Hey

Fenner Till is here. He's super amazing, just as I predicted. I'll tell you lots (and lots) more about him later.

P.S. I'm most likely not following through on many of those serious promises. When I tell you about how I got him out, you'll understand.

PPS. I am stoked

serious promises

first, let me say that michael & i are pretty zen about waiting for baby fenner to arrive. when i thought he was coming early, i was pretty effin' stressed out (mostly due to work issues), but after being able to start my leave the way i planned i felt great.  with that in mind, here is a list of promises i'm willing to make for him to come before 41 1/2 weeks (which is when my midwife will induce me, 10/1):

• i would stop eating ice cream for the whole of my maternity leave
• i would miss the new episode of doctor who this saturday (this only counts if he comes ON saturday and i get to DVR it)
• i would take cooley on a walk every morning (with the baby) as soon as i could walk through the house at a normal pace
• i would reduce my internet usage by 25% (which, at the moment, equals roughly 5 hours)
• i would eat green beans from a can AND applesauce
• i would wash and blow dry my hair everyday (not that this would be practical/possible, but it's something i hate doing)
• i would clean the kitchen floor with a rag instead of a mop
• i would sew symbols onto all of michael's socks so we knew which ones matched 
• i would clean out the garage
• i would roll all of the change in the house by hand

 as a side note, we had no idea that everyone else on the planet would be so anxious for us (in varying ranges from 30% to 115% more anxious). so, for everyone who is wigging out about him not being here yet, i've got to say that if you take a chill pill you'll be a lot happier. michael & i are worrying about your blood pressure.

p.s. i've been checking my work email each day to keep things from getting out of control & i got an email from our (totally crazy) literacy coach. she emails all the teachers to say that it's time to get all the ILPs (literacy plans) for returning and new students ready/entered. then she emails just *me* to say it'd be "great" if i could work on my ILPs while i'm waiting for the baby to come. yeah, NO. i am not being paid right now, so why in the world would i spend time working?! what a crazy b. i just ignored the email.

what if i'm the first lady to be pregnant forever?

first, please laugh at that title. i know it's not true At All and am just being dramatic. (although, at my dr. visit last week, i did say to my midwife "so, these [false contractions] could go on forever." and she said, "well...not forever.")

anyway, lets talk about some other stuff:

this is a screen shot earlier this week from my contraction app - the blue graph means they were All Lies

Saturday, Michael had the absolutely brilliant idea to go check out the aspens changing colors. this is one of my very favorite things to do. so we woke up early, got some yummies from the german bakery, took cooley to the dog park, dropped my car off to get new tires, and THEN headed to the super-secret road to see some beautiful colors (the super-secret road is courtesy of michael's sweet state-employee hook-ups)

ashley's awesome photo-bomb

also, i got myself some instagram. it's mildly amusing and i like the different coloring, but don't look for me anywhere, because i'm pretty sure i did a good job of blocking the crap out of myself on their app. i just want pretty colors, not another social invasion.
side note: i think i'm becoming an old person in regards to social media. i grumble a lot about facebook and similar things these days. in fact, if you ask me about the possibility of people posting things about baby fenner on the internet without express prior consent, i do a lovely rendition of flippin' the eff out!

this was taken with the belly, specifically with mom in mind. can you see where my turkey-timer belly button popped?

michael getting some hand sanitizer from ashley. we are learning soooo much about her!

so, let's talk about this guy. cooley is going to probably be the bane of my existence once fenner arrives. this morning, we didn't go on a walk together (i am so tired. how in the world am i so tired?), so he's been licking and bugging me like crazy. sorry to break it to you, bucko, but this is your new life once the baby gets here. and being a rowdy bastard = living in the backyard. so shape up!

he's adorable though, right?! the laundry fell on him the other day and he just didn't care.

in final news, i made some oatmeal cream pie cookies. they're pretty damn delicious. also, i need to repaint my nails. which i literally JUST painted last week when i thought i might have a baby. damn nail polish.

so, now i'm going to go back to resting (from the extremely exhausting task of Not Doing Anything), before i buck up and start doing some cleaning/organizing/cooking.


p.s. this picture-post is brought to you by my iphone 4. probably the best decision we've made in the past year (and, yeah, i'm including getting pregnant in that)

this is bullshit: 39 weeks edition

Do you realize how long 39 weeks is, people? 39 weeks ago was JANUARY. I have literally spent all of 2012 pregnant. Honestly, it's been great. Didn't get too sick, too tired, too fat, too uncomfortable, too emotional. I got just the right amount of everything.

Except now. Now I'm getting a bajillion days of "maybe labor" and, frankly, it's really starting to get annoying. I *know* women can have days & days of contractions that don't lead anywhere and I *know* a 3-minute contraction is normal. I also *know* that it's bullshit and it's really messing with me.

I decided to stop working because it was too stressful for me to teach and try to pay attention to contractions to make sure they weren't progressing too much for me to be able to drive myself home. Not to mention having non-progressing contractions all day doesn't mean they won't turn into progressing contractions at any moment. So after a 9 hour day, I would spend another 1-2 hours at home creating "just-in-case" sub plans for the next day. I know not many teachers read this, but "just-in-case" sub plans are the devil's work. And then I'd wake up at 2am and be so stressed I couldn't fall back asleep for hours.

Well, after being so damn *proud* of myself for deciding to eff that and just stay home to "take care of myself" - those mother-effin contractions have all but stopped! I know he's got at least another week that he's supposed to be cooking in there & that's fine, but how do I go back to work now?! It seems ridiculous to go back, but it's equally ridiculous to stay at home when I've got no good reason. Plus, since the first 2 days of contractions were so convincing, everyone knew about them and now I get to tell multiple people on a daily basis: "No, but maybe, but not really, OHMYGODSTOPASKINGNOTHINGISHAPPENING."

What I'm saying is this: don't ever have try to birth a baby. It's really, really annoying and it will make you shout obscenities in your mind at well-meaning loved ones.

"well, duh," you will probably say

I'm pretty sure we can all agree that I'm an amazing human being. If you aren't on board the Molly Express, you wouldn't still check this blog after all the neglect I put you through. However, I'm also pretty sure you know that I suck as well. Here's the best part: Most of the things that make me awesome, also make me suck.

Exhibit A: I love making people happy. Especially people who are MY people. If you're one of my people you will know it because when you ask me for something I will generally give it to you if I can. I like giving people stuff that makes them happy & that's groovy. Except for when it's not because I spend too much time making other people happy & end up a giant stress ball with cute hair (did i mention i got a hair cut? it looks great!)

Now there's Fenner, who's literally the most MY person on the planet. And the rest of the world is going to have to suck it, because all the bullshit demands of the past 4-5 days have made me start fighting with my new coolest person. He's done a lot more than I have these past 9 months to go from cell clump to prehistoric swamp animal to actual tiny human and all of the sudden I decided to put in my 2 cents.

He knows what he's doing. I don't (holy crap, did i post on the internet that i don't know *everything*?!). So I'm going to pay attention to him now. Honestly, I don't know why it didn't occur to me before my 2:30 am peanut butter toast snack. The formula is simple really:

Molly (who is, as previously referenced, amazing) + Michael (who is equally amazing, if not more so given his superior height/eye sight) = baby Fenner (who is likely to crush all the other babies in the world with his new levels of off-the-charts amazingness). 

This little honey badger is going to rule us all someday.