched the ball, and I kind of fumbled it. Well, the girl on first base started stealing second, but SUPER slowly, and I thought to myself: "Are they seriously trying to steal with me behind the plate? This will be easy," (This often happened during summer ball, when they didn't know that nearly every catcher on our team could gun down people at second, because about 2/3 of our team played school ball-- so we could actually play, unlike many of the other teams during the summer. The other coaches would be surprised when their girls would be out by miles trying to steal...). Anyways, I go to throw the ball, and my cleat totally got stuck in the mud, and the ball only went like 3 feet. That was pretty much the end of the dream. Talk about an anxiety dream!

Update for the Pams :)

I was told I need to blog about my pregnancy by a couple of Pams... And I said I was! So, to appease these ladies and anyone else curious, I'll give a little update from our latest doctor's appointment.

We saw Dr. Barnabei last Friday morning (after waiting 30 mins from when our appointment was supposed to be... urgh). We just talked about how everything was going, and also got to hear the heartbeat. Still going strong! No news is good news at this point, as she said we're just kind of in "cruise control" for the next couple of months. We're officially 4 months (16 weeks) along! I've got to remember to go to the lab sometime this week for some bloodwork, though, since it was too crowded last week. Don't let me forget... Oh, and according to Babycenter, the Squirrel is the size of an avocado, and his/her heart is pumping 25 quarts of blood per day. Pretty cool!

In other news, Steph's bachelorette party was this Saturday, and a wonderful time was had by all! Especially Steph! A little embarassment of the Bride-to-Be, some games, food, wine (LOTS of wine) and chocolates made the night a success. Looking forward to August!

55 year-old Queens, Drunken Behemoths and A very hungover Sarah

I went to the Britney Spears concert at Allstate Arena last night. Yes, me, who went to her first Dave Matthews band concert 2 years ago, and usually prefers places like Ravinia... However, 5 months ago I had been toasted enough to say "oh my gosh I think that would be so much fun!" to also call my sis and rope her toasted-ass into it, too. Fast forward to now: We're both pregnant, can't drink at the concert, and don't listen to Britney Spears unless we've got our iPods and are on ellipticals at the gym :)

So, we met Sarah C., Jes, Liz and her friend Barb at the Residence Inn in Rosemont, and much to my hoped pleasure, it was closer to the entrance of Allstate than some of the parking lot was. Nice! The non-pregnant girls boozed it up a bit, then we headed to the concert. We ended up having great seats, thanks to Kermit, Liz and Sarah's planning, so that was nice, except there were people in our seats when we got there. So we just kind of sat a few seats off, and waited for them to (hopefully) move so we could sit where we were supposed to.

Well, the Pussycat Dolls opened and closed, then the group of girls in our seats left (assumingly to get booze). So we moved into our seats, and then they came back a short time later. They were all WASTED, but seemed to slowly make their way past us to their seats. One of them kept slurringly asking me if I was in the right seat (shw wasn't being unfriendly), and I said "yes, this is #27, you're in #26, right next to me." So, we're enjoying the pre-show when all of a sudden this huge behemothly tall woman starts yelling in my face "okay-- get the FUCK out of OUR SEATS!!!" I was like "OH MY GOD what the hell is going on???!!!" So then another one of her monstrous friends comes over and joins in the argument, and Sarison turns and starts in with "whoa! Calm down-- we're in the right seats!" Keep in mind Sarah and I are both stone sober, and I had double-checked our seats. So then Sarah disappears to go get security, and I'm stuck in the middle of the Jolly Green Giants and Barb who was trying to save me. I was thinking to myself "what the hell is going on??? I'm so confused!!!" Sarah didn't come back with the security person because she was like 80.

It ended up getting settled as fast as it started, but yes, we totally almost got in a fight, totally sober, with a bunch of scary drunk huge women. In retrospect, it was actually kind of funny...

The rest of the concert was good-- raunchy, but good. Very interesting people walking by, and quite some hoochtastic outfits. Back at the hotel we pigged on chips and french onion dip, and listened to Sarah C. (who had drank the equivalent of 5 shots worth of tequila, plus beer and wine before) talk about her mannishly muscular arms and how she doesn't want them to look bad in her wedding dress. Quite amusing.... Until this morning when she woke up and looked like Death had run her over with a 10-ton semi :)

Kind of nice to feel all fresh and be free of hangovers in the mornings for the next 5 months... :)

Dreams 4/25 & 4/26 and Engagement!

Dreams:

I dreamt that I was back at Augie, but it was more of a big open field. But at the same time I was in Lundahl's upper gym, playing basketball (well, actually I was sitting on the bench). Every time we would run to one end of the gym, we would hear all this yelling, and I kept telling the other girls "oh, that's just the DONs doing pledging activities." (I think I was thinking about this because Andy had talked about DON pledging earlier in the weekend). Anyways, I can't remember exact detals, but it turned into me and a couple of other people hiding in the hills of the fields from some guy trying to kill us! Weird... So then all of a sudden my Grandpa Preston drives up and gives us the "pretend I'm not here, stay quiet" look, and goes and "takes care" of the guys trying to kill us! So scary. Somewhere my mom was in the dream, and I actually think she was one of the bad guys, but I can't remember exactly.

In real life I lost a St. Gerard medal that my mom gave me, and I am really upset about it. In the dream, I was putting ads up on Craigslist and in the paper trying to find it.

In real life I had watched E! True Hollywood Story on Growing Pains, and I kept dreaming that Kirk Cameron and his wife were trying to change everything in my life. So weird...

Engagement!

So, Andy surprised Sarah with a proposal this Saturday, and of course she said yes! He had arranged for both of their families to be at dinner without her knowing, and then for all of their friends to be at Irish Pub later on in the evening. It was a great celebration, and we now all add another wedding to our lists for next year! Who's next???

Other news:

Squirrel is growing! It's about the size of an apple now, I guess, and we have an appointment with Dr. Barnabei on Friday morning. I'm not quite as comfortable in my clothes at the moment, but not big enough for maternity yet... Soon!

1st Tri Screen plus Dreams

This morning we had our 1st Trimester screening tests at Children's. We first had an ultrasound, and it was so surreal to see the baby! According to the tech and Doc, everything (from what they can tell now) looks perfectly fine. The baby even totally moved around for us, which was so cool! The tech says "you've got a little athlete!"-- and I said "Yesss!" We will have to wait for our "official" test results, but for now we're happy. After our ultrasound we met with a genetic counselor, who put us at ease that I will be okay giving birth. We went over our ethnic backgrounds to see if we're prone to any particular issue, and really we're not. And most of all, our concerns about what happened to Sarah happening to me are pretty uneccesary, at least for now. So that was good. "Reassuringly pointless" is what I've been saying :).

Dreams:
I was at some big auditorium place and I was on America's Next Top Model. So was Michael... He went first down the runway, and looked like a total goof, waving his hands in the air because he had no idea how to walk. Then I had to go, and I did a really good job, despite the fact that I was the shortest one there. They had this whole system for the runway that you were assigned a specific color, and when your color was listed on this map thing, then it was your turn to walk. I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror and I looked really pretty. Weird.

Then I dreamt that someone had driven by our house and stolen Scotch. I recognized the car when I was driving down the highway, so I turned around and followed it, until it pulled off the highway onto a deserted dirt road. It stopped, so I pulled over and pulled up to it. When I got to the car, there was Scotch, on the lap of the passenger. I said "that's my dog! Give him back!" and the lady says, very nicely, "no this is our dog, and we are keeping him." I said, "you're crazy, come on Scotch," and he promptly jumped into my car. We were back on the highway and that was it.

Dreams 4/1/09

I am going to begin jotting down some of my dreams that I have, since I keep forgetting to write them down in my journal. Plus, I type faster than I write. Excuse the choppy format, because it's hard to remember each detail.

First dream: I was on vacation with my mom and Sarah, and it was implied in the dream that Harrisons were around, too. Sarah had picked Puerta Vallarta to go to because there was some concert going on there. My mom and I were alone and she was telling me how she didn't like the place because it was too busy and it wasn't tropical enough. I kept telling her that we should have gone to Playa del Carmen because there were less people. We took a shuttle-boat through a jungle-like lagoon area to get to the restaurant, that I think could only be reached by boat. When we got there, it was like a Carlos and Charlie's type of place-- and very busy. We had to share a table with a couple of guys, and Sarah finally showed up saying she was loving the place. The concert was going on outside of the restuarant, and it was really loud and there were thousands of people. We left the restaurant and started walking through a series of planked pathways across the water, but they were all flooded so we called our shuttle-boat driver back. He picked us up, and took us on a ride through the lagoon, and we saw two huge alligators in the water. He thought it would be cool to get the boat bucking up and down so we would get close to the gators, which we didn't like, and were very scared. When we got close to one of them, it tried to bite my arm, and got a little bit. My mom was really mad at the driver-- he just thought it was funny. That was the dream...

Second dream: I was laying in bed at around 5am, when I got really bad stomach cramps (in real life I had just woken up with the same thing, so I had a hard time distinguishing between the dream and reality at first). I got out of bed, and called my mom because I knew she'd be up, and I wanted to ask her advice. She told me to call the doctor to make sure it wasn't anything pregnancy-related. So I was getting off the phone with my mom, when I heard our back door open. Skip and Scotch were in bed, so I was scared. Scotch growled a little, and in walks Kathryn Gray-- wasted! It was funny. She had said she was out with friends drinking (but I can't remember the rest of the details). She was acting really silly, and I told her that it was a great fun thing to do the last night before her last year of college started. She started feeling bad because it was so early in the morning, but I told her it was okay because I was already up. She started getting really sleepy, so she pulled out the pull-out bed from the couch (which we don't have in real life), and crashed. That was the dream...