I’m sure there is NO WAY you have forgotten that we are mere HOURS away from our very first Fetus Friday.  Roomie and I are anxiously counting down the minutes until you begin sharing your wisdom with us.

Okay, that’s not exactly the truth.  We’re actually just continuing our nightly conversation about where we should hang that silly mirror (she says in the dining room; I think it should go in the hallway).  We’re also eating some watermelon because one of us has an intense craving for it.

But I’m sure Roomie will start to have cravings soon, too.

Since we’re so close to the big day, I thought I might throw out a few “rules” since a few of you have asked for guidelines for the carnival.  Here’s a general idea of what we’re going for with Fetus Friday:

1. Please don’t feel like you have to ask me if you can participate.  If you’ve got any parenting advice inside of you then, by all means, SHARE WITH US FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

2. Make sure you’re linking to your Fetus Friday post and not to the main page of your blog. 

3. Feel free to enter a short description of what your post is about after you put your name or your blog name.  Here’s an example of what I might write if I was participating in my own bloggy carnival:

Amy Beth (The Dirt on Diapers)

4. And, while I’m sure it doesn’t need to be said, I’m going to say it anyway: if there are any posts that I deem as inappropriate, they’ll be deleted.  And then I will force you to say the word placenta 121 times.

But I think we all know that would be just a dream come true for SOME of us.

Yesterday started out pretty horrible, if you want to know the truth.  The reasons are so ridiculous that I’m not even going to give them bloggy time except to say that, by 9:23 a.m., I was sitting on the windowsill in the office bathroom crying my eyes out. 

Fabulous, right?

As the day progressed, the problems mounted.  I didn’t get done with work until pretty late and, since I hadn’t exactly eaten lunch, I was starving.

Enter the people I will henceforth be referring to as Most Awesomest Couple Ever.

You probably remember me telling you about Allison, also known as the only other Starlite staff member.  Allison and I met our first day of college (six years ago!) and have been good friends ever since.  She’s dating Ryan and things are Very, Very Serious. 

So, as I’m driving home last night, Most Awesomest Couple Ever calls my cellular device (you may know yours as “cell phone”) and announces that they will be arriving on our doorstep momentarily to fix dinner for us.  I, of course, agreed to this plan because?  Someone wants to cook dinner for me?  I AM DOWN WITH THAT.

What Roomie and I didn’t expect is to learn that not only had Most Awesomest Couple Ever bought food to cook for us but, knowing that Roomie and I haven’t actually had time to really go grocery shopping yet, they bought bags full of groceries for us.

Roomie and I just stood there, stunned, as the bags kept coming.  Ryan and Allison had thought everything out — they had certain things that just I eat, certain things that Roomie likes and then even more stuff for us to share.  They wouldn’t accept money for the groceries and actually put everything away for us.

This would be about the time that I wanted to again curl up into a ball and begin crying.  Instead, I pulled a cookie out of one of the bags and happily had what I like to think of as an appetizer. 

While Allison cooked us dinner, Ryan started putting together our new entertainment center for us.  This was no small task as it came with 40 full pages of instructions.  After dinner, Ryan kept working on it while Allison helped me hang some pictures in the house.  When we had everything hung that’s going upstairs, we all got into Roomie’s bed (well, not Ryan) and had a little prayer time for Baby and Roomie right there in her bed.  Ain’t no shame in having church up in your roommate’s bed — can I get an amen?

AMEN!

I stayed up with Ryan and Allison for a bit longer but then had to get to bed as I had to be up at a very early hour this morning for The Other Job I Never Write About.  Ryan and Allison insisted that they stay and finish the entertainment center and said that they’d lock up after themselves.

I know I’m a horrible person for agreeing to that but you better believe I did, ya’ll.  I was tired.

Flash forward to this morning when Roomie came to my room and said “Have you seen downstairs?”  Thinking that something was wrong, I headed down there to look around and found that The Most Awesomest Couple Ever had not stayed just to put together our entertainment center.

They organized, cleaned, etc. our entire first floor of the house.  Everything.

I really don’t even know how to begin telling you how I feel about this because, if I do, I’m afraid I’ll start crying again and I THINK WE’VE HAD ENOUGH OF THAT.  It’s just that Roomie and I have been so busy this week — she started a full-time job on Monday and I have already worked about 60 hours this week at my two jobs.  To have someone go grocery shopping for us, fix a homemade dinner for us, put together our furniture and clean our house while we slept is just unbelievable to me.

Great.  Now I’m crying again. 

I’m having a baby, too.

JUST KIDDING. BUT HOW AWESOME WOULD THAT BE?

If I was, you know, married. And older. And quit drinking Sunny Delight with every meal.

Anyway, I really do have something important to tell you, so listen up!

Starting this Friday, I’m going to do a ten week experiment with ya’ll that I’d like to call Fetus Friday. I’m sorry about the name, but ask any of my friends — I think the word fetus is so cool. Why? I have no idea. But you better believe I’m gonna take every chance to use it.

Fetus, fetus, fetus. I love it!

But back to the details: basically, every Friday morning, I’ll post a question for you that Roomie and I have about pregnancy, mommyhood, etc. And then you smart, smart mommies will leave a comment telling us everything we’ve ever needed to know and offering to come live with us and teach us your ways and cook pancakes for us every night and do our laundry and tuck me into bed at night.

Okay, you can leave out all the baby stuff. But you’re still fixing the pancakes.

To make Fetus Friday REALLY special, Roomie and I have a favor to ask of you. We’d like to take things a step further and have YOU tell US something you think we need to learn via your own blog.

For example, we might ask about delivery options this Friday but you might think “Hey, I bet the girls don’t know that they need to do such-and-such before the baby gets here.” So, you’ll write a blog about it on your own blog and come back here to use Mr. Linky to tell us it’s up. Make sense?

Probably not. But hopefully you get the gist of what I’m asking.  Updated to add: I am hearing that the term “Bloggy Carnival” is appropriate — maybe that makes more sense?

The reason we wanted to do this part of it is because, while we will certainly have a question for you each Friday over the next ten weeks, we know that there is probably quite a bit of stuff that we might not think to ask.

For example, someone left a comment a few days ago telling us that we need to take a package of Depends to the hospital with us for Roomie. We would have never known that.

And trust me, Roomie wishes that she didn’t know that.

We’ve got right around 10 weeks until Baby makes his/her debut, so… what we’re trying to say is… START WRITING YOUR FETUS FRIDAY POSTS NOW.

That will be all.

Except for saying thank you. Again. And, more than likely, again on Friday. Unless you think this whole idea is stupid and then no one signs up on the Mr. Linky and then Roomie and I will have to curl up in a fetal (sounds like fetus!) position and cry a bit.

P.S. – I have a surprise for you on Monday that may or may not be the big reveal of Baby’s gender. You may begin casting your votes now. I predict you have a 50-50 chance of getting it right.

P.P.S. – Can someone make me one of those cute bloggy buttons for this? Please?

P.P.P.S. – Fetus.

During the school year, I can’t go more than 45 minutes without one of my college girls coming into the office to see me. Occasionally they need to talk to me about something to do with Starlite, but usually they just want to talk about something to do with boys.

I, of course, have been known to be a wealth of knowledge when it comes to boys. My usual advice to them? “Sweetie, you need to get yourself to the Health Department and take a cootie shot. You know, circle, circle, dot, dot…”

Of course, I don’t really talk to them about my own boy problems (with the exception of a couple of them who are closer to my age). Which could explain why I feel the need to constantly talk about my boy issues with you. Hmm. That does suddenly explain a lot.

They come for other reasons, of course. “I’m quitting school — I just can’t take it anymore” or “I hate my roommate.” And then there’s the usual “Do you have any chocolate in the office?”

I love their interruptions. Of course, there are times when I have to shut my office door and tell whoever is in the front office that I can’t see anyone for the next hour, afternoon, etc. But I try to keep that door open as much as possible, even if it means I have to stay later that evening sending that email I put off because one of my girls showed up needing to chat.

There’s no one interrupting me now. With the exception of a very small number of them, they’re all gone for the summer. They’re in Alabama and Kentucky and California and Texas and Washington and both of the Carolinas. They’re at the beach, beside the pool, at their summer jobs. They’re still in bed when I head to the office in the morning; they’re texting me when I’m already asleep at night.

They’re Facebook-ing me, and MySpace-ing me and even reading the bloggy from time to time. They’re seeing that ex-boyfriend, making mom do their laundry and torn to pieces over wanting to be two places at once. They’re making good decisions, with a few bad ones thrown in. I hear about those in the middle of the night, too.

And I miss them.

It is too quiet in here. No one is interrupting me; no one is using the box of Kleenex on my desk. Sure, I’m getting more “work” done. I’m quicker in responding to emails, I’m making decisions about next year faster and, surprisingly, I’m even leaving the office a few minutes early on some days. But I’d trade this quiet, focused time to have them back.

You’re missed, girls. And not just by Snuggles and Cuddles.

Bassinet vs. playpen for newborn.  Your thoughts?

(And yes, it is still surreal that I’m asking you these types of questions.)

A few of you have asked how my 100 Days of WhateverItWas is going since those 100 days will be wrapping up in a couple of weeks.

Well, in a word… failure.

It is surprisingly great to tell you that though, because for me, it represents a whole lot of growth.  I used to have this idea that I needed for my life to look like a success in all areas lest someone think that I was unsuited for what I was doing (i.e. running Starlite).  And, um, I was miserable.

About a year ago, I began talking to God about that “need” in my life and told Him that, in a sense, I felt like it was tied to pride.  I asked Him to help me get that out of my life because I want to be able to say recognize what areas of my life need improvement and help without feeling ashamed. 

All this might sound a bit ridiculous to you, but you don’t know how many people I’ve met in ministry who tell me they feel the same way. 

I’m not quite sure what went wrong with the 100 Day thing, but I have my suspicions.  I did meet some of my goals: for example, I gave up caffeine at the start of it and have only had one tiny slip up since then.  There are other more personal goals that were met, too.

But then there were some that just weren’t met.  I had a particular goal weight I wanted to be at by the end of the 100 days and, unless I have some form of plastic surgery between now and next week, I don’t see myself reaching that goal.  There were some other personal goals that I didn’t meet.

I know that the significance of the 100 days doesn’t mean that much; I should just keep going and maybe put myself on a 365 day plan.    At the same time, I can’t help but wonder why there are certain things in my life that I choose to do without excellence.  I know I’m called to excellence — and I know I make choices that don’t reflect that.

I felt a little overwhelmed during the whole process with trying to accomplish / change / modify so many different things in my life and now I wonder if I went about it the wrong way.  Maybe instead of trying to change five different eating habits at once, I should go after one of them at a time and build on them as I meet that goal.  Like, I’ve given up caffeine — so now, I’ll go after giving up any kind of sweets while still continuing to stay away from the caffeine.   Does that make sense?

There has been one really bright side to all of this though — and that’s the fact that I’m not beating myself up for what I see as failure.  The old me would have berated herself over and over again for failing to measure up to some imaginary bar that she had set much higher for herself than anyone around her.  I would have genuinely hated myself.

So maybe this wasn’t a complete failure after all.

I would suggest refraining from typing “What does a placenta look like?” into your Google search bar.

The miracle of life almost made me lose my lunch.

Well, Roomie and Baby have definitely arrived.  We haven’t stopped running since the moment her cute pregnant self showed up! 

It was really important to me that she have a fully set-up room when she arrived.  Roomie wasn’t able to bring any furniture or decorative items with her, so I took all of my bedroom furniture and gave it to her.  I wanted her to take the master bedroom (since she’ll have a bassinet in it later) so I decided that it would be better for her to take my furniture (larger bed) and for me to get some smaller pieces (twin bed).  The bedroom I’m taking is ultra-small, so I’ll just be revisiting my college dorm days in my new twin bed!

We spent Saturday cleaning the house and fulfilling various cravings that Roomie had throughout the day.  For lunch, we went to our favorite place to eat in college and I thought Roomie might pass out from the sheer excitement of having some Zaxby’s chicken in her life again.  Later in the day, when an intense craving for watermelon hit, we bought some pre-sliced pieces and ate them in the car on the way home from the grocery store.

For those of you thinking that’s awfully tacky, please remember that I do live in Tennessee.  We could have broken open the watermelon package in the checkout line and no one would have given us a second glance.

Late Saturday night, we got in Roomie’s bed (would’ve been a bit awkward in mine!) and read various sections of What To Expect When You’re Expecting.  Both of us wanted to know more about the role that our friend Playful Placenta plays in the delivery.

And now that we have that knowledge, we’re scarred for life.

We spent a lot of time talking about Baby, especially since Roomie has had no one to really discuss it with over these past few months (she’s been fairly isolated for awhile).  We talked about diapers and delivery and dough — as in bread, and how much we both love it.

We got up pretty early on Sunday morning to go pick out some furniture for the living room and dining room.  I had been planning to live on my own, so I had saved up a little bit of money to get some fairly decent stuff (if you saw what I had before, you’d understand).  There was a 20% off sale this morning, so you better believe we were there waiting when the doors opened.  After picking out a few things (pictures to come, I promise) we headed to church.

I’ll be honest — I was a little nervous about our first church service, especially since we were going to the church Roomie went to back in college (and the church I still go to today).  In fact, I think I was more apprehensive about going than Roomie was!  But all went well, except for the fact that I tripped and fell at one point.  But that’s totally normal.

We did a little more shopping on Sunday, mainly for small things we needed for the new house (no baby purchases yet!).  Roomie cracked me up when she started talking about how being a single mom is kind of like “parenting with 50% off, Amy Beth, and the only thing I like to get 50% off is new shoes!”

She pulled single parenting and new shoes together in one sentence.  I have never been so proud.

We also talked to one of our friends from college for a little while utilizing our favorite feature of my cellular device: the speakerphone.  This particular friend, who will remain nameless, was telling us about the date she had been on the night before.  After hearing about her outfit, her shoes (we have an obsession) and where they went, I asked the important question: Did he kiss her?  When she replied that she kissed him, Roomie about fell off the bed (updated to add: this nameless friend just emailed me to say it did NOT go down like that — apparently he kissed her!).  She recovered quickly and grabbed my phone to begin a lecture that started out with “Do you KNOW how babies are made?!?!  If you saw my belly right now, I think you’d be rethinking that kiss!”

Personally, I think we could just send her a photocopy of the section about the placenta and be just fine, but that’s just me.

Roomie’s furniture is in her, um, room. It was a rather long process that went into the night (think 2 a.m.), but by goodness, she’ll have a bed to sleep on tonight.

Which is good, considering she’ll be here in an hour.

More updates throughout the weekend, hopefully.

I loved reading through your comments on yesterday’s post! I knew you all would be very understanding and able to “read between the lines” with what I couldn’t explain about the situation. Several of you left a personal message for Roomie that will mean a lot to her as we go along. She read through them tonight and tried to leave a comment to tell you all how much you meant to her but is having a few technical problems. When we get settled in, I bet I’ll be able to convince her to do a guest post so you can hear a bit directly from her.

Your messages to me meant a lot, too. I don’t want you to think I think highly of myself because I’m doing this for Roomie. I would never want to come across that way.

I got several questions from both the comments and personal emails, so I thought I’d try to answer them here as my blog email address still won’t let me email any of you back!

1. The most frequent question you asked me: How can we help?

So many of you emailed me privately to ask if you can send something to Roomie — I was floored by your response to her situation. She’s arriving here tomorrow night and, because she’s on her own for the move, she’s only bringing her clothes — she couldn’t lift anything else nor fit it in her car. With that said, I’ve made arrangements for her bedroom furniture and things of that nature. We also have a crib, changing table and stroller/car seat coming from various sources. I think the best way for those of you who want to help out would be for me to take Roomie to make a baby registry under a false name and then give you that information (she currently has no registery or anything of that nature due to some particular aspects of her situation). I, of course, started stocking up months ago — long before I knew she would be living with me. So I have a few basic things — mainly clothes and a couple of blankets. She and I are going to work on getting more of the stuff she’ll need over the coming weeks as she gets stable here. In other words, weekly paycheck = small weekly trip to Babies ‘R Us. While I would never dream of asking you to provide anything for her, I’ll post the registry information for those of you who specifically asked about it.

2. Is it a boy or a girl?

We know the sex, but won’t be able to post it for some private reasons related to her situation. This may change in the future, but for now, it isn’t the safest thing for us to do.

3. Are you going to be in the room with her when she gives birth?

I laughed at this one because she and I were on the phone for awhile last night imagining what it will be like for me to be in there with her. I guess we’re both assuming that I’ll be in there for most of the time, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I will be doing all of the “coaching classes” (or whatever you call it!) with her as well as the tour of the hospital and so forth. I’ve also started reading What To Expect When You’re Expecting. And, you know, practicing late night runs to get ice cream and pickles.

4. How are you adjusting to the idea of your home life changing?

I think I’m adjusting pretty well. I’m a little overwhelmed right now, but mainly just because I’ve started looking at the “big picture” — finding a doctor, changing over her insurance, etc. I’ve just been trying to get as much done for Roomie as she can think of at this point, especially since she hasn’t been here to set all of that up. I’m not that worried about overstepping boundaries at this point, mainly because Roomie wants all the help she can get. I’m betting that sentiment will carry over to changing dirty diapers, too.

5. So, you and your previous roommate, Katie — you left on good terms?

Absolutely. I just obviously couldn’t explain everything to you back then. Katie is going to be taking a more active role in Starlite this fall than she was able to commit to last spring, so she and I will be spending a lot of time together in the office.

6. Can we see pictures of the new house?

I’ve got a few pictures of the inside, but I’m not putting up outside ones for safety’s sake. I will tell you this, though, about the outside of the house — everyone I’ve taken to the house so far actually gasps when we pull into the driveway. The outside of it is just gorgeous.

Here’s a peek at the inside:

I’ll post more pictures over the weekend as we start the move-in process. Speaking of that, if you’re a strapping young man — preferably single, of course — and would like to lift heavy furniture, feel free to give me a call on My Cellular Device.

Somehow I just don’t think that Imaginary Boyfriend is gonna come through for me this time.