The baby shower to end all baby showers

I just got back this week from a great trip out to California. My step mom, grandmother, and mom threw me an amazing baby shower and I got to meet my brother's new wife and celebrate his 22nd birthday with him. And of course I took this opportunity to get sunburned.

I don't know whether I'd like to entitle this picture, "The True Joy that Comes When Your Mother-in-Law Gets You the Diaper Bag of Your Dreams", or "Do My Legs Really Look That Fat Right Now??"

This dress makes me look rather large but everyone still said really nice things about how small I looked. This is my mom, me, Jamie, and Tina Williams.

Emma and Jamie (my little sisters) were my present helpers. Emma is my mom's little girl and Jamie is my dad's little girl, and they've decided that they're "step sisters". Ah the blended family love...
Lisa seeing whose string was closest to my actual girth. Jamie won!

Nonna and Jamie.

Carla and Alex made the trip out for a mini high school reunion.

Always showing the Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy pride. Always.

Rainbows are a must. I miss you, California!

Beach day with mom and the sibs. It takes guts to post a picture like this of yourself, right? Right? This is at 22 weeks.

Emma, Ralphie, Jamie, the self-named "step siblings". I love that they get along... I'm sure one of these days Ralphie is going to become an awkward teenage boy that wants nothing to do with either of them, and Emma will decide she's too old to play with Jamie, and all of those horrible "growing up" things will happen, but for now they keep each other well entertained.

It warms my heart.

Marmee lookin' good.

Chris's birthday dinner.

The lovely Cindy and Jamie.

Nonna and Uncle Joe.

Jen, I really wished we got a picture of us, but we were busy putting the Cool Whip on jello and other important things. I really didn't get enough pictures with everybody, I'll have to be much better on my next trip home.

Anyway, thanks family for a wonderful weekend, I love you all and am so grateful for your love and support. We can't wait to introduce you to our little girl when she joins us.

I'm gonna shoot me a Chickadee

There are many things I love about Wisconsin summers: the long hours of daylight, the beautiful weather, how green everything is...

And then there are the things that I don't love about Wisconsin summers, like the rise in shootings or the increase in people that like to run out into the street in front of your car out of nowhere.

But I hate, and I mean hate, the Chickadee.

Around April or May of every summer I've been here, this obnoxious little bird likes to get going around 4 in the morning, right outside my window.

It makes me want a gun. I lie there, angry and awake, until my alarm goes off at 6:30, thinking about all the different ways I would like to kill me a Chickadee. Namely the ones that park on the tree outside my bedroom window.

Giselle loves to kill birds so I'm hoping she will decimate the local Chickadee population this summer so I can get some sleep.

By the way...

My brother Chris got married on Friday, May 8!

Here's a pic of him and his new wife, Cindy.

Happy Mother's Day

I hope that you all are having a wonderful Mother's Day, especially the mothers in my life, my mom, Lisa, and Kathy.

Tim made me this delicious treat. It's an Australian dessert called pavlova. If you're real nice to me, I might share some with you.

Wait, no I won't.




Here's me being a mother at 20 weeks. Look how good I am at it! This is easy!

Just kidding, mamas.

I would really like to stop talking about this conversation with you

Sometimes during the course of my work day, I have to have difficult conversations with people. I guess if people wanted a broad job description of what social workers really do, that could be one of the bullet points: talking about the things that no one else really wants to talk about.

You might think that talking about funeral planning would be one of the difficult things I do, but that doesn't really bother me anymore. I would say some of the most difficult conversations I have surround "discharge planning". It almost sounds like a dirty word, doesn't it? Basically, I get to be the bad guy that says that it's time for the patient to go somewhere else other than our unit. Some people decide that they really don't like me when I bring this up. Some people like to make dramatic statements, which I guess are intended to persuade me (even though who gets discharged from the hospital and when is in no way up to the lowly social worker). I have heard this one no less than ten times, "If YOU discharge him, he'll die."

These conversations are usually pretty exhausting, because I have to put a lot of effort into listening, reflecting, paraphrasing, and not getting defensive. It's pretty common for me to walk away feeling like I would be just fine not talking to anyone else for the rest of the day. Yesterday I had one of those conversations, and I was trying to gear up for the fact that, unfortunately, I was going to have to talk to many more people during the rest of my day.

As I was faxing some paperwork at the nurses' station, one of the nurses came up to me and said, "Oh, you've got something there, on the side of your face."

"Yeah, it's a zit that was annoying me and I scratched at it."

Normally it would be appropriate for the conversation to end here, but she kept going.

"Oh, it looks like you have a couple there."

Really?

"Yeah, I know. It's annoying."

Again, are we done yet? Can my fax stop taking so long? It was like this woman could just not help herself.

"It almost looks like you have poison ivy."

(Evil thoughts creeping in, LET'S START TALKING ABOUT YOUR STUPID FACE.)

(Sigh) "Nope, I wish."

Then she finally walked away.

It's a...

girl! I wish I had a more creative way to announce it, but there you go! We are thrilled! She is healthy and active, and we'll post ultrasound pics soon!