Babies, owls and cheese

I was all excited to post an ultrasound picture here, but our printer/scanner is hooked up to my husband's computer now, and he doesn't have the scanner driver on his computer, so they won't talk to each other, and all I can do is make photocopies of the pictures, which doesn't really help unless I mail them all to you, and that would just be stupid. And expensive. And as much as I like you all, I don't like you that much.

Also, I have coined a new term: FauxD. As in FauxD ultrasound, NOT 4D, because SUCH A THING CANNOT EXIST. That way you all know what I'm talking about, and I do not have to use language I object to.

So, we got some pretty good pictures of 2.0. Now, I realize that FauxD ultrasound images are kind of all smushy and globby looking, but I swear to you this child looks just like Grace. She is already chubby (the ultrasound tech even noted this with some surprise, but I'm not alarmed since I've taken TWO blood glucose tests this time around, and all is normal). And she DEFINITELY has my nose.

She is 5 pounds right now. This is... large. But not DANGERHUGEDANGER like Grace was at this point, even if the ultrasound is underestimating by a pound. If she comes a week early like Grace did, there's a chance I could have a normal-sized baby. That would be awesome.

The doctor I saw Monday was the one who performed my C-section; he's also the one who I had my first prenatal appointment with, the one who seemed the most leery of a VBAC. At this appointment he asked what we were thinking of doing, and I said I didn't want to schedule a C-section. I was expecting some resistance--not pressure, 'cause that's not the way these people roll, which I really like, but slight resistance, like maybe an eye twitch or a certain tone of voice. Instead, he just said, "Okay, sounds good!"

I said, "Oh. Huh. You seemed to be the one least in favor of taking that route at my first appointment."

He said, "I did? That's really weird. I normally try to be as low-intervention as possible." So. I don't know. Maybe when I saw him last he'd recently had a VBAC go awry, and it was fresh in his memory. Whatever the reasons, that relieved the last little bit of apprehension I had about not scheduling a C-section.

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Enough about babies. I'm sick of talking about babies.

I almost hit an owl on the way to James's mom's house a few nights ago. We came over for New Year's Eve, and on this dark, icy road into her development, there was this giant bird, just hanging out on top of a hunk of snow. I hit the brakes as hard as I dared. Luckily, it saw us and took off. Once it started flying, we realized just how huge it was. I'm pretty sure it was a great horned owl, but that's based solely on my spotty memory and pictures on the Internet.

Also, in my ten minutes of research I discovered that the barred owl is possibly one of the creepiest-looking birds on earth:


Tell me those soulless pools of darkness don't make you want to pull the covers up over you head.

And finally, I'm kind of obsessed with owls now. Odd.

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I did A Bad Thing today.

Whenever I find out someone is pregnant, my first inclination is to be all, "Oh, hey! THIS is what happened to me! And THIS is how it works! And, also, when they tell you not to do THIS, you should know that's totally outdated advice, and it's perfectly safe, don't worry!" And then I realize how obnoxious that is, and I shut my trap and just wait for people to ask me, which almost never happens, but when it does it makes me really happy hint hint hint.

Well. An Facebook friend of mine from church growing up is now with child, and she posted an update about wanting cheese, cheese, more cheeeese! and I started writing a response about how I ate nothing but grilled cheese and quesadillas for months, and with Grace it was nothing but potatoes and pancakes, and blah blah pregnancy is weird. Or something. And then I saw that someone ELSE had written something about soft cheeses being DANGEROUS, with a UK link, and I just HAD to correct that person and say something about how soft cheeses are fine, so long as they're pasteurized, which pretty much all cheeses in the US are, unless you go looking for unpasteurized cheese. And then I hit "Comment" without really thinking about it, and now I kind of feel like a dork.

I HATE being That Guy, the one who has to correct everybody. I was That Guy in elementary school; I was school's biggest dork, constantly picked on, and the only thing I HAD was the fact that I was smarter than all those [redacted], so I was constantly all, "Well, actually, you're WRONG, and here's WHY, and you're DUMBER THAN I AM." As you can imagine, that kind of snottiness really backfires on a nerd. And then the double whammy is that it was That Guy + Unsolicited Pregnancy Advice, and if this seems really stupid to some of you, that's probably because it is, but I am still worked up about it.

Ahem.

I'm going to go eat a whole bunch of cheese now because I just realized I haven't had any in, like, 16 hours.