Life in General

I know I’ve been shamefully neglecting this blog, but really I don’t have enough going on lately to merit a post, usually. I’m in that too-big-lazy-and-tired-to-do-anything-or-go-anywhere mode, and who wants to hear about that? Mostly I’ve just been answering the call of my nesting instinct and organizing and reorganizing the nursery. For some reason it gives me anxiety that we don’t have our crib yet; looking at all that crib bedding with no crib is torturous, hahaha. I also really feel the need to put my carseat and all other car paraphernalia into my mommy mobile…I feel so weird that this is like a necessary thing for me. Sigh.

I made my first friend out here, which is really exciting for me. We went to this ward chili cook-off activity a few weeks ago and I met another very pregnant girl named Charity there, whose husband happens to be in the LAPD and is having their first child – a girl. We really hit it off right away and exchanged phone numbers, and then I just let it sit there on my fridge for a couple of weeks until I worked up the courage to call her. I felt like a teenage boy asking a girl out for the first time, for heaven’s sake! Obviously if she gave me her number first then she wants to hang out, right, but just knowing that this is like the only egg in your friendship basket really makes you feel vulnerable. I finally called her this weekend and we ended up talking for like half an hour, it was great. We made a lunch date for yesterday, and then the lucky duck started having contractions on Monday night that were only 7 to 10 minutes apart by lunchtime yesterday, so naturally we rescheduled. I laughed at myself for being lime freaking green over contractions, for pete’s sake!

I seriously can’t wait to have this baby, if for no other reason than just to not be pregnant anymore. My sister told me around 4 months along that throughout the rest of my pregnancy I would continue to think that at that moment I was more uncomfortable and huge than I could possibly get and that it couldn’t get any worse, but that I would always be wrong…that it would keep getting more and more uncomfortable, and I would get larger and larger, right up until delivery. Curse her for knowing exactly what she was talking about. I have found myself looking up all sorts of “tried and true” ways of inducing labor on your own, I’ve made a list and I’m going to start trying all of them on Monday, when I’m officially full-term. Everything from stuff no one but Paul needs to know about to Castor Oil to walking a ton, etc. etc. I’ll let you know how it goes.

On Sunday I had my first EVER experience with giving a talk in Sacrament meeting. By the time we got to the seats on the stand I was so nervous that I was sure I was going to throw up, and I kept telling Paul what our game plan was going to be if I got up and had to puke – basically he would talk for the whole rest of the meeting, and then we would go back home and apostatize or something because I can’t think of many more humiliating things than puking at the pulpit. (side note: why is there no garbage can kept handy up there??) It ended up going really well; in my nervousness I overprepared and it worked out fine. People in our ward are so nice, we had seriously like 20 people come up and introduce themselves afterward and tell us that we did a good job. I think we’re really going to love that ward.

Paul’s doing really well in the academy, of course. He gets his badge, gets sworn in and becomes an official officer on August 15th, and he’s so excited for it. He got his official uniform yesterday and I must say that he looks pretty sexy in it. I made him promise to bring home his hat and everything so that I can take some pictures. He does have days when he gets really discouraged, though. It’s got to be tough always being treated like you’re lesser than everyone else, and he says it’s really discouraging to know that that’s not even over when he graduates from academy. He then has probation for a year, in which he’s called a P1. While he’s a P1 he’s still the very bottom of the totem pole, and it seems to pretty much be policy for everyone else to treat you like nothing during that time. No matter how smart you are or how well you do, you won’t find much praise at all out in the field until you’re at least a P2. Lots of FTO’s (field training officers – your first partners) won’t even allow their P1’s to eat lunch with them, it’s freaking ridiculous! It reminds me of some silly high school ego game where you’re trying to sit at the cool kids’ lunch table and they pour milk on you or whatever. I will never understand the whole “initiation period” that accompanies law enforcement, military, etc. What’s the point of making someone feel stupid? Of talking down to them? Vent, vent, vent. I don’t blame him for getting down. He’s amazingly optimistic most of the time, though – he only rarely has a down day, like once a month.

Anyway, that’s what’s new with us lately. No pictures, since there hasn’t really been anything to record. Sorry, I’ll try to make my life more interesting.

love, mary

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