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I’ve started thinking about decorating our little boy’s room, and it’s soo much fun. Considering that I have what my Mom calls eccentric taste, I haven’t really liked any crib sets or nursery themes — especially for boys. Yuck! Incidentally, the only ones I’ve liked have been OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive. Also, I feel there’s no point in buying a crib set when you’re not going to use the fancy blanket or bumpers. Ooooh, safety hazards!! So I plan on sewing a crib skirt and just buying simple, solid-colored crib bedding. I found the adorable Michael Miller Zoology pattern and fell in love! So cute, yet definitely boyish. I’m pretty much basing the whole color scheme around that fabric.

I’m toying with different area rug colors by mixing and matching carpet tiles from Flor. I should probably order the samples soon to make sure they look good in person. I just love the fact that there are so many options to choose from.

My parents offered to buy us a rocking chair or glider, but I found the nursery gliders from baby stores to be huge, expensive and unbearable ugly! Maybe I’m just overly practical, but I can’t see buying a piece of furniture that will become obsolete after you’re done nursing. Lord knows, I would never put a giant nursery glider in my living room! At first I really wanted a Herman Miller Shell rocker, but after some research I realized I would rather have a chair with a high back to rest my head. Enter the Poang rocker from IKEA — modern yet functional, and most importantly, not hideous.

Finally, I found an adorable print from Alberto Cerriteño on Etsy. What could be cuter than a little boy hugging a big monster?! Nothing, that’s what. :)

So we opted to give George a chance at surgery, albeit a much less invasive type. We didn’t feel comfortable subjecting him to such a radical procedure, and the vet didn’t really recommend it. So last Thursday he removed the tumor (as much of it as he could see) and sent it off for biopsy. In the mean time, George has had a 6 inch zipper on his back that he’s been scratching at incessantly. At some point early in his recovery he even managed to rip out one of the staples. I came home from work and he was all bloody. The best solution I could manage for keeping him from inflicting more damage was to apply a bandage to the area — every 6 hours. It worked like a charm!

Thursday this week, the vet called with the biopsy results. It wasn’t good news. The cancer is the feared Vaccine Associated Fibrosarcoma, and the vet expects him to live 3 months or so… at best. Obviously, not the news I was looking for, but pretty much what I expected. So at this point we just make sure he’s comfortable and monitor his condition. Right now, he shows no signs of the cancer affecting him, but I suspect that may change soon. I’ve come to terms with what’s going to happen, and we have no regrets about the decisions we’ve made. But it still makes me sad. Needless to say, Georgie and I have been getting in lots of good snuggle time. I know he’s really enjoying the spoiling he’s getting.

Then, today I had to take him in to have his staples removed. As I was trying to get him in the carrier, he launched himself off my chest, and scratched the shit out of me. I’ve got two 4-inch gashes under my collar bone. Very pretty. Then the vet tells me that his staples need more time to heal! So I’ve gotta do this again next Monday! SERIOUSLY?! Then, to add insult to injury, he somehow managed to hurt himself inside the carrier on the way home. He writhed himself into an inescapable pretzel and proceeded to scream and hiss. When I was finally able to free him from the carrier, he limped around and shook his foot in pain. What am I going to do with him? He’s surely not acting like a cat with cancer.

Apologies for being rather silent here lately. I’ve been swamped with work, freelance and George’s cancer (update post on that to come). The weeks are just flying by and I don’t know where the time is going. I’m half way through this pregnancy already and I just don’t know when I’m going to find the time to do all the preparing I need to do before this little one hatches. :) Probably should overcome my aversion to baby stores, huh?

20 weeks

So last week I had another ultrasound, and it was pretty cool to see the “sprout” all formed and looking like a baby rather than a bean. We were also excited to learn that the sprout is a boy! I’m pretty relieved about that, actually, since we had been unable to agree on a girl’s name. My mother is a little disappointed though. I think she wanted to buy little ruffly dresses and cutesy things.

The child already has Mike’s nose and my chin.

Again with the exclamation points. :)

He waved just as the ultrasound tech was finishing up… HOW CUTE!!!

I’ve been feeling him move quite a lot now, which makes this whole pregnancy thing seem so much more real and interesting. It’s not as if I wasn’t excited before, but now it seems so much cooler! I know I’ve still got about 5 months, but I can’t wait to meet him!

So I should be feeling pretty good right now: I’m starting to get excited about having this baby, we find out the sex next week, and all the first trimester maladies have pretty much disappeared. Except I’m horribly depressed.

Life had to throw an enormous wrench in everything. On Monday, I discovered a walnut sized mass on George’s back between his shoulder blades. Holy shit, how could I have missed something so large? Have I been that preoccupied with myself? Perhaps… :( I immediately scoured the internet looking for clues. My closest guess was Fibrosarcoma. A brief conversation with the vet on the way to work yesterday confirmed my fear: Based on my description of the tumor, he suspects that type of cancer as well. I spent most of the day bawling my eyes out, unable to get much done. Today, I brought him in so the vet could examine him and hopefully get a needle sample of the tumor tissues to send off to lab. George was a wonderfully good sport and barely even put up a stink. I was so proud!! We all know what a pill he can be (his file has a giant orange “CAUTION” sticker on it).

So herein lies my problem: The tissue sample they sent might not provide any conclusive results that it is Fibrosarcoma. At any rate they recommend immediate surgery. The problem I have with that is threefold. First, IF it turns out to be Fibrosarcoma: the cancer is extremely aggressive and would require radical, invasive surgery — possibly having to remove bone and back muscles. Second, everything I have read says that the rate of recurrence in Fibrosarcoma is not very good. In other words, it could crop up again mere months from initial surgery, and with a vengeance. Finally, George is almost 12, and I’m really not keen on putting him through all that. But IF it turns out to be something less aggressive with a better prognosis, I might consider the surgery. So we’re in a rock and a hard place here. I guess we just need to wait and see what the lab results show. Hopefully, the results give us some conclusive data so we can make an informed decision!!

What would you do?? I mean, I really think people can take it too far in terms of “caring” for their pets. When do you draw the line?

I’ve had some people ask to see progress of the baby belly, and until now there really hasn’t been much to see. I present: weeks 10 thru 17. This last week I’ve definitely seen some growth, but I think these pics are a little misleading; especially since I usually wear looser clothes to conceal the bump. The most remarkable transformation so far has got to be the boobs… GOOD LORD, THE BOOBS! That’s all I’m gonna say.

Week 10
Week 12
Week 14
Week 17

While I’ve only put on about 5 pounds, my clothes are not my friends right now. I removed most of my wardrobe from the closet so that I wouldn’t get distracted by favorite garments that no longer fit me. It’s depressing when all you really want to do is wear that adorable wool skirt, but you can’t because it won’t zipper! So it taunts you from across the closet, making getting dressed a painful chore.

I am still rebelling against maternity pants, however. They are evil devices made to torture pregnant women. First, they only come in S, M, L… etc and they are tremendously unflattering. Second, I hate the sensation of fabric clinging to my stomach, so I must wear them slung low. Third, they fit ok for about 10 seconds until they stretch a little, and then I must resort to hiking them up every 5 minutes. If only I could get away with yoga pants at work. While not the image of fashion, at least they’d be comfortable.

All this talk of new babies in my family has got everyone on a baby craze. One of my cousins just had a baby just before Christmas. Another cousin is due in April. And then, of course, there’s me in July. And finally, a close family friend is due in June. Apparently, we all jumped aboard the baby train around the same time. So in preparation for upcoming showers, Mom started digging through her pictures looking for baby pictures of people… she happened to unearth this:

I think it’s one of the only pictures of my mom when she was pregnant with me. Isn’t she pretty!? I always remember this picture fondly. In fact, I was recently thinking about it. Unfortunately, the original photo suffered some damage over the years (in the form of a large crease running across the image) so Dad sent me a scan, hoping that the “Photoshop Doctor” could restore it. Above is the result. The plaid was a bitch, but I don’t think it came out too bad.

Occasionally I check the blog: Photoshop Disasters to see some truly wretched examples of Photoshop gone horribly wrong. It can sometimes be morbidly entertaining especially when it involves extra body parts, missing body parts, grotesque distortions, etc.

Today, a disaster was delivered right to my inbox. Feast your eyes on this lovely beauty from our friends at Pier 1…

In case the problem isn’t glaringly obvious to you: The overall light source of this image is coming from the left, however that lampshade has a carelessly been placed in the image with the exact opposite light source. Also, the chair has only 3 legs. SIGH!

I showed it to Mike and at first he thought it was the fact that the chair has different shaped legs… while that does look odd, unfortunately, that just makes it a cheap chair.

So I was driving to work a few weeks back after a pretty substantial snow storm the evening before. Along my journey I saw a peculiar site: two or three guys standing proudly around a large mound of shoveled snow at the end of their driveway. I thought it was kind of odd, but I didn’t realize what they were looking at until my drive home. They had unmistakably embellished this perfectly shaped mound of snow to look like Jabba the Hut!

Another snowstorm fell, quickly covering him up, and I didn’t get to take a picture until the next thaw. Luckily, he was still in decent shape. :) You be the judge… Jabba the Snowman??

Since the cat is out of the proverbial bag at work, I am free to make the public service announcement: I am pregnant, knocked up, bun in the oven, gestating, preggers, whatever. It took a lot for me to keep this whole thing under wraps which is why I have been rather absent here of late. Some of you (and you know who you are) are slamming your hands down on the desk, screaming, “I KNEW IT!” Yeah, well… SURPRISE! It was inevitable, really.

[ November 11, 2009 ]

I recall a time when having kids was the last thing on my mind! You see, unlike some of my friends, I never had the overwhelming urge to procreate. The thought of stepping foot in a baby store used to give me the sweats, and quite frankly, I still hate going in them. I really haven’t enjoyed very much of the first 3 months — with the sole exception of seeing the first ultrasound. I can’t see myself being one of these women that proclaims to the world how much they love being pregnant. But then again, who knows; it’ve got a long 6 months ahead of me, as I start to balloon and not be able to fit into my clothes.

[ I didn't need the ultrasound tech to put the word "BABY" followed by 4 exclamation points to know what I was looking at here. ]

I would like to just skip through the pregnancy, labor & delivery business, but we all know that doesn’t happen unless you adopt. I know I sound negative about being pregnant. I don’t exactly hate it, but I just prefer how I feel when I’m not pregnant. I’m told by those more experienced that once you can feel the baby moving, it starts to get fun and interesting. I’ll keep you posted on that. :)

As the “all day” sickness is finally waning, Mike and I are starting to get excited about the prospect of being parents. Well, it’s a mixture of excitement and terror, but I challenge you to find any first time parent-to-be who isn’t a teensy bit terrified.

So throughout this whole adventure, I plan to resume blog business as usual (hopefully with a little more regularity) but perhaps also with pregnancy updates and maybe some “crafting for baby” fun. Sorry if that’s not what you were hoping for, but with the offspring growing inside me, it’s hard to think of much else.

Much to my horror and dismay, I learned that my blog had been compromised. Some malicious douchebag found a weakness in my site, and decided to inject my code with horrible virus-ridden file downloads. (Sincere apologies to anyone that may have been affected!) Since I’m on a Mac, the problem wasn’t initially apparent to me. My first indication that there was a problem was an email from my dad with a screenshot of his virus software catching a malicious file my website was trying to download onto his computer. The most likely culprit was the fact that I was slightly behind on the latest WordPress installation. Damn my recent lack of regular posting!!

To dig a little deeper, I downloaded the plugin “Exploit-Scanner” to see if it could locate any problems… Well, there were so many rogue scripts running on the site, I couldn’t even begin to locate them all and delete them. So my clearest plan of action was to export all my posts, delete my entire database and perform a fresh install of WP. Since my theme files also appeared to be affected, I couldn’t import my old theme. So the current theme you’re seeing is only temporary until I can either redesign a whole new theme, or somehow resurrect the old one. SIGH!!

Bloody SAVAGES!!!