So Anna asked me if I had gotten my baby book yet, so I can use it to have people sign in at my shower.  I had not even thought of that!  I am a failure in the scrapbooking department.  I never finished my wedding album.  I harbored a ton of guilt about that, but after I was married, I just couldn’t bring myself to really care about all that cutesy crap.  It didn’t help that I spent the first 9 months of my marriage, (and the last 3 before it), working at a hellish place that kept me so exhausted that when I got home, all I could do was lay on the couch and watch tv.  Good times, good times.  Several years ago, when I was unemployed for about 2 and a half months, I decided i was going to tackle that book.  This was, mind you, 2.5 years after I got married.  Unfortunately, I decided to tackle it the day before I was offered a new job, which I started 2 days later.  So I hid the book very well in order to keep myself from the guilt that I was wracked with everytime I saw it.  I currently don’t know where it is, but I think it’s somewhere in the same office closet that houses 2 years worth of pictures and 10 years worth of scrapbook stuff (tickets, programs, etc), that I never got around to putting in an album.  I was going to do that before the baby’s born, but considering the fact that that is just 2 months away, I doubt it will happen.  My sister-in-law made Tim and I each the cutest little scrapbooks for pictures.  I’m really going to try to fill it up, but I’ve gotten even worse at that since the advent of digital pictures, when even more effort is required to print pictures.  You have to find the pictures you want, load them onto a memory card, then go to Walgreens, choose the pictures, then drop it off and pick it back up.  THEN you have to put them in an album.  This is just way too many steps for me.  I lose interest around step 1.  I sincerely hope that when the baby is born I will be better.  I won’t be working, after all, and I don’t want my child to later look back and see an empty baby book and think this somehow tied to my love for them.  Then they use that as their defense at their trial for the string of liquor store hold-ups they’ve committed across central texas.  And the jury lets them off and blames me.

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Comments

Tim

2006-01-18T00:19:14.000Z

You can actually just upload the pictures to the Walgreens website and then go pick them up at the store. But putting the pictures on the memory card is probably not the time consuming step.

kelli

2006-01-18T17:20:03.000Z

Julie, my wedding album isn’t done either and our ten year anniversary is this year.  I’ve reconciled myself to the fact that it isn’t going to happen, and not only that, my hobby is not scrapbooking.  My hobby is collecting expensive supplies and feeling guilty.  I find that a blog with cute stories about the kid and a website where people can look at pictures is just as good.  You can print the stories later and put them in a book if that assuages your guilt.

Kate

2006-01-18T18:26:04.000Z

Kelli’s right— a blog is just as nice.  In fact, you’ll probably write more.  And then annoying aunties will harrass you less about pictures and stories about the baby monkey.  :)  But no pressure, really.  I just think it’s a good idea.

We haven’t even printed our wedding photos.  Grandmother apparently is all twisted off about it like we’re not giving her any.  Yeah, we did it (or didn’t do it) to hurt you.  And we’ve given everyone else photos.

I still have at least 9 and a half weeks to go (no Mickey Rouke/Kim Basinger jokes please), and I think I’m going to have to give up wearing pants.  I ordered 3 different pairs from the Gap.com thinking surely, surely one of them would fit.  Nope.  Nuh uh.  One was so tight on the thighs that I think they must have missized it, one fit fine in the thighs, but the crotch was too long and if you pulled it up, the denim part was too high up and cut into your stomach, and the third had a super-long crotch that I thought perhaps I could get by with, but I asked Tim’s opinion and he helpfully offered, “they’re not terrible.  I’ve seen a lot of pregnant women wear a lot worse things”.  I don’t want to just look better than horribly dressed women! 

So I just ordered jeans from JCPenney.  We’ll see if they fit.  This is getting ridiculous.  The shipping charges alone would give me enough to buy another pair of pants (if I could find any).  Unfortunately, the jeans i ordered are in another warehouse in another part of the country, so I probably won’t have my order until at least the end of next week.  What will I wear until then?  I have no clue!  I have one pair of jeans and one pair of pants that fit.  I guess I could just do laundry every day so at least one pair is always clean.  I also have two skirts that fit, but the very top of my thighs are suddenly rubbing together and it drives me crazy!  I’m trying to really exercise a lot this week and be really careful about what I eat in the hopes that that goes away, but I have a feeling it’s here to stay at least until the baby comes. 

So I’ve already spent $5 for the Old Navy jeans, $8 for the Gap and $15 (!) for Penney’s on shipping charges.  Let’s just hope some of these work, or you may find me in my yoga pants everyday.  Which would not be good because Tim has threatened to burn them because he hates them so much.

I seem to be CONSTANTLY hungry today!  I don’t know what the deal is, but it seems like the only time I’m not hungry is when I’m eating.  I was hungry less than two hours after breakfast, so I had a banana, which wasn’t enough, so I had a cinnamon graham cracker, then I went to lunch at Mekong River and had a delicious lunch of stir-fry and rice and I swear I was hungry an hour and a half after that!  So I had some strawberries and a pudding and now I’m hungry again.  Jeez, this is ridiculous!  My company is having a happy hour at McCormick and Schmicks with their yummy appetizers in half an hour and I’m sure I’ll pig out there.  At least I don’t have to worry about spoiling my dinner!

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Comments

Kate Thomas-Simpson

2006-01-09T14:10:02.000Z

Is she going through a particular growth spurt right now?

How are you doing otherwise?  :)

So Old Navy is the only place I’ve been able to find maternity jeans in tall.  So I just ordered two more pairs with my Christmas money and was most excited to have enough jeans to last all week.  Whoot!  Everyday I could clothe the bottom half of my body!  Then this morning I went to put them on and THEY DIDN’T FIT!  I’d ordered the exact same fit that I already had, so I looked closely at the pants and noticed they are “stretch”.  STRETCH?  Who puts Stretch in maternity pants?  Is this some sick joke?  “Yeah, we know that you are bigger than normal and don’t really want anything to even touch your skin, much less constrict it, but really, we think that you should have jeans so tight they make your thighs feel like they are encased in sausage casings.”  So I’m returning them, of course, and look online and discover:  THEY HAVE ADDED STRETCH TO ALL THEIR MATERNITY JEANS!  (at least the ones that come in tall).  I hate you Old Navy, you bastards.  I drove to Round Rock to shop from you, I ordered online from you, but now our relationship is severed.  done.  finite!  How dare a pregnant tall woman with a curvy figure try to wear pants.  What was I thinking!  Argh!  So I guess I’m going to try Penney’s next.  They seem to have talls online, but they look like the “Mom Jeans” that SNL did the commercial for.  Only 2.5 months to go, at least!

In happy news, the Longhorns squeaked out a win in the Rose Bowl last night.  Yay!  It was a nailbiter of a game and Tim and I watched all 4+ hours, riveted.  And I had planned to go to bed early last night.  Ha!  Go horns!

So we took the Girl Monkey to her umpteenth concert last night.  It was the 101X Xmas concert with Alpha Rev, Morningwood, StellaStar and Spoon.  I only went to see Spoon, although Tim also enjoyed StellaStar.  The Girl Monkey, (or Eunice Tallulah as I told my mother-in-law we were going to call her), has been to several concerts:  The Killers, ACL Fest and David Garza, but I think this is the first one where her hearing is actually functioning.  She moved a lot as soon as the music started!  I enjoyed it because a lot of the music sucked;)  She’s in a very active phase, so she probably would have moved a lot anyway, but I like to think she was dancing to the music.  Or she was cowering in fear with her tiny hands over her tiny ears.  Who knows?  But Tim and I both think it’s important to expose our child to a lot of music since we’re such music lovers and hey, it’s never too early to start!  Plus, in 3 months it will be a lot more difficult to go see concerts on a whim:)

Last night worked out well because we was able to sit for almost the entire night, and so I still had lots of stamina to dance my booty off to Spoon.  My biggest concern was petering out because I don’t have the energy or physical ability to stand for long periods of time that I used to.  They put on a great show and I was able to get a clear drooling view of Britt Daniel.  There were lots of obnoxious drunk people, unfortunately, mostly 101x employees who seemed to not even notice that a concert was going on.  The poor girl in front of me was so drunk, and this obnoxious guy who was trying to take her home I think kept pushing her so she’d teeter off balance and nearly fall.  And he kept plying her with alcohol.  Ah, why don’t these people go to The Drunk Monkey or Exodus to enact their stupid mating rituals?  And these two girls next to me when I was sitting (who I’m sure were 101x employees), kept holding their camera out to take pictures of themselves.  Finally I offered to do it for them and they said, “oh, no thanks, that’s okay!” and kept taking pictures of themselves, checking out the pictures, and then doing different poses.  It was the most pitiful display of vanity I’ve ever seen.  Luckily, none of this dampered the concert for me, but gave me lots of eye candy to watch during the slow points.  Oh, Spoon, protect me from your audience members!

BUT we saw Andy Langer several times (he was standing very near to us and the club was very sparsely populated), and I actually saw him move a bit to the music.  That’s certainly not like him!  All in all it was a fun night and I’m hoping my body forgives me for going to bed at 1:30.

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Comments

Marsha

2006-01-10T03:15:59.000Z

I went to a big Guy Forsyth show at Stubbs when I was 8+ months pregnant.  I couldn’t stand for long and definitely not in the crowd but a security guard got me a folding chair and we hung out on the side near the green room area.  Guy Forsyth actually came out, recognized us from playing our wedding and put his ear to my big ol belly and gave it a kiss.  Jackson was blessed by Guy before he was born.  Pretty cool.

One of the guys in our office works in the morning and watches his 7-month-old daughter in the afternoons.  Well apparently today they really needed him to work this afternoon and were looking for someone to babysit his daughter.  So of course they ask me, because, well, I’m the secretary, but more pertinent, I am 5 months pregnant.  And I was so embarrassed to say that I couldn’t do it by myself because I haven’t changed a diaper since I was 7.  Geez.  I plan to learn these things by the time our little kiddo is in the world, but I certainly don’t want to practice on someone else’s kid.  It was just sad.  So another woman in our office is going to take care of his daughter because she actually knows how to take care of children.  I feel like a total spazz, although I’m confident I’ll know everything after my single Baby Care Basics class that I’m taking in February.  Right.  Oh, that’s right, I did take a Child Development Class in high school, but they don’t really teach you practical stuff in there.  And then they make you take care of a bunch of ill-behaved small children who ask why you have a hole in your forehead (chicken pox scar).  I told that cheeky little bastard that she’d get chicken pox one day and have scars just like me.  Oh, and to make sure she scratched her chicken pox all the time;)

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Comments

Kate

2005-11-11T03:17:00.000Z

Forgive me for smiling at your post.  I can totally see you panicking.  I’m told that’s pretty common.  Do they even put it in the books?  If not, they should.

Diapers and all that you can learn.  Being loving and accepting and wonderful you can’t learn.  And you already have it.  I don’t know if this helps, but you’re going to be amazing!

So I have avoided putting my baby-related ramblings on this site because it’s really a theatre site and I figure no one who visits our page is interested in my pregnancy, but you know, I don’t think anyone reads this page anyway b/c I’m the only one who actually blogs, so screw it.

I’m sitting here bored out of my mind at work and I had my hand resting on my belly and the little Monkey moved from one side of my belly to the other!  It was totally cool.  Tim said, “I guess she’s swimming.”  Usually she just stays in one place and does a bunch of movement, but she moved a couple of times on the right side, then in the middle, then on the left, then back to the right.  All in like a minute.  It was very cool.  And made me feel better about the awful pain in my right side I’ve been having for the past couple of days.  :(

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Comments

Kelli

2005-12-03T22:58:01.000Z

I have to say that when I check your blog, Julie, I’m actually hoping for baby-related ramblings.  I don’t know much about theater, although it’s interesting to read, but since everything I hear from Kate these days always goes straight back to her new niece, I like to keep up with you. 

Sorry about the pain.  Are you to the point yet where your ligaments are getting loose?  Soon you will feel like your hips are so loose that your legs will fall out of socket when you take a step.  Just throwing that out there in case nobody’s mentioned it.

Have fun!  And keep on with the ramblings of the baby that is not Riley Fuzzel.  :)

Kate Simpson

2005-12-04T00:22:49.000Z

Me, too!  I am so glad to hear that small Thomas is delighting you.  I am a little excited, even if I can’t summon the energy to send an email.

I can neither confirm nor deny any knowledge of items purchased off your Target registry.  :)  I was just trolling and noticed them listing “fulfilled”…

love,

Kate

ashmita

2005-12-05T18:32:14.000Z

The best part of pregnancy is definitely the baby acrobatics.  I became the laziest employee ever once I started feeling the kicks and turns and bumps of my miniature ninja.  All I could think about was baby, baby, and more baby.  I logged some serious internet time between 8am-5pm.

So it’s already began, the fight against the holiday sweets that will be prevalent everywhere I go for the next 3 weeks.  One of our vendors has delivered a holiday goody basket.  But I’m proud to say I resisted.  I ate some of my low-calorie, low-fat chocolate pudding to stave off my chocolate craving.  And I sat in an hour and a half meeting, then another 45 minute meeting with a bowl of M&M’s within arms reach and I didn’t eat even one!  But it’s difficult.  Especially since people are always thrusting food at you.  “But Julie, you’re eating for two, it’s okay, eat whatever you want!” and “But you aren’t big at all!”.  While I appreciate the compliment, the second I am eating for is 2 pounds and about 12-14 inches long, so she really doesn’t need much.  And while I may not be physically big, my scale shows otherwise.  I have no clue where the pounds are going.  Perhaps I have a big ‘ole fat store in my lower back that I cannot see.  Perhaps I’m getting a pot belly on my back.  I don’t know!  But all I know is that my doctor told me to gain weight more slowly.  So please excuse me while I continue to resist temptation and not eat everything in sight!

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Comments

kelli

2005-12-13T22:53:47.000Z

My second is 2 millimeters, and I cannot stop eating. You should be quite proud. :)

I have this coworker.  He drives me CRAZY!  Especially since I’ve become pregnant, he now considers himself the authority on pregnancy, child-rearing, etc.  He has two children, 2 and 4, but he never says anything but negative stuff about them.  After we came back from Thanksgiving (4 days off), he said, “I couldn’t wait to get back to the office and get some peace and quiet, they were driving me crazy!  You’ll see, Mikey.”  Mikey’s my boss whose wife is due next Thursday.  I think that’s just sick.  So I said, “well, I plan to love my children” and he said, “love has nothing to do with it!”.  I’ve met his children a few times, they are two boys 2 and 4 and they seem to be really well-behaved, normal kids.  Perhaps even better behaved than the average 2 and 4 year old.  I’ve never seen them throw a fit, or be rude, or anything.  When the 2-year-old got sleepy at a recent happy hour, it was so cute, he just kind of sat on the ground.  I think he was trying to put his shoe on but he kept forgetting how.  It was adorable.  Anyway, I guess all their good traits can be credited to their mother.  Not that his wife wasn’t driving Tim and I crazy, forcing us into a way-too-long and intimate discussion of breast feeding.  Yikes!  And did I mention Negative Man always crosses over the line with comments.  And he just KEEPS GOING!  I will not even print some of his comments here, they are too disgusting. And when you point out he’s going too far, it doesn’t matter, he continues.  You usually have to forcibly and dramatically change the subject.  And he always comments on my pregnancy.  This morning he was annoying me about my breakfast, then asking me about childbirth classes and talking about how lucky Tim would be if he didn’t have to take any.  Speak for yourself, Negative Man!  ARgh!

3 months 5 days, 3 months 5 days, 3 months 5 days…

So apparently the UT College of Fine Arts is hard up for money.  They have been blitzing my phone, mail, and now email with requests for my hard-earned money.  Well I have one thing to say to you College of Fine Arts:  If you wanted money, perhaps you should have cast me in your freakin’ mainstage plays!  Perhaps you shouldn’t have eliminated the BFA program, cutting in half the # of students you allowed into it, and pulled the rug out from under me half-way through my sophomore year!  Or perhaps you should have put some people into your BFA class that weren’t transfer students, basically showing that your own program SUCKED!  And then abandoned those of us who were BA’s, forcing us to scavenge for acting classes!  Then perhaps you’d get some of my moolah. 

Yeah, bastards, this is coming from the girl who is $25 away from having spent a $1000 on a Lifetime Texas Exes membership basically for the sticker!  (Although, now I’m more fancy-schmancy and plan to get a license plate holder).  And I plan to send my spawn to The University (really is there any other?), and I’m already thinking of ways to indoctrinate them from birth like I was.  And I won’t give you ONE RED CENT!  HA HA HA HA HA HA!

But who’s bitter?  That’s all in the past now, we’re all over all that…