I shall never mock bus-schedule obsession ever again

Not sure how it’s fair, but I’m stuck with duty on the ol’ blog again this week. Husband leaves pregnant wife to fend for herself, and she’s expected to pick up his slack. Hrmmmm. Perhaps these are the sacrifices one makes when tying the knot…I’m sure it will pale in comparison with the sacrifices to come our way starting just about September 2^nd. But wait! I was told in a breastfeeding workshop this weekend that it was important to acknowledge a partner’s contribution to the family, like bringing in an income. So, Tim (wherever you are when you read this), thank you for your contribution to our family in every way, we really do appreciate it. Try contributing from closer to home from now on! Just kidding…kinda.

I do miss the guy though. He’s on the tail end of his work trip, and is in cell phone range so from here on in I think that we should be able to be in touch every night. Also, it means that Tim and his crew will be able to sleep in hotels rather than on the ground. They are literally working all daylight hours, and when they camp, they’re usually having to set it up in the dark and then can get their meal together. So, we’re talking 13-14 hour days, almost everyday since they got to their first station back on June 10^th (including weekends). It also means showers, which means that they might be somewhat clean when they arrive back home, but probably unlikely. Apparently the dust up there just sticks to everything, and you can’t get rid of it. And I’m quite sure that Tim has already worn all of the clothing he brought…He’ll probably have stink lines and a dust cloud around him like Pigpen from Charley Brown. But it will be nice to have him home. They expect to be rolling in on Saturday. Tim is sounding better and better everytime we talk, I think it’s cus they can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

It’s been an exhausting week here. I’m sure it’s a big combination of Tim being away, work, medical appointments, catching up with people and growing a Goob, but I’ve found myself just as tired when I wake up as when I went to bed (at 8:00 the night before). And that’s probably part of the problem. It just seems that when I get home, all I want to do is sleep so I end up going to bed so early, and waking up in the middle of the night without being able to get back to sleep for hours. I hope that gets better when Tim gets back because I was hoping to stock up on sleeping hours before the Goob made her/his appearance.

And I’ve come to the conclusion that our experiment in public transport was going much better when Tim was home. If he were gone any longer he might just have found a car parked in our driveway, one that belonged to us. So here’s the deal. If you’ve known me for any length of time, especially prior to meeting Tim, you’d know that I’m late almost always. It’s not usually a conscious thing, but it seems like when I’m leaving to go somewhere I either don’t feel the need to rush or I remember the bazillion things that I was meaning to do before I left and feel that I can accomplish them without being late. That theory hasn’t worked in 28 years, but still it wins over when I don’t have someone pushing me along. Tim doesn’t actually push me along, he knows that drives me nuts. Most of the time he just makes me feel like life is actually 15 minutes ahead of where it really is. So, he tricks me, essentially. He does it if he’s cooking as well. He’ll tell me that supper is ready before it’s actually ready (I call it the 2 minute rule), and then I rush to finish up what I was doing and supper is actually not ready, or is ready just when I get there 5 minutes later (hmmm. Maybe he just knows me well…). Either way, I’ve missed the bus probably 5 times these past 2 weeks for various reasons. 2 times (on 2 different days in 2 different places) I’ve been within a close enough distance to the bus that I’ve thought that I could make it by running. Of course I’ve been thinking that busdrivers would for sure have some sympathy for an obviously pregnant lady (Goobie hit a spurt this week…more about that later), but twice I’ve almost made it and the bus has pulled away. To give you an idea of what that might have looked like, and how frustrated I’ve been with my poor public transport skills, I’ll give you the example from last Wednesday night.

So, I have an aquatic aerobics class at 6:15 on Wednesday nights. I happened to be working at the university that day, and the gym is quite close to the university, so getting to the class was a breeze, although it was raining cats and dogs that day. The instructor for the class is nice, but tough, so I’m always beat once class is done. And I ended up talking to another girl in the class for probably too long afterwards…So when I left to go to the bus, it was actually closer to 7:15. Little did I know that the bus I needed to catch was a 7:20 bus (see? Tim would have known that!). I just couldn’t make my legs move any faster when walking to the stop until I saw the bus pull up when I was maybe 100m away. So I started to run, but my legs just wouldn’t follow. I felt like Chief Wiggam on the Simpson’s episode where Maggie shoots Mr. Burns…There’s a scene where he’s running to a crime scene and basically he’s huffing and puffing, his little arms going while his belly stays in one place, and the whole town of Springfield passes him (with pitchforks in hand if I remember correctly)…I knew I wasn’t going fast enough, and it was dark so maybe the driver didn’t see me, but he pulled away just as I was getting to the stop. I wanted to cry. The next bus was supposed to be 10 minutes, it got there ½ an hour later. And this bus was only a connection bus so it actually took me to an interchange where I had to catch another bus to get home. It turns out that when making the connecting bus, I accidentally got on the 170 instead of the 175 (again, never would have happened with Tim around)…The 170 dropped me off a good 2 km from home…Which I had to walk in the rain in horrible shoes. Thankfully I remembered that I had packed an energy bar (thanks Rach!), which gave me enough energy to get to the Subway about half way home (Subway the sub shop). I think I could have eaten gruel at that point I was so hungry. I got home around 9:15. Bah. If there had been a car salesperson at my house when I got there he/she could have sold me a K-car and made a mint.

So, I’m going to have to think a lot harder about where I’m going and how I’m getting there this week. I maybe shouldn’t make so much fun of Tim for being obsessed with bus schedules and such, his obsession could have come in quite handy many times these past weeks.

So, at my last doc’s appointment, I was given instructions to get to a clinic and do the glucose challenge, which is used to determine if pregnancy-induced diabetes is happening to pregnant ladies. It’s a mandatory test that pregnant women have to take at 28 weeks here. There are no clinics that are easy for me to get to by bus, and work has been nuts these past few weeks, so, I put off going to take the test until last week (I was already into the 29^th week, but that really shouldn’t matter). The good news; when I got to the clinic the nurse who took my blood asked how far along I was, and I told her 28 weeks (oops), and she thought that I was really big for 28 weeks. So, I’m guessing that the growth that my doc was looking for the last time that I was in to see him has happened. Actually, I’ve had quite a few comments on how huge I am in the last couple of days. It may be the only time in my life that those words are sweet to my ears. The kind of bad news, I failed the glucose challenge, which means that they need to test me more stringently in order to determine that I don’t have pregnancy induced diabetes. I really don’t think I do, I happened to eat a huge fruit salad and nothing else on the morning of the first test. According to my limited retention of human physiology class notes from 2001, I should have eaten something with a few more carbs and a lot less glucose-fructose...And there were probably some residual effects of the crazy exercise that I did the night before (the whole bus fiasco). We’ll see. Either way, lots of women become diabetic during pregnancy, it’s a temporary thing. The only real annoying thing is the fact that I have to devote more time now to finding busses to get to the hospital. Yes. I’m getting car envy.

So, this morning I was happy to find that my Grandmother had requested me as a friend on Facebook. I like to call her my electronic Gram. I think it’s pretty stinking cool that she’s “online” now, I’m glad to be able to keep in touch with her more often.

I was also pleasantly surprised one morning this week as I was rushing out the door that I had a package from my friend Rachel sitting on my doorstep. It was a birthday package and had lots of goodies in it, my favorite being baby leg warmers. As if our child won’t be an individual from day one with the combination of Tim’s genes and my own, the legwarmers have skulls and crossbones on them (quite gender neutral and perhaps hip amongst 14 year olds these days?). I told Rach that if our child grows up to be a biker, we’ve got her to blame, but by golly, he or she will have warm legs.

So, although Tim gets home on Saturday, I will be heading out of town on Friday for a retreat that will last until Sunday. BOO for bad timing! Not only will he find that he’s got to find supper for himself on Saturday, but also an empty bed with no pillows. Since he’s been gone I’ve discovered the joys of sleeping with 4 pillows…and I’m thinking that 4 pillows will be nice on this retreat (leaving him none!). The retreat is located about 70 minutes outside of Brisbane at an aboriginal camp. So, no luxuries there. When I told Tim about it the other night he said that he’d just set up his swag and sleep in it, since that’s what he’s been doing for the last 3 weeks. Funny joke until he gets home and finds that his pillows are gone. Who’ll be laughing then? The retreat is actually a National Council retreat for Engineers Without Boarders. Yup, still in the EWB loop I am. I’m looking forward to it, but I’m a bit wary of my energy levels leading up to it…I’ve never been so thoroughly tired as I have been this week. But tired isn’t all that bad. I guess it’s probably a good thing to get used to. And I kind of am.

SO, I’m signing off happy, healthy, with lots to look forward to this week. I hope that things are going well for everyone that we miss. Again, sorry about the lack of new photos, I can’t wait to post another belly shot. You will not believe your eyes. I think that Tim is in for a big surprise. As in, “Surprise! Your wife can’t get herself off the couch without grunting anymore!” or “Surprise! Your wife can’t bend over to tie her shoes”, and, “Surprise! She can’t fit in to most of her shoes so she's wearing yours!” Fun times.

Love to everyone!