Feeling Better!

I am feeling better, thank goodness. One of the stones is gone and the other is staying put for now, which is not causing any pain. So I went back to work. It was nice to focus on something else for a change. Unless anything changes, I'm going to continue working as long as I can. The longer I can get paid, the better, since I'm taking some unpaid time after my paid leave.

Today I went to Babies R Us to pick up some essentials after we unpacked most of our 5 to 8 year old baby stuff over the weekend. I'm trying not to get much, but there were some things I just have to replace or get new. I was shocked at how much prices of the baby basics have gone up since I last had a baby (almost 6 years ago). Yikes, this is one instance where I'm glad I was a pack rat and saved as much as I possibly could.

We are still woefully unprepared for this baby. The past few nights I have been waking up in a panic at 3 a.m. over all we have to do. (And general panic at the thought that in a few short days or weeks we will have a baby in the house again!)

While I am certainly grateful not to be in pain anymore, going back to work is tough because now I'm just too tired to accomplish anything in the evenings after work, picking up the kids, dinner, cleanup, etc. My past few evenings have consisted of, after the forementioned activities, watching whatever crappy reality TV show is on and passing out the same time as the kids. #3's room is slowly starting to take shape, although the crib is still in pieces. Hopefully I'll be closer to my due date (Aug 19th) than I had previously thought!

Pain on a scale of 1 to 10? That would be 20.

How to ruin a week at the shore for an entire family . . . Wake up with kidney stones on the third day there. Yup, kidney stones. At 36 weeks pregnant. After two stints in the hospital at the beach, we cut our week short and we are back home and I am heavily medicated. Thankfully, the baby is oblivious to my agony and is doing just fine. I sure didn't see this one coming. I have been good throughout pregnancy about staying hydrated and not drinking more than 1 caffeinated drink a day, but apparently I have been dehydrated. I've got stones in both kidneys, and I just have to wait until they come out. Went to both my OB and a urologist today, and for the next week we are going to wait and see what happens, then we'll talk about inducing, since I can only take pain medication for a short period of time. In the meantime, I am done working and am to rest, rest, rest. It's tough to do anything with the amount of discomfort I'm in, so it's maddening to look around the house and see so much to do. I was also counting on a few more weeks of working, since I am planning on adding unpaid time to my maternity leave. JV has been wonderful, taking full charge of the kids and house and driving me to my appointments, although he's very busy at work. My brother, sister in law, and my mother have also cut their vacations short to help us. At this point I need to stop worrying about the dog hair dust balls on the floor and the crib that is not put together yet and focus on both my health and what I'm grateful for - and there are so many things. Hopefully this kidney thing will resolve itself on its own, and soon.

"Picture This" - I sure didn't

Last night, Diva and I sat and watched the movie “Picture This”, starring Ashley Tisdale, on the ABC Family Channel. Diva is a huge fan of Ms. Tisdale, a Disney channel actress and singer best known for her role as Sharpay Evans in the High School Musical juggernaut.

Here’s the description of the movie per the ABC Family Channel web site:
"Ashley Tisdale stars as high school senior Mandy Gilbert who's not too hot within the high-stakes world of teen society. But her social status is about to dramatically improve when she lands a date to the biggest party of the year with Drew Patterson (Robbie Amell), the school's hottest guy. Only problem … she's grounded! With the help of her friends and her new, must-have video phone, she'll have to outsmart her overprotective dad and Drew's ex-girlfriend, in a crazy, adventure-filled day that proves that popularity can come and go, but good friends will always be in the picture.”

Cute, right? I thought this would be a nice, wholesome and innocent family movie to watch with my 8 year old. I was disappointed. While it told a cute overall story and it was clearly a vehicle to promote Ms. Tisdale’s acting and singing talents, it had some references that I thought were not only inappropriate, but completely unnecessary for advancing the plot. Here’s a short list:

• Several phrases describing sex with no commitment – “Hit and quit”, “hump and dump” and a couple more. Diva asked what these phrases meant. I just told her it meant a boy took you out and then never called you again. Lame and inaccurate, I know, but when put on the spot I didn't know what else to say.
  
• Slightly mocking references to Alcoholics Anonymous (as in, “Where’s your Mom? At an AA meeting, and then she’s going out for drinks afterwards”) I suppose this was meant to be funny?
  
• Discussing loss of virginity by using the term “deflower". As if that wasn't bad enough, they talked about doing it in the shower! Diva also asked what this meant. I gave a lame, inaccurate, G-rated answer to this too.


• Use of the word “a**” twice to describe the posterior. Really, what’s wrong with saying “butt”?


• Implied underage drinking at a high school party (I don’t think high school kids would likely drink fruit punch out of martini glasses, and everyone else holding opaque plastic cups at the party – are we really to believe there’s Coca-Cola in them?)

I must say these were minor or implied references, and since weren’t really central to the messages in the overall story, we kept watching, although in retrospect I probably should have turned it off. This movie was clearly geared toward a teen audience, not my rising third grader.

It didn’t help that peppered throughout the movie were promos for a new ABC Family series, “The Secret Life of an American Teenager”, which, from the ads, deals with a teenager hiding a pregnancy from her parents.

Of course, Diva and I have already discussed teen pregnancy as a result of Jamie Lynn Spears’ brilliant decision to get knocked up at 16, so she is familiar with the concept of teen pregnancy and how it’s just not the ideal situation for mother or baby. However, she does not yet know the specifics on how one actually gets pregnant. I’m sure that question will come soon enough, given that I myself will be giving birth in a month or so. :)

Anyhoo, the promos did indicate the new series comes with a warning: “Parental Discretion Advised”. I will use that discretion and will not permit her to watch it. I don’t know if “Picture This” had a similar warning, if it did, I didn’t see it. Granted, I did not research this movie much (at all!) but I figured it was FAMILY friendy, since it was the ABC Family Channel.

I wouldn’t have minded this so much if I was watching with a teenager, but with an 8 year old, I’m starting to stress a bit about her being exposed to so much at such a young age. I certainly don’t want her emulating such teenagers before her time. I wished I had been given some indication about this movie’s target audience.

So, as I learned last night, you still have to research and censor your kids’ TV choices, even when it’s the ABC FAMILY CHANNEL!

Take the kids to see WALL-E

We saw WALL-E yesterday and it got a thumbs up from all. What a great movie - animation is top notch, and it told a sweet love story, amazingly, with very little dialogue, with some messages in thrown in there for adults. This is one we'll buy on video and watch again and again. Daredevil thinks it was the best movie ever made, and Diva loved it too. I only looked at my watch once, and already an hour had gone by. It seemed like 10 minutes! While I enjoyed Kung Fu Panda, I think WALL-E is better. Go see it!

Happy 4th of July Weekend

Hope everyone is having a relaxing weekend. We certainly are. The weather here on the East Coast is cloudy, with some rain here and there, and that suits me just fine. At almost 33 weeks pregnant I am enjoying staying indoors, baking brownies, vegging on the couch and watching the Beach Patrol: Honolulu marathon on TruTV. Daredevil has been watching the JAWS marathon on AMC and is loving it. Of course we had that talk that it's just a movie and the shark is fake, since I don't want him terrified of going in the ocean, as I was as a kid after first seeing JAWS.

Since it's not nice out I feel no obligation to park my beached whale self by the pool in one of my maternity bathing suits. JV took the kids out for fireworks last night. It was raining but they had fun all the same. I enjoyed the quiet time in the house and went to bed early. We saw fireworks last week after a baseball game, so I didn't feel like I was missing anything, although I think JV thinks I am unpatriotic by skipping them on the 4th. Today we might go see Wall-E at the movies to get out of the house. Other than that, we have no plans to do anything for the rest of the weekend, which is a beautiful thing!