The closest I’ve come to carnival anything this year involved going to a panyard.  Unless you count hearing three fetes going down near my house, that makes a grand total of ONE single, solitary carnival event.  It’s OK, though; my carnival mojo never appeared this year, partly because I know that it couldn’t appear.  I’m actually glad I’m way too huge and uncomfortable to even countenance going into town to watch the bands or any other carnival action.  It’s just a no-go, no question about it, and I can deal with that.

However, I have kept up with the yearly traditions of watching Soca Monarch and Calypso Monarch on TV, and I must say, neither did much to spark a carnival feeling, despite me having a great time watching both with friends.  Here’s the deal on…

Soca Monarch:

1. Was it just me, or was it even less international this year?  Discuss amongst yourselves.
2. I’m not even going to qualify what passed as camera work with words.  Because there are none. They cut out the first minute and a half of most performances (you know, the important part where they choreograph a big stage entrance?), they had all kinds of weird and far angles, and they just could not mike the crowd, which was sad to see when performers put their microphones out for the crowd to sing and we at home heard… absolutely nothing.
3. Eight minutes is an awfully long time to repeat the song over and over again–because so few performers actually do up thoughtful stage acts.  I’m tired of the routine:  sing song, slow song down to bare instrumetnals, big yourself up to the crowd, big up the crowd, return to singing song.  Meh.
4. The groovy soca was definitely the better part of the year’s soca output… and even still, the performances were rather snoozy (see exception below).  Just because you don’t have “wave your flag” in the lyrics doesn’t mean you can’t rile up the audience. And let’s not go into power soca.  Did it happen? Did I miss it?  Where’d it go?
5. Now, I have mixed feelings about Machel Montano, but I admit the man can put out a tune.  And that winning groovy soca performance of Mr. Fete? That should have been the last performance of the groovy category, because no one came even close to blowing the roof off like he did.  Props to Machel.
6. Where was All Rounder?  Hmmm?  Where?!  Where’s my “Garlic Sauce”?  Don’t they know he’s 90% of the reason I watch these days?

And onto Calypso Monarch:

1. Eight minutes?  Too long for the new kaisonians.
2. I’m dead, dead tired of the ranting lyrics.  What happened to having a good conceit, witty lyrics, veiled references?  It’s turned into a laundry list of news story regurgitation.
3. Why can’t anyone sing their songs anymore?  I know kaiso has never been about vocal prowess, and that’s fine by me, but I’m tired of hollering men and hollering women.
4. I wonder where the men get those suits.  The big shoulders/too-long jackets/tapered pants in a rainbow of shades SLAY me.
5. Why was it on so late?  Why not start earlier?  By the time the entire set of kaisonians did their first song and the Kings of Carnival had paraded, it was past one a.m.  It’s not that I was sleepy (though yeah, I was)–it’s more that i just didn’t have the attention span anymore.  It would be nice for the events to be better spaced out (and if they started earlier).

As for the Kings of Carnival–I was well impressed this year.  And it was really sad when the one masquerader fell and his entire costume collapsed on him.

See? I can muster a bit of carnival feeling… from the relative comfort of a cushy couch.  Oh well. I’ll take it.

What did you think happened since my last exercise update?  If you guessed “nothing,” you are right.  I’d give you a cookie or something but you know how I do about baking and the like.

Anyway, now that I’m looking like so….

…I’ve found the need to redefine what passes as exercise, just so I can say that I’m actually GETTING some exercise.  Otherwise, I’d have to be classified under “slugs” and “whales” and other such low-energy creatures which , while massively appropriate for my massive state, don’t exactly do much for my self-confidence or fragile sense of body normalcy these days.

So, in lieu of non-pregnant forms of exercise, here’s what now constitutes exercise for me:

Turning over in bed. This is by far my No. 1 form of exercise.  I attribute any muscle tone left in my arms to the gargantuan efforts expended each night in tossing and turning, both to avoid booty cramps (the indignity!  why can’t I get calf cramps instead, like every other normal pregnant woman?) and to hoist myself up to go to the bathroom eight million times a night.

Getting up to go to the bathroom. It’s hard enough if I’m on the couch, but I get extra points on this one if I’m actually laying down.

Stirring things on the stove. I have to stand at quite a remove from pots and pans, so I have to angle myself to get at what’s cooking, which takes a LOT of effort.  Trust me–I have to work hard for my food not to burn these days, and I’m almost past the point of caring.

Dislodging the baby madam from my ribs. She loves putting her feet there.  It’s not just that she puts them up and reclines, either; I’m convinced she’s got mad monkey skills and can swing off my ribs.  At best, it’s very distracting; at worst, it HURTS. So I spend plenty of time bending and flexing to coax her out of her favorite spot on the playground.

Putting on pants. And by pants, I mean leggings.  And by leggings, I mean I’ve given up on the maternity jeans:  it’s too hot and they’re too downwardly-mobile for me to bother unless I’ll be out in public.  So this epic struggle is conducted with stretchy cotton and it’s STILL enough to get me into a tizzy.  You may think it’s pitiful, and you would be right.

See?  That’s how I get my sweat on these days.  It’s a far cry from half-marathon training and I don’t even get a medal for my troubles.  Hrmph.  (Though I do get a baby at the end of it–but you can’t hang a baby on the wall for all to admire like you can a medal or a race bib, can you?)

As for Miss Young Money’s exercise:  I take her constant jumping, twisting, turning, hand-standing and cartwheeling as a slap in the face to my ridiculously sedentary ways–or, more precisely, as very hard thump in the stomach.  And as I have to brace myself for a lot of that–like, I’m bracing myself against it all day long because good heavens, this child is electric–we’ll count my bracing against her real exercise…. as exercise for me, too.

You all know I profess to care very little for most home decoration, right?  In case you doubt how little I’ve cared in the past, I’d like to remind you that I’ve lived in this house for three and a half year and:

• still use cardboard boxes that I moved with as storage in openly visible areas
• use random sheets–pinned up by clothes pins in a very undecorous fashion–on curtains that are old, sheer, came with the house, and BADLY need to be replaced
• cannot get myself to paint my bedroom despite whining about the color of it for the last, oh, three years
• have made ONE attempt to decorate the living room beyond the initial stowing of things when we moved–and that was because there was no point in hiding the pictures from my photography class away

Well, that was the status quo… until this weekend.

Really, I should have known that I cared more than I thought about Miss Young Money’s room.  I mean, didn’t we paint?  And haven’t I been Pinteresting baby room ideas like it was going out of style for the last month?

But on Sunday, the real extent of my surprise interest in our surroundings came to a head when we moved in the furniture we’ll be using in her room (for the time being) and opened up her crib (it’s a travel crib), arranging things into their potential spots.  Really, it’s not that much stuff–just a crib, a chair, and a bed that we’ll use as a couch/changing/dressing area for her, and one lamp.  That’s it.  We’ve had this furniture–in other parts of the house–since we moved in.  It’s not new or exactly to my taste (whatever that may be), but it’s not horrid, either.

Except that, when we arranged it all, I though it WAS horrid.  The bed looked beat up (because it IS).  The chair’s cushions looked dingy (because the chair is twenty years old, and they ARE) .   The travel crib didn’t match at all (which I knew beforehand).  The wood on the wall-to-wall closet doors, which I hadn’t given a second thought to, looked ratty and like a childhood of splinters waiting to happen. There were too many different shades of wood.  Nothing aligned properly; the way things fit in the room made it look like we just threw random furniture in there to fit functional needs–which is, of course, exactly what we did.

Yep.  I cried–even though I cry a lot less with these awesome snark-making pregnancy hormones, I still cried.  And I was ashamed of myself for it, because really, what did I expect?  Putting a throw on the bed and a sheet over the offending chair cushions did little to make matters better.  I was just so disappointed.  I just didn’t like it, and what would the poor baby think?

It took some sitting in the room and some perspective from Mr. Man to make me feel better, but once I got past the initial shock, I realized that there’s nothing inherently wrong with the room.  Sure, it would be nice to get nicer furniture for her, and for things to look more like I thought they would, but we decided we wouldn’t fall into the trap of spending on furniture unless absolutely necessary.  And, most importantly, the baby madam wouldn’t notice a thing–she’ll just see it as her room.

That was the thing:  I’d fallen into the fallacy of thinking that a baby would notice these things, just because I did.  Even though I’ve been screaming from the rooftops about how baby rooms really say more about US as parents than about the babies we have (until those babies become kids that care about their decor), I’d fallen prey to the Perfect Baby Nursery Syndrome  of new, perfectly matching, thoughtfully themed decor which I’ve snubbed for years.  Ouch.

I made myself think back to my rooms as a kid, and how they looked.  My parents cobbled together everything–there was no theme, just a very successful attempt by my parents to make things that would be special to me when I got older and that would look nice to boot.  My mom made me some bedspreads, dolls and cushion covers.  She hung up stuff people gave her and things she found.  No other room looked like mine when I was little–I loved it and gave no thought to whether the bed was ratty or whether my shelves were made of bricks and wood planks (as they always were).  They made it feel special.  THAT’s what I needed to remember.

Since then, I’ve hung up the curtains.  We’ve somehow made a habit of sitting in there for ten or fifteen minutes each evening and getting used to it.   The first couple of days, I did nothing but plan out what colors I wanted for the bedspread and the cushion covers (which I’d make).  I planned on taking the current covers on the bed and the sheet on the chair off.  But as the days have gone by, I find myself… .LIKING IT.

I’m shocked at how much I like it, actually, because it’s nothing like how I planned it, all bright oranges and turquoises and yellows.  The bedspread and chair sheet are PINK (not baby-pink, more a sandy pink, but still pink), for heaven’s sake–and we all know how I feel about little girls and the pink thing .  But somehow. with the cozy warm feel you get when you turn the lamp on at night, and with the  soft peachy light that filters through the window, and with the lush green foliage that can be seen when I sit in the chair and drag in the straw footstool, her room–with its more deliberate but still cobbled-together feel–makes perfect sense.

I’ll still be on the lookout for a good bedspread in the bright colors  I was originally looking for, and the search for an  old-fashioned rocking chair (which I’ve ALWAYS wanted, baby or not) is now definitely on.  I’ll keep working on the wall art and decorations in the bright colors I’d planned, because they will still look really cool with the almost-neutral pinks in the chair and bed.  I seriously need to peel those stupid stickers off the bedframe, and I need to find some cushions for the bed, too.

But I think the pink is staying, and I’m really thrilled at how the room will look once I put it all together.

Plus, given how she kicks and squirms when I sit in there every night, I think she approves in her own baby way, too.

Last year, I painted these:

This year, I painted this:

It’s Miss Young Money’s room, hence the lack of glitter and spray paint.  (She’s too young for gold sparkles, of course).

Do I mind?  Sometimes.  Not as much as I thought I would–by which I mean, disappointingly little.

I think I needed a break from carnival.  Granted, I would have NEVER taken a break from carnival had I not been knocked up.  I would have been too scared that, come Fantastic Friday–once I’d spent way too much on fetes and such–I would have panicked at the prospect of not having a costume, been tempted to sell half my closet/my dog/my husband, and fallen through on my resolution to have a carnival breather.

However, there’s no humanly possible way to get my almost-but-not-yet-waddling self into a costume.  I’m okay with that 90% of the time.  I’m not 100% OK with the fact that I’m OK with it, though, because I’m an overthinker about these things, and a guilt monster.  In an admittedly silly way I feel like being mostly OK with not playing means I’ve changed in ways I’m not yet ready to accept.  My being OK with not playing mas for a year, whatever the reasons are (and this year they are awesome indeed), is akin to having had a personality transplant–or at leas that’s what it feels like, as if all of a sudden I’ve transformed into one of those mothers that is beatific about being a mother and doesn’t have any base and non-child-centered desire to, you know, strut their stuff and be a hot young thang.  It’s a big leap in reasoning, and it’s not remotely my case… but still, it scares me a bit.

Would I be more carnival nostalgic and envious if I had actually gone to band launches or checked out costumes at mas camps?  I’m not sure.  I was too sick to care (about anything, really) when the bands launched, and then I was too busy before Christmas to check the mas camps out, and now I’m tempted to drive in to town in the next couple of weeks and do a mas camp blitz… but only if I’m not yet waddling and the mas camp employees will let me use their bathrooms.  I’m not that concerned about it sending me into a tizzy of regret, either; I’ve been reading Trinidad Carnival Diary religiously and I still haven’t flipped out about missing carnival.

Also, were I sitting at home twiddling my idle little thumbs while listening to soca, the story would be different.  But, as it is, all the energy I expended last year in creating Monday wear, boots, fascinators, jewelry, and the like are going into decorating Miss Young Money’s room.  I never thought I’d care–and then I went shopping and got frustrated at the sea of creamy safari sameness that’s so pervasive (at least at the kinds of prices I can just barely afford).  It made me cranky ranty (surprised?) and  it’s sent me into a time warp of my arty teenage self:  I’ve been sketching up a storm of wall art, devising curtains, and generally treating the room like IT is the carnival parade for me this year.

And it is.  Because this is the one year where I’m sitting it out and she’s taking the frontline spot.

You enjoy your year in the carnival spotlight, my little baby madam…  I’ll be back to regain my rightful place in the carnival world next year.  Until then, I’ll lend you my feathers.

I don’t think this will become a regular feature; then again, random and discombobulated thoughts are ALL I seem to have these days, so I may as well take advantage of them, right?

Anyway, here are some of the thoughts I’m mulling over today…

I am Pinteresting clothes (and dresses, in particular) like crazy because it’s finally hit me that this pointy watermelon I’m toting around will be out in four to seven weeks!  Of course, I’ll never have time to sleep/eat/shower/breathe, much less sew (according to the Party Pooper Parent Patrol)…  We’ll see about that.  I have some good ideas on how a newborn might be helpful in the sewing process (as a human iron, as a human pin-holder… and as a very good incentive to pick easy projects and get them done FAST, namely).

There is a particular rung of hell–a very hot, very unpleasant, particularly hellacious and sulfurous rung–reserved especially for people who say a pregnant woman is “looking fat.”  And I know exactly the right first person to populate that lovely place.  Yep.

I want to paint everything in sight.  Thankfully, fatigue and my inability to reach much of anything (other than that magical space just two feet in front of me) are holding me back.

I miss Zumba.  I miss walking and swimming (remember those awesome fitness plans I made a few weeks ago?  Yeah, me neither).  I actually cried when Mr. Man headed off on a bike ride the other day because I miss regular exercise so much.  CRIED, people:  real tears, in the kitchen, as I was stirring a pot.  Unreal and silly.  (Of course I didn’t cry in front of him about such a stupid thing–and of course I welled up again when I told him about it later).

I bought a guide to breastfeeding.  Be warned:  do not read it if you want to sleep. It was overwhelming and confusing to read about all the stuff that happens, and I’m just up to reading about the first week.  It also gave me the distinct impression that I would never sleep again, which I know is a total lie, but it was enough to send me into a panic the first night after I started reading.  To be honest, the whole feeding thing is what worries me the most about this whole having-a-new-baby business (because hey, as far as labor is concerned, she’s coming out–one way or another).  So it’s a good thing I have these four to six weeks to digest all that information.  And wouldn’t you know it, but just admitting to this and writing this down makes me feel calmer already…

I have every intention of A) testing out Miss Young Money’s car seat with the dog inside it and B) putting on one of my carnival costumes and going for a spin in my backyard to the sounds of my iPod blaring soca.  I do not necessarily have any intentions of taking photos of the latter–in fact, the fewer people see that, the better… but I just can’t help myself.

Have a great weekend!

Lately, I have way more house envy than I should–for someone who doesn’t like to paint and professes to not care less about the state of her home, that is.  Not only did I actually paint the young baby madam’s room over the weekend (OK, we painted–with the bulk of the we who painted being Mr. Man–and more on that once I actually set up the room), but I took eight gazillion shots of the houses along the Elmwood area.

I think I owe a letter of apology to those who might have spotted me furtively snapping away at their homes:

Dear residents of Elmwood, Norwood, Ashland, and associated streets,

I was not planning my cat burglar career.  I was just gawping at your good taste.

Sincerely,

Me

OK.  Now it’s your turn to gawp, too, if you are so inclined (and your dreams involve hiring a paint crew)…

Ah.  A girl can dream.

On my last visit to Buffalo I didn’t feel like I took as many pictures as I did last year.  And then I sat down to edit them and realized I was WRONG.

The weather was so cooperative (until the last week and a half) and my belly was still so relatively manageable in size that I got quite a few photo walks in before the snow (and ice, and slush, and ban on Laura walking the streets and slipping) came.  Most of those days were beautiful and sunny and I set myself the challenge of taking only my 50 mm 1.8 aperture portrait lens with me (instead of my standard, turn-and-zoom kit lens).  Just to make things interesting, right?

Anyway, I am just so happy to take a break from (frequent) baby babbling and (less frequent) exercise bewailings to show you some of what I caught on camera–this time, it’s the church, streets, and skylines edition, all taken around the Elmwood Village district (ugh, how I hate calling it that–to me, it’s just the Elmwood/Ashland / Norwood loop, but city branding and such…)

And yep, the skies were THAT blue in January–totally unbelievable!

T

Stay tuned for the next installment–there may be some serious house (and roof) envy on display…

I am:

• Back in Trinidad
• Happy to be able to feel my toes/nose/extremities in the tropical heat
• Wishing I could teleport myself (and my family) back and forth between Trinidad to Buffalo on a daily basis
• Reminiscing about my last use of the “Expectant Mothers” parking spot at the supermarket (I waddled into the store as a joke–just to make it more realistic):

• Contemplating this mess and thankful that Miss Young Money’s impending arrival necessitates me ACTUALLY doing good job of unpacking the chaos that has taken over her soon-to-be room…because otherwise I’d hide under the other bed and leave this mess, as it is, until May:

I had these great intentions to hit up Zumba while I was here in Buffalo (where I am until Monday), to make myself a regular fixture at the gym with my sister, and to beautify Elmwood Avenue and it environs on daily walks.

HA.

I managed two (or wait, was it three?) visits to the gym around Christmas and New Year’s, which were totally blissful and which had me mentally redacting odes to the elliptical machine.  In fact, there was an entire post originally scheduled as such that somehow got lost in the shuffle.  But it was poetic, I tell you, and may surface again–though I am ashamed to post it now that that my favorite elliptical at the gym has been sullied by the young, hardcore, and un-pregnant.

I managed ONE single Zumba class with my mom during the first week I was here, and no more since.  It was partly due to the holiday break and lack of classes during that time, and partly due to being so busy with everything else here that I forgot to actually go.  Lame, I know.  But honestly, I”m not sorry I’ve missed out on Zumba here–and I can’t wait to go back to my regular class in Trinidad, even if all I can do with my lumbering belly in tow is gently lift my feet and give my arms a cursory shake here and there.

I have, however, walked like a champ.  If it wasn’t pouring rain or dumping snow or so cold that I’d risk frostbite, I was walking and beautifying Elmwood with my presence.  Yeah, probably not beautifying it most days, but you get the idea:  I walked for an hour most days, took eight gazillion pictures on these walks, and developed an encyclopedic knowledge of every single serviceable bathroom in the Elmwood Village area.  I have never been more grateful for a mild winter even if it still felt butt-ass frigid to my Trini-tempered self, to put it delicately.  Unfortunately, though, winter has arrived since and I’ve given my word to my family and husband not to venture out onto slippery sidewalks by myself; I’ve complied because I’d rather give my word than make them hire a notary to make me sign a legal document stating that I’ll keep my tail indoors, but man, I miss the walks.

On top of that, there have been some brief flirtations with strength training.  Sigh.  I’ve kept up with a couple of routines for a week or two at a time, and then I seem to forget all about it.  However, that is stopping, and I’m committing to a regime–partly because I know I can handle it and can do it at home, but mostly because I want to hit up the beach every Saturday for a month until the beginning of the ninth month and, if my belly must be ginormous, at least my legs and arms can look something near right.

But no more excuses, I mean it!!  I am committing, giving my word, and publicly pinky-swearing to a strength routine five times a week from now until… well, until Miss Baby Madam is born or I can’t do it anymore.  For now, that routine will be:

• Three sets of eight lunges (the kind that you step back to do, so I can steady my Humpty Dumpty self with a chair to the front)
• Three sets of eight thigh presses (from Core Fusion; again, steadied by the chair)
• Three sets of ten to fifteen leg raises of the ballet, tilting-forward-and-lifting-leg-to-the-back variety (from Core Fusion, with chair)
• Three sets of ten bicep curls, both with palms facing up and with palms facing in
• Three sets of ten arm pull-downs with weights (or whatever they’re called, from Core Fusion)
• Three sets of that exercise where you hold the weights behind your head and use your triceps to lift them up

(As you can see, I have a highly technical knowledge of exercise names.  That’s why I’m not a trainer or medical professional and why you should not take advice from me on such things, etcetera etcetera).

On top of this, I’ll do some kind of cardio four times a week–that could be Zumba for tiptoeing pregnant ladies, walking for as long as my bladder allows, or swimming (for as long as I can remain decent in any of my swimming gear).

I think I can handle this.  I should be able to handle this.  We’ll see what my freaky-science-experiment pregnant self lets me do, though.  It’s not like I’m the boss of my body these days, you know what I mean?

And in case you wanted to see what I’m working with these days, here’s the bumpliness in all its 31-week glory:

(Yep.  Large enough that getting out of the car without scraping the bushes is a big accomplishment. I can’t lie–I actually kinda love it).

Life at my mom’s house ticks on–just one more week until I go home, boo hoo.  I will miss the family for real; I will not miss the three flights of stairs.

In the time since my last post, I’ve been trying my best to keep warm.  And by that, I mean…

Taking my sister and her fiance to a fabulous dinner at Left Bank to celebrate their awesome grades (did I know that there is such a thing as steak with garlicky greens and a lobster tail on top?  No, and I didn’t either! Did it taste so amazing that I wanted to bankrupt myself by going back every day for a week after having it?  You bet):

Painting baby onesies with my sisters–a project that could have turned into a veritable disaster but which actually produced the FOUR coolest onesies around:

Taking lots of walks outside with my camera and sundry assorted family members (ok, mostly Mr. Man and Ana), in which I’ve memorized the best of the West Side houses and the best of the West Side bathrooms:

Celebrating my birthday with the entire family, who now know better than to ever put my ACTUAL age in candles onto a cake–let’s just say everyone learned that the hard way after losing a third of the lemon cake’s icing to a wax bath:

And generally hanging out every day after work–lots of tea, lots of food, lots of Scrabble, a good dose of evening rum (for everyone but me), and some fun with the belly–watching Miss Young Money bounce random things we put on the belly and being a total creeper with the belly and making it appear slowly from behind doorways.  I may as well get some comedy out of having a ginormous basketball in my stomach, right?

There’s still more fun to be had in the last week I have left here (hot movie dates with my mom, getting a haircut and pedicure with my sister, doing some closet organizing and eating… you know, the usual).  And it might be because today is pretty gray and dark, but I’m starting to get that melancholy feeling I always get when I know that I’m both looking forward to going home and sad about leaving THIS home.  There’s such a disconnect between these two lives (and you’d better believe I know how incredibly lucky I am to be able to have both of them) that it’s hard to get my head around the fact that both places go on, regardless of whether I’m there or not, and that I can enjoy both places so much and yet miss the other so terribly when I’m away.

(That’s not just gestating hormones talking, by the way.  My pregnancy hormones have actually made me way sentimental and weepy, oddly enough and much to everyone’s amusement.  I know we all wish I’d stay this way–it saves us a lot in Kleenex).

So, here’s to one great last week of winter 2012 in Buffalo.