RETRACTION

I read through my previous post about not wanting pink and fluffy but I don't feel like I expressed myself quite right. Maybe I've moved on.
So, this is how I really feel. I don't want to be stuck with an entire wardrobe of only pink. I get bored easily. BUT I don't mind pink. The only things that I can think of that I really can't stand are things that say things like "diva" and other nonsense. That and things that are immodest but those are at least pretty hard to come by during the fall and winter.
Sorry if I've offended anyone. I was just very hormonal last time.

A novel about the stuff Paul has to deal with.

Last night I had a very interesting and sad experience that made me admire my Paul all the more for the stuff he has to deal with every day in school.
Paul has class until 7 on Thursdays so usually I work until 7 but there was an Enrichment hike at 6:30 and I have decided that I really need to make an effort to be active in RS activities now that I'm in Primary. I love my kids and I really hope I don't get released for a long time but even though parts of me want to just stay at home and read and hang out with Paul and only Paul, I know it's important to have balance and to interact with fun, happy people who share the same values that I do. I went and it was fun. I got back into town around 7:35 which would have put me arriving home at the same time as Paul (he was going to walk). I called him and I heard voices in the background. He told me he had decided to go out to dinner with his professor and some people from class and to meet him at Blacksburg's only Indian restaurant.
Now, in my head I was thinking it was probably his undergrad adviser who is just plain awesome. It honestly never occurred to me that he'd go anywhere with the crazy that he'd just had class with- she's just about the craziest kook I've ever heard of. But that's who he was with.
So we were there with his crazy self-professed "die-hard" Marxist professor, her equally crazy "Communist-and-proud of it" husband-type-person, a guy about our age with a black armband on that said "Iraq" (I thought he was a veteran at first- he's not so I don't know what that was about), and this pretty little Ukrainian woman who is also in Paul's program (she's 31 but looks 25 max).
Paul told me he wanted to stay and so I said it was okay. What followed was an hour and a half of the most shameful and arrogant "conversation that I have ever been privy to. If it were not for the fact that I understand wholly how much my behavior would affect Paul's image (and therefore his grade- we try to fly under the radar with these people because college is a game), I would have stood up and left about 5 minutes in.
They talked a myriad of subjects, in the old crazies' cases, mostly themselves, but every topic was filled with as much vitriol and downright disgusting condescension as the last. If the crazies or the Iraq arm-band kid could find a way to be insulting and/or disgusting they did.
For the most part, the Ukrainian girl and I sat in silence, Paul interjected a couple of things here and there but he was quiet as well.
When Paul excused himself to use the restroom during a particularly graphic discussion of how we farm chicken in the US (I wasn't eating but Paul, both crazies, and the Ukrainian girl all were eating chicken main dishes!), his professor turned to me. Was I going to do natural birth, she wanted to know... I'm not and honestly I'm not ashamed, I'm practically a cripple now, I don't want to actually push it the last little bit and make it official. Her eyes narrowed (but you see, she's never had kids before (thank goodness) and I understand she has no idea what labor is like- she even thought that I look ready to "pop at any moment" - HAHA I'm not very big at all- so I wasn't concerned). She began a new conversation and then stopped herself and turned to me, was I alright, she wanted to know, because she knew that they were all using words that maybe I didn't know and she wanted me to feel free to ask her to define words if anything came up. Paul wasn't back from the bathroom yet and I was STUNNED. I answered her as politely as I could, I thanked her for her offer and then fell silent again. Paul got back to the table and she immediately turned on the poor girl from Ukraine.
What followed was the most interesting and absolutely flabbergasting set of exchanges I think I've seen in a really long time. Kate, the girl from Ukraine, is married and while she is going to school here in the US, her husband is working on a contract freighter. His contracts are 6 months at a time and it's hard work but he is saving up all of his money to buy and fix up an apartment for them in Kiev. I think that's rather honorable, he's working hard to provide a good life for his wife and future children. Somehow, the professor missed all of that though. She heard that Kate's husband was on a boat and decided he was a fisherman- he works on a freighter- and she heard 6 month contracts and immediately starts griping about the fact that it's just so his bosses don't have to give him benefits. She tried really hard for about 15 minutes to turn this poor girl and her husband into victims but (and I'm not sure if this was because of her culture or what) Kate would have nothing of it, she kept repeating what a better life they would have after. Finally, the professor turned to her husband-type-person and told him to start telling her his opinions on Stalin. I'm pretty sure he would have married Stalin if he ever got the chance; Stalin and all the "amazing" things he led to. Kate tried to protest, "but he killed millions and millions of people! He was quite evil and his policies didn't work!" But this man had none of it. You see, he has a doctorate in Sociology and so he automatically knows more about it than she, a naive Ukrainian girl ever will. He defensively told her that Stalin wasn't so bad as she was making him out to be and that she was just falling victim to propaganda. She looked like she was ready to cry. It was then that I decided I was far too tired to deal with this kind of perverse evil and I told Paul I needed to go to bed. We were invited back next week- apparently this dinner is a weekly thing- but there is no way that I will ever put myself in a position where the Spirit is so definitely absent again.

Anything but pink and fluffy....

So lots of people have talked to me about the fact that we know Pearl is a Pearl and not a Victor. The amount of "oooh! aren't you excited for all of the cute pink and fluffy things?" that I've gotten has almost reached the level of ridiculous- and we've only known since Tuesday. But here's the thing- I don't like pink. I don't like pink almost at all. I mean, I don't hate it, I'm fine if Pearl has some things that are pink and I fully realize that it's the most common outfit color by far but really pink? Fluffy? Themed? Princess? It all makes me kind of cringe.
Part of my problem is that I don't consider myself picky- well, my mother-in-love would disagree but it's not picky to only buy clothes you love right? But at the same time I'm finding that although I'm not one of those picky snobby women that say "oh I'm going to theme my baby's room and clothes with a Pooh theme (or princess or ducks or what have you)" I'm catching myself being almost as bad about not being that way. I like purple, I like other pastels for the most part, I like dinosaurs, I like gender-neutral animals (but not too many, I'm making a baby girl, not a hermaphrodite), I like white, I like simple, I like pretty. I think that that's a pretty broad spectrum but maybe I haven't looked at enough baby sections- I just don't see a lot of clothes that look like that.
I guess I'm conflicted because I don't want to be that mother that I hate but I don't want to deal with mostly pink all of the time. Hormones have really been wacking me out and the worst part of it is that I keep worrying that I come off as a hippie women's lib kinda mom who doesn't want her daughter to be put into that box- I'd like a girl who is a girl. I don't want to screw her up!
Anyways, that's my pointless ramblings for right now.

So we're having a Pearl!

After all of the weeks we spent waiting and waiting and after two ultrasounds returned nothing as far as gender goes we finally have news!
Sometime in the first part of December (or middle if the baby so chooses) we're going to be blessed with a wonderful little baby girl! Now I've heard a lot of different opinions regarding whether you should talk about what you're naming your baby and I can see the pros and cons of both sides but I don't care. We're calling her by her name now and so it's not like it's going to be a secret- neither is it going to be a popular name and actually, come to think of it, I can't think of anyone who is due with a girl in between now and our due date whose name I don't already know- not that it matters anyway because we totally love our name- who could "steal" it so here it goes, our baby girl is going to be named Pearl Grace Platz.
I hadn't thought much about the name Pearl before we got pregnant. I think one time I threw it out to Paul (because we've been talking about names since before we got married- they're fun) and he liked it so I put it on my list of "names to think about after we've exhausted Lucy, Charlotte, and Valentine" but I don't know, it was the one girl name that ever felt fun enough when push came to shove. Pearl is the name of my great-grandma- my mom's dad's mom. She was short and spunky to boot! She used to dress up like a hobo at Halloween and black out her teeth and hide in the bushes to scare the trick or treaters. She ice skated with her grandkids until she was in her 90's and couldn't physically do it anymore. Even after she had been a widow for a couple decades she would drive and pick up the widows in town (most of whom were far younger than she) because she was worried about them. She had a bright pink kitchen with pink appliances and every week when she had one of her grandkids spend the night, she'd put on her hula skirt and hula or put some big band marches on her old Victrolla and march around her house, baton in hand and leading every measure. She loved the gospel and was faithful til the very end even when her husband was not. She died long long before I was born but I've always loved my Grandma Pearl. I'm quite sure my mother tired of telling me the same stories about her over and over but I'm so grateful to her that she did! Another reason we love the name Pearl is that it calls to mind the image of a precious gem (my very favorite) and no matter how many more kids we have, be it none or 8, we'll always cherish our most lovely gift from Heavenly Father.
All sentimentalities aside, since we're almost 29 weeks along, Joyce (the ultrasound lady from our first train wreck appointment) took most of our ultrasound in 4-d which still looks like jelloish blobs to me but more baby like now. She said that we're far enough along to see pretty much exactly what Pearl will look like when she comes out. And boy is it obvious she looks just like her daddy! She has his skull shape, his nose, his poofy lips. We're not quite sure about eyes, I think we'll have to see when she comes out. She probably has Paul's eyes as well though because mine are what is commonly referred to on my Mom's side as "Chinky" eyes- meaning that we all have very almond eyes and when we're babies we look rather Asian. The ultrasound showed a ton of hair which makes all of my reflux and middle of the night acid puking well worth it. There is this adorable baby girl in our ward and C. has the CUTEST hair. She had to have her first hair cut when she was only a couple months old. WAY cuter than any baldy. Plus, the joke has always been that Paul and I would end up with Chia pet babies since we both have ridiculously thick (in every way) hair.
So now we're left with 11 weeks or so to go. Only 11? It feels like an ETERNITY! But in just over two weeks it will be October already and then there's Halloween to look forward to and then just a few short weeks after that is Thanksgiving (the day I'm REALLY trying to talk up to Pearl- maybe not the day, just the week, "November is the greatest month, Pearl, it has tons of beautiful leaves and good food and happiness and none of the cold that crummy old December has"). And then? And then we're going to have our lives turned upside down. I CAN'T WAIT!

Paul's classes get even more insane.

So I've finally started on the baby blanket that I've been planning to make since I found out I was pregnant. I was going to wait until we found out for sure what we're having but I had a whole bag of some really pretty grey blue yarn that changes tone here and there. If you look at it and think "girl" it looks somewhat purple but if you look at it and think "boy" it's back to just being grey blue. Regina has been having happy flashbacks to her baby puppy times at the yarn shop- smelling all of the hand dyed yarn (a lot of it smells like vinegar), licking it, rolling around with it, trying to make it her brand new friend. What I love the most about not having a destructive dog is that things that would really upset me are just plain cute.
On Thursday, it was Paul's day for snack in one of his classes. Gag me, I know. After the ridiculously long list of rules, the only things we could bring to feed 25 people that weren't hideously expensive were vegetables (they were supposed to be organic but I refused- sue me), apples, and home made hummus. Now, I've never made hummus and when Paul told me that we were going to make it I told him that was a terrible idea because of all of the horror stories I've heard about making it or eating bad home made hummus. He told me that it would be much much cheaper to make it ourselves. I didn't want to do it, but I also didn't want to spend bookoo bucks on people that I not only don't know but probably wouldn't like to begin with (God-hating Marxist jerks). On Wednesday night we went to Kroger and picked up all the supplies- it turns out that one jar of Tahini paste is just as expensive as buying two "party size" tubs of hummus from the deli but Paul was adament- two "party size" tubs just wouldn't be enough to make everyone happy and we could probably get three or four batches of hummus out of just the one jar of Tahini. So 30 dollars of Tahini paste, crunchy veggies, fruit, and a lot of stress later, we arrived home and I put the chickpeas in to soak overnight.
I set aside an hour and a half in the morning to make the hummus and cut the vegetables before I needed to go into work. I made the hummus just like Ina Garten told me to and it was icky. Coarse and tasteless and my heart fell. I put some on a carrot and gave it to Paul and sure enough he hated it. I wanted to cry but I just could not waste that much money so I went back in the kitchen and doubled the garlic, put in some roasted red peppers that were for some reason taking up valuable can space in my cupboard, more Tabasco, and a whole lot more cayenne and red pepper than I should have been able to. I took it out to Paul and he still didn't look impressed. He then confessed to me, "Remember that conversation we had when you said you didn't want to make it because you knew it might turn out badly? Well I believed you but I want them to suffer." Honestly, that really hurt. He wanted me to fail but that would be so much money wasted! He said it tasted a little better and I definitely agreed. The problem was that the spices that should have been too hot and overpowering were just barely noticeable. I returned and dumped more in. That made it pretty tolerable and I took it out to Paul and he felt bad that he'd upset me. He then told me that it tasted like real hummus and that he'd been thinking and all the other times he's had hummus (not out of our usual plastic tubs) at Greek places etc, it was a lot like the stuff I'd just given him. I thanked him for being nice, put it in a nice tall tub and carted it off with the veggies to stuff in my work fridge. All day long I stressed about whether he'd get in trouble for bringing in a snack that wasn't very good. It was my fault and I didn't want people being mean to him. When I left work and picked him up at 7 the first thing he said was, "I'm sorry about your hummus," my heart fell but he continued, "my professor asked if she could take some home and just took the rest with her." What? I asked him how much was left and he said that the container was a little over half full (I made about 5 cups at least). "Is she crazy?" "No," he said, "she said it tasted just like some stuff from a little village she stayed in in Greece last summer and everyone else loved it and asked me for the recipe." Now, that made me feel a little bit better but not because I think I'm awesome at making hummus, I feel better because people think Paul's pretty neat for making his own hummus and having it turn out to their liking (he's just not telling anyone he's married). At the same time however, it made me really really sad. The class had their input about some of the rules for snack and this is what they chose and this is what they honestly really like. Paul said his professor acted the same way about the hummus that I do about that lemon cream cake they have at Olive Garden and that's just SAD. Now I do like the store bought fake hummus, I think it's delicious but would I ever prefer that to things with a lot of taste? No! I'm sad for these people that they don't belive in families, they don't believe in God, they don't believe in anything outside of themselves, and now even their favorite foods are seriously lacking in savor. I'm pretty sure that most people would consider my life boring (I love it this way) but it's in technicolor compared to the dull and empty lives people have to lead to act like my pathetic attempt at hummus was manna from heaven.

I have a perfectly good excuse for wanting to sleep all day...

... it's called there's a skeleton in my tummy.

Paul says I shouldn't talk about being pregnant that way to people outside of us but I think it's awesome. Behind my quickly disappearing tummy button is a little skull. How awesome is that?!
Maybe not as awesome as the person the skull belongs to but since she's not here to comment yet, thinking about the fact that there is an actual human skull hanging out inside of me makes me feel better about the fact that right now I could sleep 16-20 hours a day no problem.
Every time we go to a doctor's appointment, I fall asleep on the exam bed. This morning Dr. Anderson came in and woke me up and he seemed genuinely sorry that had to do that. He's my favorite OB ever and it makes me mad that his wife got a stinky superintendent job in Missouri so he can't deliver Pearl. I mean, come on! Isn't my baby worth two months of not living with your wife and kids? I think so! (Note: because sarcasm translates very poorly through the written word, I would like you to know that I really don't think this, I'm happy for them but at the same time sad for me- Doctor Roberts just doesn't compare no matter what the other girls say).
In other news, my heart issues just disappeared! I went from having issues 6-10 times a day and nearly fainting a lot to nothing. Thank goodness for the priesthood! My cardiologist is having a hard time comprehending it because my problems should be getting worse, not going away.
My darling friend Pearl lent me The Lightning Thief last week and it is way better than I anticipated- actually the whole series is. I'm on 4 of 5 which is bad because there will never be any more but even Paul likes them. Not to say that the author is amazing- because he's good just not as good as some others but I can't complain about that until I become a children's book editor (pretty much my dream job) so that I can tell authors that no, you have to look at a map when talking about real places in the world because there is no way that there is a ski resort in New Mexico that's only half an hour away from Alamogordo etc. They're really good fun though and not mushy and not scary (I mean, when this guy kills people it's hard to believe they're dead as opposed to when JK Rowling kills people because then you sob for hours whether you liked the character or not- and you know what? that's not a bad thing, I have too many scary dreams as it is).