Sick Day

After a weekend of feeling not great I called in sick to work today. I decided that I should not gift the aches, congestion and cough with others. Plus it's a little hard to demand attention from a young child with autism when you have no voice. My sign language is not impressive enough.

I spent my day recovering with some throat drops, water, TV, naps and homemade chicken noodle soup. Yes, yesterday when I felt not so great I threw together some chicken noodle soup. You know, because why rest up? I'm sure that exertion had nothing to do with my downfall today. Chicken noodle soup cures everything. Better even than the chocolate chip cookies I convinced Skip we needed to make on Sunday night when I was feeling poorly. These are comfort foods. Rituals to heal. Only I'm used to my motha making such things. She is a nurse extraordinaire, plus cook, plus she's nice. A good person to have in a time of need.

So today, instead of calling her and demanding that she board a plane and take care of me, I did exactly what she would do after three days of illness: I scoured the kitchen, stripped the sheets and Cloroxed the bathroom.

Nine months into pregnancy and I officially feel like a mom.

Also, the bean left Hang Ten imprints all over my belly as she moonwalked on the inside of my woooooomb, and Skipper tripped out big time when she got the hiccups: "it's the nebulous blob gnawing at my gizzard, as far as Skipper is concerned, but when she got the hiccups it made her seem like a real little human bean in there, a person inside me, cause people get the hiccups, not nebulous blob urchin things.

Bean Loves Golf

Years ago I wrote a post about the Poons trying to teach me to golf. I had new clubs from some stint I did as an editor of a luxury magazine. Those same delicious Chocolate Moda golf clubs made an appearance this past spring as Skip departed some wisdom. Blue and plaid checkered golf bags and accessories...dee-lish.

"You have these great clubs, but you suck at golfing. We can't go together until you learn. Let's sign you up for some community lessons."

And so we did. I went to weekly lessons and listened to a golf pro and then came home to share my new knowledge. I wore cute skirts and bright outfits I bought just for golfing to make it fun. That knowledge was then tweaked by the man I married who claimed to know more than me because he's played on elite courses around the world and was editor of Luxury Golf & Travel. Whatever. I vaguely remember him looking quizzically as I summarized lessons and then politely telling me I'd misunderstood.

 With the pressure of girly looking clubs and professional lessons I invested in a golf outfit: skirt, shoes, shirt. Then I waited for our cold May to warm up. My perfect outfit never made it to a golf lesson, but I just knew that mid-June would be filled with golf dates. I even prepped some of our couple friends for Saturday outings. When June came my dates were with the toilet and standing in the unbearable heat, impossible. Who knew pregnancy would come so soon? And with such utter disregard for my summer plans. 

I didn't make it for golf dates in July, August or September. In October Skip found camo more appealing than pleats and it wasn't until a cold November weekend that we finally had a golf date. I enthusiastically laid out my perfect golf outfit and addressed the cold weather with some long johns. The first layer went well, but by the second all the tugging and adjusting didn't make up for the fact that my stomach was three sizes too big. Pretty soon I was in my goose down snowboard jacket and beanie. But we had a grand time and on the 18th, I ripped one with my eight iron that actually looked remarkedly like a decent ball strike and Skip was shocked.

Our golf date turned into our first family outing.

X or Y

On Friday we find out if Bean is a sweet little Breezy doll or a hyper little Gripper. Based on the lack of movement today I pick girl. Until recently I was pretty sure it was going to be a boy. Now I've created a pro/con list for each gender based on said gender exemplifying the parents same characteristics. And Skip wonders what I do when he's gone.

The XX                                             The XY

Huge blue eyes                                Will inherit many hunting accessories

May out-cute Mom (and she            Will have to fight older brother for
would have to come up with new      hunting gear
ways to get out of trouble)    

Tendency to the dramatic                  Will constantly be playing in the dirt

Lots of fun outfits                              Decor from old blinds

Crazy flexibility, no muscles             Abs by age four but unable to touch toes

Austen, Dickens, Clark                     Hemingway, Vonnegut, Wildfowl

A tendency to create messes             A tendency to break things



Now imagine that they are flipped and the little girl turns out to be an outdoor loving hunting fool and the little boy is a shy bookworm. That's probably going to happen.

Make a prediction!