flea

One of the side effects of prednisone is, as the dermatologist put it, "You may feel peppy." Oh man, right now I am so full of pep it's hilarious. I took a shower and was doing fake-cheerleader moves to that 1980s song "Oh Mickey what a pity I'm in love with you..." I chattered to mr. flea about the fabulous "Evolution of Dance" video at YouTube, then dashed out the door, and spent the bus ride with racing thoughts like this: "We should cook elaborately more. This weekend what will I get at the farmer's market? I want mr. flea to either make me a pie of make me homemade ice cream with fresh strawberries for mother's day. I forgot to look up that book for Tonya. Monday is the last day for a playdate with Tonya - I should get mr. flea to call her. And make sure to talk to her about the plan for my delivery. Maybe we should go to a baseball game this weekend. What a pretty dog." Et. Cetera. I'm kind of exhausted from just sitting still.

My face looks great. My inner thighs are purple, but nobody has to see them but me.

I wonder when the crash is coming...

To get this out of the way - I am itching like a mofo right now. Somehow the afternoons are the worst; maybe because I've been taking the steroids at night, so they've worn off by mid-day? Dunno. Must. Distract. I am much less swollen, though I seem to be a little flushed in the face today. My oozing is better; the ointment helps although I feel sticky everywhere.

So proud is because Casper is really taking to potty training. Yesterday she wore panties at school all day with no accidents, even through her nap! Miss Rosa is being very encouraging. When we got home we had a "celebration" - 10 en-dee-ems! And then successfully pottied througout the evening, until we put a diaper on her before bed and she finally pooped. We've got to work on the pooping thing. She had that going spontaneously a couple of weeks ago, but right now is only pooping in a diaper. However, anecdotal evidence suggests this is fairly common - Ellen did exactly the same thing.

I am now thinking of changing my maternity leave plan to take the full FMLA 12 weeks; original plan was to take the 6 weeks I have paid and then come back 20 hours for a couple of weeks and ramp up to full. mr. flea just can't give up much work time at this point to care for the armadillo, if I want him to finish in a reasonable time (and, oh, do I!), and I am worried about finding reliable in-home care for a 6 week old. Six weeks is very very tiny still, compared to 3 months. I know a lot of people have to go back that soon, but how? So now must face breaking this stressful-for-her change to my boss (fortunately we haven't had any formal talk about maternity leave plans yet), and we're considering taking out some student loans to help ease the financial situation. The former scares me, but must be done (yes, I can learn to put my needs before those of my not-well-paying-or-satisfying-job!), and the latter depresses me, but I'm thinking of it more as a safety net rather than real debt. When mr. flea gets a job, we'll be able to pay them off very quickly indeed. Right?

Routine Ob/GYN appointment today: 161.5 pounds (up 1.5), BP 110/78 (a little higher than my usual, but it's been a rough coupla days), height of fundus up 2 cms, heartbeat normal. He's a wiggle boy, and I could probably identify body parts like feet and butt and head if I knew how to do that kind of thing. I definitely have hard knobs poking out at times.

In ohmigod sometimes doctors are wonderful news, mine looked at me, said, "You look awful," and called various dermatologists until they could get me an appointment today! So at 3 some lovely person will make me better, I hope. Dr. D. said steroids can be used, probably pills, and that there are ones that are known to be okay since so many pregnant women with asthma and autoimune diseases need them. So The Internets (which said steroids are a class C drug in pregnancy, i.e. use 'em only if you really really have to) are not always right. Relief may be in sight! A good thing, too - it was a horrible night, and my eye is a complete puffball. I completely did the right thing calling in sick today.

In other good news, we expect a Halloweenie! (I mean, if anyone's kid is everyone's kid at b.org, it's JZ and Hec's - we knew them before they knew each other!)

I have poison ivy.

I HATE poison ivy.

I seem to get it regularly every other summer. The last 3 times I haven't seen it at the time of exposure, so it's spread everywhere in little dots by the time it comes up, and then my frantic washing doesn't help much.

It started to come up about 4pm yesterday. New areas still emerging overnight (current locations: inner thighs, underside of forearms, one tiny bit only so far on a finger, lots around my neck and collarbones, one dot under my nose.). It will continue to get worse for the next 4 days, plateau, and at about a week in, start to get better, very slowly. I'll still have marks on the worst areas a month from now. Knowing that this is how it will play out somehow makes it even worse.