Rock Star

Today is February 13.  Date-wise, I’m a month away from my due date, March 13. Officially, tomorrow I will be 36 weeks, just 4 weeks from my due date. No wonder figuring out pregnancy due dates, weeks, and months are so difficult. Months aren’t even standard to start with.

So tomorrow, despite whatever Hallmark says, we’re celebrating 36 weeks of pregnancy. I feel good, I’m not on bed rest, and Samantha is a rock star!

I’ll admit I’ve had my ups and downs. The past two weeks were kind-of down. I don’t know why, but every little thing started to aggravate me. Then last Tuesday at my doctor’s appointment my blood pressure was up. I spent the rest of Tuesday and Wednesday aggravated and worried, and I dreaded Thursday’s appointment. But on Thursday things started to turn around again. Surprisingly, my BP reading was one of the lowest I’ve ever had.  While I was hooked up to the monitors, a nurse peeked in through the blind from the nurses’ office next door. When my nurse came back, she said, “Have you met Nurse J.? She’s new and peeked in to see Samantha’s printout. Samantha is a rock star around here!”  I’m so proud!

Samantha isn’t usually as active during the day as she is in the morning and evening. But at the end of last week, she was kicking with enough regularity in the afternoon that I decided to share with a friend. “Look, watch my belly.” After seeing my belly twitch, my friend asked if she could feel the kicks. She was able to feel Samantha kick about 3-4 times within a couple of minutes.  My friend’s reaction was priceless, and lifted my spirits even further.  

The third trimester is pressing on me… literally. I went out shopping this weekend at Lane Bryant. They always like to fold everything nice and neat before putting it in the bag. But I had to use the restroom, so as polite as I could (despite beginning to panic), I told the cashier that my baby was kicking me in my bladder and that she could just shove everything in the bag without folding. I know Samantha hasn’t even dropped yet, but now that she is head-down, I feel a lot more pressure and discomforts than before. The discomforts don’t matter though, because Samantha is a rock star!

Since most of you won’t get to feel Samantha kick, I was finally able to get some videos of her evening antics. Here is the short clip: 

 And you can watch a longer clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNucX6qGtGc

Other than my belly going up and down from breathing (and more rapidly when I giggle), I am sitting very still. If you watch closely you can see twitches from Samantha's kicks, and then when she shifts and pushes, my belly pushes up and moves back and forth sideways.

MAGFest, part 2

So my sister-in-law pointed out that I didn’t post much about Samantha in my MAGFest post. The funny thing is that Samantha influenced the whole weekend. I had read on the website that the convention is generally rated “PG-15.” But kids love to play games, so I planned to keep an eye out to see how family friendly the convention was. This was on Aaron’s mind as well, and we had several discussions throughout the weekend about whether or not we would attend MAGFest next year with a baby.

Of course I mentioned that I couldn’t keep gamer hours due to being pregnant. I also mentioned that we had to leave the charity auction to get lunch, but I may have left out that that was also pregnancy related. I can’t skip meals, and Samantha likes to kick when I get hungry.

Did you get to see our pictures? I took several pics of us with the Potomac River behind us. 

That was actually a “rest stop” on the way back to the convention from getting lunch. We had decided to get lunch near the beach and docks, and it is an uphill walk back to the convention center. It is amazing, I’m very good at detecting the slightest incline these days! Luckily the view from about halfway up the hill is very pretty, so I just pulled out the camera when I needed to rest.

The panel about text-based games was interesting. It was actually a screening of a documentary about text-based games, followed by a Q&A with the guy who created the documentary. Now until that panel, I had no interest in text-based games. But the documentary was very informative and interesting. I actually see their importance and maybe someday I’ll even try one out. Samantha kicked through the whole movie. I like to think she enjoyed listening to it. So after the movie, the creator was selling copies. Aaron wanted to get one, and since the movie has an interactive version that we haven’t seen, I said sure. He went up, purchased one, and then asked the guy if he’d be willing to sign it. “Sure. Who do I make it out to?” “Aaron and Becca,” Aaron replied. “And Samantha!” I called out. They both looked at me like I had a third eye. But whatever. Samantha had listened to the movie. Aaron explained to the guy that I was due with Samantha in March. The guy happily signed it, but then said, “Oh, she’s going to hate text-based games.” He’s probably right, but I joked with Aaron, “At least she liked the movie.” It is the first item that we’ve gotten autographed to the 3 of us.

I can see why the convention is rated PG-15. There were a couple of adult-themed panels in the later at night, the noise in the arcade was overwhelming at times (100+ noisy arcade machines in a huge open arena on a concrete floor, packed with people), and the convention itself was mostly geared toward the serious gamer.

We did see a few babies in tow, however, and I think we’ll probably go next year. Samantha will just be sporting some cute baby protector earmuffs.  

Did you spot my baby bump in the pic of me playing Frogger? Samantha is hiding under my badge.

Jury Duty

On Monday I had Jury Duty. Let me just say that if you are pregnant (especially 3rd trimester), it is probably wise to get a doctor’s note to get out of it. I received the jury summons in early December when I was still seeing my doctor every two weeks. Since the jury notice had to be sent back within 10 days, I would have had to make a special trip to my doctor’s office for a note. I also assumed that I would be on bed rest by the end of January, and therefore would be able to get a doctor’s note then. Luckily I am not on bed rest. But instead of asking for a doctor’s note anyway, I just let my doctor know I had jury duty. After all, the last time I had jury duty I just sat in the jury assembly room all day and read my book - I wasn’t even called for jury selection. My doctor was supportive, and told me that if I was put on a jury, I could reschedule my Tuesday appointment.

Sunday night I didn’t sleep well. If you recall, my left hip starting hurting the previous night. I was afraid to sleep on it since it was still sore, so Sunday night I slept on my right side the entire night. Luckily my left hip didn’t flare up as well. But I’m not used to sleeping in one position all night, and I don’t like sleeping on my right side as much. We also had to get up an hour early to make sure I could get to the courthouse on time.

At the courthouse, a lady who went by the nickname of “Bug” welcomed us and started to give an orientation. Before she was through with orientation and could start passing out colored cards, bailiffs were already showing up for jurors. That didn’t bode well. Most of the time a judge asked for 18 jurors at a time. Bug passed out colored cards to potential jurors. The color indicated which courtroom you would go to, and each card had a number that became your identity in the courtroom. A specific color and number were assigned to a juror by name.  The last color to be assigned was orange. It was for a criminal case, and instead of 18 potential jurors, the judge wanted 100! I had still not been given a card, and I certainly didn’t want an orange card! Card 95 went to the lady beside me. “Oh hell!” she said, loud enough for a lot of people to hear her, including Bug. We all laughed, including Bug. A little while later the lady “repented” by signing up to donate her jury payment to the Generous Jurors program. Whew! No orange card for me either.

Sometime between 10:00 and 10:30, I ate a snack. Just after I had finished, Bug came back into the room and announced that the Yellow panel needed more jurors. Instead of 18, the judge wanted 60 for a criminal case. I ended up with number 35. I quickly went to the restroom, ate some tums, and drank a little bit of water. Although we could take our belongings with us, we were not allowed to eat or drink in the courtroom. For some reason, the judge wasn’t actually ready for us. We stood in line in the jury assembly room for 10 minutes before heading out, and then waited in the hall for several minutes too.

When we finally got settled into the courtroom, the judge explained that she was going to ask some questions, and if we had to respond in the affirmative, to stand up. I was terrified. I don’t remember what the first question was. The second question was something about whether we had a disability that would influence our ability to come to a conclusion in the case. I knew I should have stood up, but being pregnant isn’t a disability. And since I had no idea how long this case was going to be, I didn’t really know if being pregnant would be an issue.  Eventually 2 women stood up. One was elderly and had been helped to the courtroom with a wheel chair. The judge asked if her disability would prevent her from making a decision on the case. I don’t remember the exact wording that the judge used, but that’s what I got out of it. The second woman said she had trouble standing. The judge asked the same question. By the time I figured out that the question was supposed to be two parts, and that I could explain my pregnancy and still say it wouldn’t affect my ability to make a decision, the judge was declaring that she saw no other responses.  Oops. 

I hoped that the judge would ask something about hardship if the trial went on for some time, but instead the judge summarized the case and began asking questions based on the case details. I watched as my fellow jurors all came up with some reason why they might be biased or objected to being on the case. I was terrified. Finally the judge said the trial was expected to take 2 days. I looked at the clock. It was already after noon, we hadn’t taken a lunch break yet, and the jury selection wasn’t completed. I had no idea whether 2 days meant finishing on Tuesday or Wednesday, or whether the case could get delayed. The judge asked if there was any reason we could not come to a conclusion within the time period of the trial. One woman stood up. The judge decided that this question would be answered at the bench. So as I watched the woman go up to the bench, I decided this might be my last chance to say something about being pregnant. I hated to waste the court’s time, but I decide if the trial was to go past Wednesday, I would be so worried about missing my doctor’s appointment that I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the case, and it would be a lot of added stress that could be dangerous for me. I stood up and approached the bailiff. He looked at me like I had a third eye, but I certainly wasn’t the only person to delay standing up for a question. “I have something that I think I should share with the judge.” “Okay. Juror Number?” “42. No! Um, sorry, 35.” Yeah, I was so nervous that I told him the wrong number. 

Luckily when I got to the bench, the judge smiled. When she wasn’t smiling, that woman could turn you to stone. But her smile was very warm and encouraging. I explained that I was 34 weeks pregnant, high risk, and I was supposed to see my doctor twice a week for monitoring. I told her that I could reschedule my Tuesday appointment, but if the trial went longer… I’m not even sure how I ended that sentence. Heck, I don’t know what I said. I probably sounded like an idiot. The prosecuting lawyer asked for clarification, that if I was high risk did that mean I’m on bed rest. “No, not yet.” The judge thanked me and I went back to my seat.

Throughout all of the questioning, I was getting hungry, thirsty, and Samantha started kicking. Finally at 12:40, they seemed to start the selection. Certain numbers were called a few at a time, and those jurors would stand at the railing. As a juror was identified by number, the lawyers would either ask for the person to be seated or find an exception. I think the prosecuting lawyer seated everyone, but of course the defending lawyers found exceptions with several jurors. Those that were not seated were allowed to return to the jury assembly room immediately. I noticed that some of the jurors that had had issues like being morally offended by the case were not asked to the railing, and had to remain in their seats. Around juror number 20-something, the judge asked the lawyers if the jury they had just seated was acceptable. Although the defending lawyers had just agreed to seat all of them, they suddenly had exceptions. At least 5 jurors who had already been seated in the jury box were excused. I was in the next group called up to the railing. The prosecuting lawyer asked for me to be seated. The two defending lawyers looked at me, and then had some discussion between them. It was probably only a few seconds, but it seemed to last forever. And I’m pretty sure it was the longest that I had seen them discuss a juror before deciding. Of course they found an exception with me. After all, they were defending a man accused of raping a 14 year old girl. What lawyer would want a pregnant lady on the jury of that case?

I was so relieved, just because it was nearly 1:00 and I was hungry and dehydrated. When I got back to the assembly room, I was told that I could go home. Crap. That means I wasn’t going to eat lunch for another 45 minutes! As I walked to my car I drank some water and orange juice, and ate a cheese stick. Once settled in my car, I gobbled down my yogurt. That at least tied me over until I got home and could heat up the rest of my lunch. 

So I’ve decided that courtrooms are not good places for a pregnant woman to be. Besides not being able to eat and drink on a regular schedule, I can’t imagine what would have happened if I was put on the jury and had to go to the bathroom during the trial! 

Productive Weekend

Friday

After work on Friday, I could have used a drink. It was a long and very frustrating day. Of course, if I wasn’t pregnant, I wouldn’t be drinking to excess, just one drink with dinner as a treat and to help me unwind.  Since I am pregnant, I couldn’t even have that one drink. So I chose to do something slightly irresponsible, but much safer. I drank a glass of Dr. Pepper.  Large caffeine dose in the evening, coupled with high fructose corn syrup… yum! Then we stayed up late playing Lego Star Wars.

Saturday

I was very happy with our accomplishments on Saturday. In the morning, we gathered up a broken DVD player and block Styrofoam and took them to the electronics recycling that our recycling center holds once every 3 months or so. It was our first time, and I’m not sure what Aaron expected. As you drive up, someone directs you where to go and park. Then you open the car door and people take your electronics and Styrofoam right out of the car for you. The guy directing traffic directs you back out of the parking spot and you’re done! As we were driving out Aaron says, “That was cool. I wish we had more stuff to recycle.” He’s easily amused.

Then we stopped by the flea market being held by a local church youth group. Luckily we didn’t buy a lot. But Aaron came home with a puzzle and I came home with a candle holder, pendant, and cute “baby’s first steps” picture frame.

After grabbing brunch, we tackled some chores at home. Aaron cleaned out the car while I clean up the kitchen. Besides the usual empty and load the dishwasher, I disinfected the counters, and put some cabinets back in order. On New Year’s Eve I had discovered a leak from a bathroom pipe in one corner of the kitchen. Luckily it was a leak that our co-op had to fix, but in case the fix was messy, I had removed the contents of several cabinets. The leak now appears to be fixed, so I was happy to finally put my pots and pans and pantry items back into the kitchen cabinets.

Since it wasn’t quite time to go to the farmer’s market yet, I decided to have Aaron help me make laundry detergent. It was a great day to be outside for a little bit, although I would have preferred less wind for mixing white powders. I wore a mask even though Aaron did the mixing. We made a batch and a half, which should last us for a good, long time, despite the upcoming increase in dirty laundry (baby clothes and cloth diapers).

At 3:00 we stopped by the farmers market and picked up some bacon. Sadly, they were out of eggs already.

Aaron was ready to call it a day at that point, but I still wanted to get a few other things done. With the car cleaned out, and the mild temperatures, I figured it was a good time to get the car washed. And since BJ’s warehouse club is on the way home from the carwash, we could stop and get eggs and a few other items we needed in bulk. I’m not sure how I convinced Aaron, but he went along with it. Unfortunately, a lot of other people thought it was a good time to get a car wash. The line was out to the street. But since we had driven so far, we waited. It is, after all, a good carwash. They even clean the inside of the windows, wipe down the dash, and take out and spray down the floor mats. I’ve even gotten compliments on my clean car from the guys at Valvoline.

As usual, we purchased way more than we intended at BJ’s. But we managed to get eggs, tissues, toilet paper, paper towels, and the most important item: furniture movers. The furniture movers are for our coffee table. About two weekends ago we picked up foam puzzle floor mats to put down on our living room floor. We stole the idea from some neighbor friends who have a baby. Our floor tends to be ice cold in the winter because it is tile and there is a big crawl space under the house. Wearing socks doesn’t help, and we’ve never bothered with a carpet because we move the coffee table back and forth constantly. So when I saw the floor mats at our friends’ house, I knew that was the answer. It would provide insulation from the cold, be a good surface for Samantha to crawl on, and our coffee table should be able to move across it. Well, I was almost right. The coffee table ended up not moving very well, plus it left divots in the foam at the corners. But oh! Our feet have stayed so much warmer! The new solution was to get those little furniture mover coasters to put at the corners of the coffee table so that the weight was more widely distributed, and allow the table to move more freely.  Yep, they worked!

Whew, what a day! We took it easy the rest of the evening.

Sunday

On Sunday I woke up with a throbbing hip at 6AM. I had slept the entire night on my left side, and for some reason my hip decided to rebel. After a quick bathroom break, I flipped to my left side, hoping to get a few more hours of sleep. Unfortunately my hip continued to throb. I got up around 8AM, just because I was so uncomfortable.  It was still sore when I went to bed that night. 

So I started the day sore and tired, and I wasn’t in the mood to do much. When Aaron got up, he made us bacon and eggs for breakfast. I helped by making the toast. As I was standing in front of the toaster, I looked outside to see a minivan parked in the street with USPS decals. The driver was scanning an envelope. Seeing as it was Sunday, I wondered whether this special delivery was for us or for our neighbor. I couldn’t see the postman as he approached, but to my delight, I heard our screen door open. Between buttering sets of toast, I opened the envelope to find an adorable Penn State dress and hat for Samantha. That cheered me up quite a bit. But I still wasn’t very motivated.

After breakfast, Aaron suggested he was going to install the baby seat base in the car. After all, cleaning out the car and getting a car wash was all in preparation for the seat installation. I really wanted to play video games instead, but I decided Aaron was right. I chose to do fun chores though. I asked Aaron, “Well, if you’re going to install the car seat, can I plant seeds?” “Sure.” So we got to work. I planted 2 kinds of onions, stevia, chives, chamomile, asparagus, and Thai red roselle. I just hope I have time to plant them in the garden this year. On one hand, I’ll be home on maternity leave during garden planting season. On the other hand, I’ll be trying to figure out how to take care of a baby!

Aaron installed the car seat base with little trouble, and he’s almost convinced me that he did it right. Not that I don’t trust him, especially since he read both the car seat manual and the car manual. But I’ve heard that almost no one installs them correctly. So I would feel better if we had it properly inspected. Too bad I can’t find a single inspection site anywhere in the county. Not one.

Throughout the day on Sunday, I also managed to get caught up on laundry. I’ll be behind on laundry again come next weekend after the baby shower. But for now, I’m caught up and it feels good.

Car seat installation, planting seeds, and laundry… those were our big accomplishments for the day. I think it was plenty given that I was unmotivated and in pain.     

Since I don’t have any pictures from this weekend, I’ll share the picture on the Thai Red Roselle seed packet (picture grabbed from www.rareseeds.com, where I purchased the seeds).

My birthday

Today is my birthday. Luckily there is no sign that Samantha and I could share a birthday. At this morning’s doctor appointment, Samantha’s heartbeat continues to be “textbook.” Last week the nurse said that the other babies should take lessons from Samantha. I haven’t had any contractions that I know of. But there is still time that I could share my birthday with a coworker’s son. My coworker’s wife is in early labor at the moment, and has been for a couple of days.

I’m feeling pretty good. No, I’m not in the “sweet spot.” I have the usual third trimester complaints (backache, leg cramps, get out of breath easily, sleeping is getting uncomfortable, etc.), but at least I’m not on bedrest. I haven’t seen evil Nurse T. (she changed offices), and the rest of the nurses and my doctor have been really positive and supportive. I think that has made a huge difference. 

My belly is getting big and I swear Samantha is trying to kick her way out. I am supposed to be doing kick counts every day. Samantha is supposed to move at least 10 times in a 2-hour period. I find that hilarious, because during her active times, she can get in 10 movements within 15 minutes. And she is active at least 3 times a day. At night when we’re watching TV, sometimes I’ll pull up my shirt, and we watch my belly instead. You know in movies when they show a mouse or something walking around under a carpet? That’s what it reminds me of, except Samantha isn’t as clearly defined. But she is trying. Aaron put is hand on my belly last night and declared, “I think I feel her feet!” Samantha had been kicking in one particular spot, and sure enough, when I put my hand on that area, I could feel that that spot was harder than the surrounding area - just as if she was pushing against us with her feet. It also helps that we know approximately where her feet are located.

Oh, that’s good news I should share! All during this pregnancy, Samantha has been breech. I wasn’t worried of course, because babies usually turn later in the third trimester. Well last week, she had moved. Instead of breech, she was now sideways, or transverse. This is actually worse than breech, but again, I wasn’t worried (and neither was doc). In fact, I took this as good news, because it meant she was finally moving into other positions. By the beginning of this week, she had shifted a little bit more, and her head was more downward than sideways. Today her head is definitely down, although she still isn’t in the correct position for delivery. But Samantha will get there; she’s just taking the scenic route. 

Here's the ultrasound pic from yesterday. When I asked for a picture, the tech said she really couldn't get much because there isn't much room for Samantha anymore. The she showed me "the best she could do," and pointed out an eye, maybe. And I'm like, "But those are her hands, right? That's awesome!" Aaron was equally excited. So no defining details, but hey, it looks like a baby!

MAGFest

This past weekend Aaron and I went to MAGFest, a gaming and music convention held at the National Harbor. It was awesome! Just to avoid confusion, I should let you know that we used our timeshare points to stay at nearby Wyndham, instead of paying $176 a night (including resort fee, tax, and parking) to stay at the Gaylord where the convention was held. But I’ll post about Wyndham later.

The convention was definitely geared towards console gaming, but it did have something for any type of gamer. They had a huge convention hall open 24 hours that was divided into 5 sections: marketplace, open tabletop gaming, LAN area, free arcade, and console gaming. We spent the majority of our time in the arcade and the marketplace, but we played some in the console gaming area too.

Sitting in the tabletop gaming area with the marketplace behind us. Yes, that car has ears and a tail.

The marketplace was not what I expected. They had 2 or more vendors for each of the following: console games, t-shirts, music, Japanese candy and caffeine drinks, perler bead art, jewelry, and hats. The first three were expected, of course. Candy and caffeine made sense once I thought about it. But I was pleasantly surprised on how many vendors were selling handmade stuff, and that most of those vendors were women. Sadly I am not really interested in perler bead art or hats. And really, how many hat vendors do you need? Certainly not 4 or more. To be fair, we did buy a perler art photo frame of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet, but I still think there was too many perler beaded art vendors. On the other side of the coin, only one vendor was selling boardgames. And I didn't see any computer games for sale. I feel like there was something else missing from the vendor area too, but I just can’t think of what it might be.

Tabletop gaming had a separate tournament room in addition to the open gaming area, but it mostly held Magic the Gathering tournaments. I was happy to at least see a Settlers of Catan tournament and an Apples to Apples tournament on the schedule, but we didn't go to either one. They also had a tournament for Scrabble, Poker, Dominion, Warhammer 40k, and two WoW CCG raids.

We managed to make it to a few of the panels. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the panelists and discussions. Most conventions I've attended have had cool sounding panels that end up being really boring. Maybe we just lucked out on picking good panels this time, but every panel we went to was really enjoyable. I even liked the panel about text-based games, which I've never understood until attending the panel.

The charity auction was hysterical to watch, even though they didn't have anything that interested me. It is the only auction I've seen that auctioned off "mystery items," had dueling auctioneers that exclaimed stuff like “shit balls!”, and threw lanyards into the audience. The auction was scheduled for 11:00AM to 3:00PM, but they didn’t get started until around 11:30 due to technical difficulties with setting up to take credit cards. We watched the action for an hour, and then had to go get lunch. I told Aaron we could come back to the auction after lunch, but he was sure they would be done early. After all, we had already seen several mystery items sold for $5 to the first few people to raise their hands. We arrived back to the auction before 2:00, and it was still going strong. At one point they threw 20 mystery items in a bag and proceeded to auction it off. Even with an endorsement of “some of these items have already sold for $20” and “it’s for charity” how much do you think a bag of unknown objects would sell for? As the bid climbed, the auctioneers actually started shoving more items into the bag. The final bid was $210 for a mystery bag of gamer crap. I guess gamers have money and like to spend it. Aaron and I left the auction at 3:10. It still wasn’t over, but it was finally starting to wind down.  
       

I was surprised at how many musical guests there were. When I started reading their bios, I realized that they are all part of a genre of music that I had never heard of – gamer music. I understand part of the concept, since video games can have amazing music, but the word “chiptune” came up a lot. So at one point we decided to head over to a chiptune concert to find out what it was about. Unfortunately you’ll have to google chiptune for yourself, because we didn’t even make it in the door. The concert area didn’t allow bags inside. Aaron carried around a bag for me all weekend that held my water and snacks. That day I was also wearing my pregnancy pants without pockets, so the bag also held my money, ID, etc. So there was no way I was leaving the bag outside in the hallway like everyone else. We skipped the chiptune concert, made a mental note of the bag policy, and planned to leave the bag in our hotel room for the Earthbound Papas concert. 

The Earthbound Papas is the current band of the musician who created the music for most of the Final Fantasy games. So they were the biggest guest at the convention, and were scheduled to perform on Saturday at 10:00PM to midnight. We deliberately planned to leave the convention for a late dinner on Saturday, stop by our hotel and drop off our bag, and then be back at the convention for the concert. At 9:30 we were headed to the concert as planned. “Where is it located?” Aaron asked. “Um, probably where everyone is headed,” I replied as we followed a long line of people all heading in the same direction. We ended up in a huge, dark, convention room that held a stage at the far end. The previous band was still playing, and the mass of people filled about 1/3 of the room. There were no chairs, and the wall space was pretty well filled already with people sitting. We couldn’t really see the stage since the front of the room was already packed, and it was at least a half hour before the concert even started. “I’m not going to be able to stand here the whole time,” I told Aaron. We decided to leave. While Aaron headed to the restroom, I sat down in a chair in the hallway leading to the concert. Instead of a steady line of people, there was now a steady mass of people heading to the concert. Aaron joined me, and we sat there and people-watched for several minutes. Although I had wanted to see the concert, there was no way I was going back. It looked like nearly all 3,000 attendees were going to try to cram into that room. It was not going to be a good place for a pregnant lady. And then it dawned on me: if everyone is attending the concert, the arcade and console gaming areas are going to be empty! Although we were both tired, we headed downstairs. For the first time all weekend, we got to play console games and some of the more popular arcade games!       

That’s when I started to realize that being pregnant at a gamer convention was interesting. The schedule was light on morning panels and heavy with evening panels, going as late as 3:00 in the morning! I was pushing it to even attempt to attend the 10:00pm concert. So at first, I was disappointed that I couldn’t stay up and party with the gamers. But I quickly realized that while the gamers were sleeping in, the arcade was pretty empty in the mornings. By evening (except during the Earthbound Papas concert) the arcade was packed. And in a cavernous concrete room, the noise became unbearable! Sunday morning was awesome. Not only were the gamers sleeping in, but many were also busy checking out of the hotel, or attending the Earthbound Papas Q&A. The arcade and console areas were the least crowded that I had seen them all weekend. You’d think I’d know by now that doing the opposite of everybody else has its advantages, but sometimes I just forget.

I had two realizations over the weekend. One was “My parents were right,” and the other, “My husband is awesome.” Of course I already knew these things. But I had one (err, two) of those moments when the truth just smacks you in the face.

 

When I was growing up, I always wanted an Atari system. Ever since I saw the neighbor boys playing Pitfall, I’ve always wanted to play Pitfall (and still haven’t). But my wise parents didn’t get us Atari. We got the TI-99/4a instead. My parents said it was better than the Atari because it was an actual computer. I wouldn’t listen because I couldn’t play Pitfall on the TI. This weekend, there was an Atari set up in front of a couch in the arcade. They didn’t have Pitfall. But they did have Space Invaders, and I played it a few times. On the TI, we had TI Invaders, and it was one of my favorite games. Now obviously, Space Invaders was the original, and TI Invaders was copied from it, so I have to give props to Space Invaders. But TI Invaders was still way cooler. Besides having more color, and in my opinion, better game play in general, TI Invaders had a bonus round between boards. In the bonus round, you shot at the UFO. Each time you hit it, the value would increase, the size of the UFO would decrease, it would change directions, and its speed would increase. The point was to volley it back and forth across the screen gaining bonus points until it disappeared completely or it escaped off the screen.

Another favorite game was Alpiner, where you climbed mountains and avoid hazards like bears and falling rocks. This game actually had speech and taunted you when you made mistakes. The climber would say “onward and upward,” at the start of a climb, “yuck!” when you ran into something, and “helllllllllp” when you fell. A lady would say things like “look out!” or “beware, falling objects,” when there were falling rocks. And she’d taunt you with, “Did you mean to do that?” after you fell to the bottom of the mountain. 

http://youtu.be/6GN497HptGE

Alpiner was awesome. I asked Aaron if any Atari games had speech. He looked at me like I had a third eye and said, “No, it wasn’t a computer.” Did I ever use the TI for anything other than gaming? Only once that I recall. In 7^th grade I took my first computer class and learned a little Basic programming. I tried it on our TI machine and created a picture after a ridiculous amount of wait time. Even just using it as a gaming system, I really enjoyed playing my favorite games, and I kind-of miss them. I haven’t played anything on the Atari that comes close, except for Pitfall in my mind. But now I’d much rather have a TI machine to play my old 4 favorite games than to have an Atari to play Pitfall.

So that was the “My parents were right” moment. And while thinking fondly about my TI games, I decided to call my parents to see if they still have the old TI-99/4a stashed somewhere.  I explained that we were attending a gaming convention, and Mom said, “Oh, Aaron must be having more fun than you.” Even though I was on the phone, I made the face at her that said, “What on Earth are you talking about?” But I just said, “No, I think we are having equal fun.” The conversation made me wonder why Aaron should be having more fun than me. I like games. Eventually I pictured what might happen if I was at the convention with some other guy. He’d be playing everything that he would want to, whether I wanted to play or not. Most likely I wouldn’t want to play the same thing, and I’d end up watching or trying to find something to play by myself. Would we even go to panels? Probably not. So yeah, with another guy, I might be completely bored at best. But not with Aaron. He likes to play games with me. Most of the time, we picked 2-player games. If we ended up at a 1-player game, we’d take turns*. We played a lot of Frogger, because it was my favorite, and it was one of the few arcade games we could sit at to play. I picked out the panels, but got his input as much as possible, and he happily went to them. Even though he was really enjoying himself at the charity auction, he had no problem leaving to get lunch. And he carried around my backpack all weekend without complaint. Aaron really is an awesome husband. I did play Rampage with him twice until my wrist and fingers hurt, and I was supportive when he wanted to buy something at the auction. And I picked out panels that I thought he’d enjoy, like the one about text-based gaming that I knew nothing about. So hopefully we did have equal fun.

*And when I said we took turns on 1-player games, I don’t mean that one of us played all three lives of a game for a turn, making the other person wait forever. We switched each time we died, or when we reached the end of a board. Sometimes we let the other person play a second time in a row if they died right at the start of their turn.    

    More pics at http://hooppics.shutterfly.com/12774.   

Playing Frogger!

Halloween

I know it is silly. Here it is, days before Christmas and I’m blogging about Halloween. Oh well, better late than never.

Halloween weekend followed the stressful week that included my first 3-hour glucose test, ultrasound, and testifying in court. I tried to keep the party planning simple, but I love Halloween too much. We held our annual Halloween party on Saturday. Although we had a decent turn-out, it was a smaller crowd than our previous Halloween parties. I made the usual peach Jell-O brain, plus honey caramel apples, pizza burgers (pumpkin-shaped cheese on top), and a creepy face cheese ball. I also put out hot peppers stuffed with mozzarella and prosciutto, topped with a bit of black olive to look like eye balls. I was most proud of the cheese ball. My friends, Bob and Mel, had given me a skull ice mold that I decided would work for shaping the cheese ball. But I lined it first with prosciutto, and added black olive eyes to the finished masterpiece. It looked disgusting!

It rained most of Saturday, but the rain turned to big fluffy snow flakes for a bit in the late afternoon. The snow stuck long enough to make everything pretty.

As the evening approached, it was decided that some people would go to the Pumpkin Walk early, and others would wait until after dark. After hearing the story about one of my friends falling off the path into a creek during a previous year’s pumpkin walk, I decided that with the weather and being pregnant, I should go before dark too. I knew it would be muddy, so I decided to be extra cautious, and I took my hiking poles. At first it seemed silly to take them. But before we even made it to the entrance of the Pumpkin Walk, we were navigating around deep muddy ruts. The staff had put down cardboard on the path where they could, but it was a losing battle. The heavy rains had turned the path into a swamp, with knee-deep water in some places. I was so glad that I had brought my hiking poles! The pumpkins were amazing, and the snow made the Pumpkin Walk magical in the fading light. Unfortunately I didn’t take the camera because I didn’t want to chance getting it wet or muddy.

I had purchased 7 different pumpkins from the farmers market for people to carve at the Halloween party. However, I was not motivated to carve inside the house. I had no problem with other people carving inside; I just didn’t want to do it. But no one else seemed interested either, or else they just didn’t want to be the first to make a mess. So on Sunday, Aaron and I carved pumpkins. Aaron picked the bright orange warty one, and I picked a big flattened one. Gutting them took forever because we carefully separated the seeds into a pan for eating, and tossed the rest of the guts into the composter. The sun was starting to set by the time we each finished one pumpkin. In addition to the 5 other uncarved pumpkins from the farmers market, we had 2 small pumpkins from our garden. I couldn’t convince Aaron to carve a second big pumpkin, but I did persuade him that we should carve our tiny garden pumpkins. I let Aaron take the smallest one. Since I wasn’t sure if we could eat immature pumpkin seeds, we decided the seeds could just go into the composter. So it didn’t take long to gut and carve the mini pumpkins. All four pumpkins looked great lit up at night.

Monday was Halloween. Even though I wasn’t showing too much yet, I wanted to have a costume that showcased my belly. Being a big woman, showing off my belly isn't something I do on a regular basis, so I didn't want to miss my chance. Earlier in the month I picked up an orange t-shirt, a green long sleeve shirt, some felt and fleece squares, and some fabric paint, and turned it all into a no-sew pumpkin patch costume. Samantha was a pumpkin for Halloween! The costume wasn’t all that great, but I’m still proud of it. I was only one of a few people to wear a costume to work on Halloween, so I won one of the prizes during the costume contest. The prize was the little pumpkin I'm holding in my hand. 

After work, we set up speakers in our front windows, and turned up Halloween music for the trick-or-treaters. I think it really helped to attract a few kids that otherwise would have stayed on the other side of the street. We ended up seeing a lot of kids, much more than the previous year. Next year I hope to decorate the yard a few days earlier and add more lights and decorations.

Overall, it was a great Halloween. 

Additional pictures are posted at http://hooppics.shutterfly.com/12319