3:25 am

Good morning all you fine people of my reading audience. How are you? Let me tell you how I am. I am agitated. Because, you see, it's 4:07 am right now and I have been awake since 3:25. That's when I had to wake up to pee. Usually I can do this without even opening my eyes, and then jump back in bed and fall asleep 10 seconds later. But noooooooo, not today. Today I jumped back in bed, and was immediately attacked by the growling hunger in the pit of my expanding belly, despite the fact that I'd eaten a hearty bowl of tin roof sundae just before I went to bed. I figured I could take a few sips of water, nibble on one of the crackers I stash beside my bed, and end it. But noooooooo, 3 crackers later, I knew that was not going to do the trick. So I just laid there, thinking, if I ignore it, I'll just fall back to sleep. But nooooooo, by 3:50 Bean started kicking the crap out of me (which, although irritating that it was at 3:50 am, I still love because I just love love love feeling this baby...) and I realized I needed to eat something substantial if not for my own sake, for the sake of Bean.

So. I ventured out of bed one more time, headed to the kitchen and grabbed a banana. I did all this without even opening my eyes. I've gotten pretty good at that, as I've gotten to know my house. The fruit sits in a basket on the counter, so it's easy to access. So I thought to myself, "wolf down the banana, then GET BACK IN BED!" So, wolf down the banana I did. And then I had the uncontrollable urge to have a slice of peanut butter bread. If you know me at all, you know that I really don't care for peanut butter unless it's spread THINLY on one slice, and smashed up against another slice that is absolutely SMOTHERED in jelly of some sort. But tummy wanted what tummy wanted, so peanut butter bread it was. You can imagine that preparing this was not so easily accomplished with the eyes shut, although I tried. I finally opened my eyes when I had peanut butter all over my left hand (because I'd buttered the counter, didn't realize how much I'd gotten on it, tried to clean it up with my hand, and ended up with a fistful of peanut butter. Yum). And boom, that was it. 3:56 am and the deed was done, I was awake, sticky, and that's that. So then I sat on the couch, and thought to myself, what would Deb do in a situation like this? That's right. Blog it out. So here I am. My eyes are open, but I've got no contacts or glasses, so the screen is really just a blur to me as I type. In fact, now that I think about it, I don't remember actually logging in to my blog. I will be angry in the morning if I wake to find out that I'm not actually where I think I am, and that all of this is written in peanut butter on the kitchen floor. Let's hope not. It would be quite the mess, and I am lazy.

Anyway, the stream of thoughts that run through my mind in this not-sleeping, but not yet all the way awake state are ridiculous, at a minimum. I can say that I haven't had any epiphanies as deep as, let's say, that Deb spelled backwards is Bed, but I think I'm getting there. I was just thinking about how before I got pregnant I never remembered my dreams, but now I have the most vivid, and WEIRD dreams ever. For instance, Mr. Michael has been saying for quite some time now that since I'm carrying HIS child, it will be enormous. I've always laughed this off, but apparently it got to my subconscious, and I've had several dreams where Bean is here, as an infant, and that it's Mike-sized. Now, tell me that wouldn't be a nightmare of labor. I also, for reasons I'm pretty sure are linked to my fear that I'll be an inadequate mother, recently had a dream about my friends from church, Chad and Cheri. They are expecting any day now. I had a dream that they'd had their baby, that it was a boy, and that they named it Belini. You know, like the iced-tea you can get at Olive Garden. Why they chose this name is beyond me. It's like saying, "Hello, this is my son. Iced Tea." and if you're going to say that, you could just drop the "d" and say "Hello, this is my son Ice-T. Yes, that's right, I gave birth to an over-the-hill gangster rapper, who's now married to a trashy former porn star and he stars in one of the jagabazillion versions of Law and Order. We're so proud of him, just a few days old and he's supporting the family already!" But who would name their kid Belini, anyway?

So in this dream, Chad didn't want to change Belini's diaper, because it was a major stinker. So I offered. Then I took little Belini, and darnit, I just couldn't change the diaper. Well, I got the diaper off, but couldn't clean Belini's bum. And then to hide my shameful lack of bum-cleaning ability, I tried to just put a new diaper on really fast. But I couldn't put a diaper on! So what did I do? I threw Belini in a stroller, not bothering to fasten him in, and then ran onto the shoulder of the freeway. Good idea right? The whole time I'm just trying to run away to hide my embarrassment, bobbing and weaving through traffic, Belini flying up and down in the stroller. I woke up from that dream pretty terrified that I'd be a horrible mother, and that Chad and Cheri would never, ever let me hold their baby. That would be sad.

On another note, I've been getting along much better with the elderly at my gym this summer. Mostly because I avoid the one lady who pretty much wanted to fight me last year. They still annoy me with their Ben-Gay, and hovering and talking really loudly even though they can't hear each other anyway. BUT - my fitness center recently spent about a jagabazillion dollars in renovations, and now there are three or four different rooms to work out in. So I just kind of work out AROUND the elderly, which I couldn't really do before. I'm sensing I'm not the only one who had run-ins with the elderly, and that's probably why they built the extra rooms, and got doubles of just about every machine in the place. Those elderly gangs are scary. They've all got canes to beat you with. BUT. Because of the jagabazillions spent on renovations, I will no longer be attending that gym after July 11. That's when my membership runs out, and I recently found out that to renew it, will be about DOUBLE what I'm used to paying, for about HALF the length. So, that's really QUADRUPLE the price, and now that I'm jobless, that ain't happening. SO. I do believe I'll be going to Planet Fitness now, where you can pay by the month and it's only about $10 or $15 a month. Much better than the $65 they were expecting me to pay at my current place. Too bad.

Anyway, me and Bird are working volleyball camp at Ship next week. Huzzah! My old coach called me up, desperate for people to work the camp. I've done it a jagabazillion (my new favorite word, can you tell?) times before, but couldn't last summer because of work obligations at PHS. So she thought work would be holding me back, but when I told her I wasn't sure if I could do it because I was PREGNANT she about fell off her chair. She's one of those coaches who sees all her players as her little girls...

Anyway, when I've worked camp I usually work with the highest level players, because let's face it, I'm awesome. I knew I couldn't hack that this year, because it requires lots and lots of high impact activity, 3 sessions a day, for 5 days. Soooooo coach talked me into it by telling me I'd have the lowest level girls, who would require far less of me, physically. I was still skeptical about being able to keep up for a whole week, three sessions a day, being on my feet in the heat at almost 5 and 1/2 months pregnant. But then I came up with the brilliant idea that BIRD could work the camp with me! So she's coming, and I'm just going to make her do all the grunt work! And when I get tired, I'll just sit down and yell. I like that. It's going to be fun hanging in the dorms with my lil sis.

On another note, I like Bird. No, scratch that. I love Bird. Wait, scratch that. I like AND love Bird. She's pretty cool. She gives good massages. She agrees to work volleyball camps with me. She's got big holes in her ears. She does all her work outs with a rubber band. She wears awesome sunglasses. She loves flip flops. She drives the Yoda. You know, the Toyota that is home to the Toy Yoda because we call it the Yoda. She burns me CD's. She turns me on to good music. She ran a 5K with me. We took her out to eat once, and she let me have half her dessert. She took me to arts fest. She didn't make fun of me too badly when I fell off the Alpine Slide in Colorado. People steal her sweatshirts out of the dryer in her apartment complex laundry room when she lives in Utah. Yep. She's cool. She's probably not even reading this, because she hates my long blogs. She probably stopped reading this entry about 15 minutes ago. I hope she didn't though. She should know that she rocks. And I'm happy Bean will have an aunt so close for at least a little while.

On another note, HOW HAPPY ARE MIKE'S PARENTS FOR THIS BABY!! This is my mom and dad's 16th grandchild, so while they're excited, it's not really anything new for them. However, this is Mikes' parents FIRST grandchild, and they're super stoked. It's pretty awesome. And very cute when they get all excited:)

Do you ever worry about your punctuation? I am one of those people who hate to misplace a comma or apostrophe, but no doubt do it ALL THE TIME. I have always been self-conscious about the fact that when most of my peers here in the United States were busy learning things like grammar in middle school, I was in Canada not learning it. I don't know if that's something they tackle later, but I never got it. So we moved back to PA when I was in 9th grade, and in English class we talked about things like Direct Objects, Gerunds, and other funny words that I didn't understand. I never really did get a hang of it, and most of the grammar that I use is purely guess work at this point. I think I have done surprisingly well for myself, given that I am grammatically challenged.

Are you a blog stalker? I am. I like to read people's blogs, even if I don't know them. Are there any of you out there, who are reading this blog, who don't really know me? Or who know me, but are too shy to tell me you're reading my blog? Or who read my blog and don't leave comments? I feel like my reading audience is probably bigger than I think it is. For you people who I don't know are reading this (?) sorry for all the weird things I write about, and for my ridiculously, unnecessarily long blog entries. Once I get going, it's hard to stop. But you're not obligated to read my blog, you just do anyways. So maybe I shouldn't be apologizing. And if you really have a problem with my long entries, you probably stopped reading 15 minutes ago, too. Touche, blog stalker! They should make a Miller-Lite commercial about you! Not that I'm into Miller-Lite...I just think the "Here's to You..." line of commercials are particularly hilarious. They put everything to a cheesy 90's rock theme song, with titles like "Here's to You, Wing Man" or "Here's to You, Mr. Invisible Dog Walker Man" or "Here's to You Taco Salad Inventor Man". So, Here's to You, Blog Stalker Man. Stalk Away.

I think that I need some sleep. I'm going back to bed now.