The gym
Today is the third day in a row that I’ve gone to the gym. I think we’re (me and William) are getting into a pretty good schedule. One problem is that William wakes up anywhere between 5 am and 7 am. Closer to 7am is great - for obvious reasons, but mostly, the gym’s day care doesn’t open until 8 am. If he wakes up closer to 5 am - as he did today, he’s so tired by 8 am that he cries at the day care. Also, there are some really really nice care workers that love him and hold him all the time, and there are others that do not. Basically it’s a crapshoot. I’m trying to keep my workout under an hour, so that we’re on our way home by 9 am. He’s been falling asleep in the car about a mile from our house. This is okay if he stays asleep and I put him in his crib…
Man, I think I just dozed off while I was typing that, it was so boring.
So here’s what I really wanted to say about the gym before I got sidetracked with baby stuff. There was this girl on one of the fancier eliptical trainers - the ones that move your feet so fast, you feel off balance. She had her little workout outfit on - low-rise black lycra pants, little black bra/tank with lots of boobs spilling out, huge tattoo across her back/butt showing. Hair and makeup totally styled like she was on a date. She had headphones on and was singing at the top of her lungs. Now, I know it’s American Idol season, but crap! First of all, she couldn’t sing. That was the worst part. If you can sing, go ahead. If not, well, keep it to yourself.
This is actually contrary to my normal way of thinking. I actually really like it when people can dance or sing or whatever with out holding back - regardless of talent level. BUT, there was this poor lady trying to read her book and do her elliptical workout, and I’m sure that girl’s off-key hollering was messing her up. The guy on her other side was working his ass off, literally. Sweat pouring off of him. He was easily moving his legs 10 times faster than the singer. I guess he was in some kind of zone, so it probably didn’t matter.
Anyway, my point is that she was so annoying. And for someone so obviously concerned with her appearance, you’d think she’d shut her trap and stick to looking cute in her workout clothes.
Tomorrow I’m going to take the Step class. No singers in there, I’m guessing.
More and more My Space
Yesterday I found the two people I really really really wanted to find on My Space - my good friend Dr. Cooch and my long lost dancing, waitressing, high-kicking, tequilla-drinking, boob-flashing, laugh-my-ass-off friend Sara Cohones!!! I’m going to buy a lottery ticket today, I feel so lucky. I’m off to call Sara to catch up…it’s been a good six years since I talked to her, which is just ridiculous.
my space, your space…
I’ve been using my space as my primary source of social interaction these days. I keep finding more and more people from high school and college that I haven’t seen or talked to in years. In a wierd small-world instance, I was looking at the friends of a girl that was a few years younger than me in HS - seeing if I knew anyone. One of the friends was someone I recognized but didn’t really know, but he happend to be in Sweden, so I looked at his profile, because I wanted to see pictures of Sweden. Then I notice in his comments that he has one from a girl named Patricia. I look closely at her picture, and it’s her and her fiance, my long lost friend Scott that I went to college with. I clicked on her picture, but since I’m not her friend, I couldn’t look at her profile. Then emailed Scott exclaiming what a small world it is, and he says, “hey, speaking of small world, I’m in LA this weekend.” This is big news since he lives in NY, so I’m like, “where? I’ll come meet you?” So long story not-so-short, I drove to LA last night and got to hang out and catch up with my old friend Scotty Potty for a few hours. I hadn’t seen him in over 5 years. It was awesome. Man, I miss that guy.
As I was driving away at 3:30 am, I got really sad because I have very few really good friends like that that I really want to keep in touch with. People are so busy with their lives…and it really takes a lot of effort to maintain a good friendship. Even though I think a lot of stuff on my space is pretty corny, I’m so glad it’s there.
It’s a girl!
Beginning on the evening of the 2nd, and ending on the afternoon of the 3rd, I was with my friend Melanie as she laboured and then delivered her daughter, Dana Lynn. It was definetly the coolest, grossest, most miraculous event I’ve ever witnessed. It took what seemed to me like forever. And I wasn’t even the one having the baby. (She was with me at the birth of my son, which took a little longer. She must have been soo bored because I slept a lot.) So anyway, here’s a time line of what happened.
Dec. 2
- 6pm - Melanie calls and says she’s headed to the hospital. I call David and ask him to get home, and he arrives around 8:20pm.
- I arrive in the triage area of the labor and delivery unit at about 9pm, to find Mike, Jackie and Melanie all huddled into this very small curtained area, filled mostly with a hospital bed. We all scoot around eachother until we fit, where we wait for the nurse, Charmin, to tell us if Melanie is going to be admitted or not.
- Charmin checks Melanie’s cervix and says that she’s still only 4 cm dialated, and that we should walk around to try to get things moving. So we walk.
- After walking for a while, Charmin checks her again, and says she’s still only 4 cm, but things have changed enough that she’s going to call the doctor and recommend that Melanie be admitted.
- They put us in a huge room around 11 pm. Mike immediately goes to sleep. Jackie has a serious allergy attack (which I think is caused by the lingering catness on my clothes) and she goes home to shower and take medicine. Melanie and I chill.
Dec. 3
- A big fat nothing happens for the rest of the night. Melanie is uncomfortable and can’t sleep. Around 2:30 am she gets her epidural. During this, she almosts faints and some crazy nurse comes in yelling at everyone and bossing everyone around. We hated her. She’s an idiot.
- So, still nothing much is happening. Our awesome nurse, Charmin, leaves at 7 am, and we get a new nurse, Layna. She’s nice too, but she’s no Charmin.
- A male Doctor (which Melanie specifically didn’t want) comes in around 7:30 am and checks Melanie. He’s concerned because she’s been at 4-5 cm for about 8 hrs and he starts talking about a c-section. This gets Melanie totally freaked out.
- I tell her all about the pros of c-section for the next two hours (the time the doctor is giving her cervix to make some progress or else… *insert forboding music*
- So by the time they come back in to see what’s up, she’s ready to have the surgery. Also, she’s totally exhausted and is ready for any solution that involves her not being pregnant anymore - putting the baby’s health first, of course. And wouldn’t you know, she’s now 7 cm dialated.
- During the next hour, things move right along, and Layna has her start to push. I felt so bad for her because she was so tired, and had finally accepted c-section as a reality, and now she’s got to muster up enough energy to push this baby out. Sometime during all this, she gets an extra bollus of epidural because her’s had been wearing off.
- The doctor comes in and gets into his catcher’s position, and Melanies pushes little Dana out at 11:03 am.
For the most part, I didn’t think it was gross, although it was gory. The one part I didn’t like was when the baby’s head was out, but not her body. She was really purple, and her eyes were squinshed shut, and the cord was around her neck. She looked awful. Once Melanie pushed her the rest of the way out, and the doctor unwrapped the cord, she started to cry, and I was finally relieved. I really thought something was wrong for a minute. Scary.
So, here are the stats: 18 hrs of labor resulting in a 7 lb, 19 in baby girl :)
