Not sure if anyone watched the Oscars last night, but I got a wonderful heartfelt thank you from Daniel Day-Lewis when he won for Best Actor.
Here's the video. And Daniel, you're quite lovely too.

To all you childless folks out there: if you decide to have children, I have a warning. It will be unrelentlessly messy. You will need to develop the indifference of a medical professional (preferably a maternity ward nurse) to ALL bodily fluids. And you will also have to be okay with those bodily fluids covering your person. Lil' Puddin' Tater is sick (...again) and when she is sick with any sort of respiratory infection, she hurls. Lots. And I should already know the signs by now: she looks pained and begins to whimper and cry with no apparent reason. Silly me, instead of rushing her to the bathroom (where she prefers the sink to the toilet for all purposes vomiting-realted, and there's no resaoning with her) when all this began, I foolishly held her in my arms while sitting on our (somehow, it's never hers) bed. And I was promptly covered in dinner and all evening medication, plus mucus and a little stomach acid. She rushes, in the buff, to the sink in the bathroom and throws up again, except that since this throw up contains food chunks, the sink stops up. (usually, it's in the wee hours of the morning when this happens and she's expelling snotty mucus that she had inadvertantly swallowed, and it goes through the literal pipes much easier.) We both hop in the bathtub, since we're both covered in a stinky film, and suddenly she better and asking questions about my boobs. I quickly rinse and se asks if she can play for awhile, and I am left with the disgsting task of cleaning up all things vomit-soiled. My clothing, the towels in the bathroom, our comforter, and the floor. And it's really an interesting smell, that of all-purpose cleaner (method brand, in case LPT wants to inhale too closely) mixed with throw-up. At least there's a 2-foot section of the floor in the bedroom that is REALLY clean now, since usually I cannot be bothered to get down on all fours and wipe the floor down with a cloth. So now, LPT is in the tub, singing happily. Me, I just feel a little dirtier.

P.S. I feel like a complete tool since my post in which I bitched and moaned about having gestational diabetes. I spoke to an old friend and he was very nice in welcoming me to the wonderful world of diabetes. When I asked if he had familiarity with it (since to my recollection, he himself was not afflicted), he responded yes, his wife had type 1. Now, I'm not sure if anyone is familiar with the difference between type 1 & 2 and gestational diabetes, but gestational diabetes is pretty much a cake walk compared to type 1. The way I see it, GD requires slight temporary altering of diet (and possibly exercise) and just thinking a lot more about what goes in (and out - lovely ketone strips!) to your body while still in the family way. Type 1, however, requires (lots of) maintenance to stay alive, and even if you do everythign right, it's still sometimes a little sticky. So I would like to issue an apology (even though I was assured that none was needed) for my petty complaining because I can't eat cookie dough straight from the tube for awhile or binge-eat Honeycomb cereal. I may have to stick my finger four times a day and pee on little plastic strips, but I don't have to worry that if I don't do everything 100%, my life could be in jepoardy. And to L: you are an amazing person.

So Bill Clinton can be a douchebag. And he's really been flaunting that side of his personality during the current campaign. However, I just caught a clip that makes me respect him a little more. Never have I seen such a big-name politician (or someone so closely tied to a big-name politician) speak that way about abortion. Go Bill. (but I'm still pulling for Obama.)

All right, kids! I have opinions, and I'm going to share them with you.
First, there's a commercial out right now that I absolutely adore. It's for Tylenol (that I hate), but it is beautifully done. Part of what I like about it is that the people in it are not retouched. We see them, wrinkles, rolls and all, and they are all amazing. (ok, so after searching a bit, I can't actually find it. But if you watch tv at all, I'm sure you'll see it soon.)
Second, the soundtrack to Juno completely rocks my world right now. A, you have a copy coming already.
Third (and finally), D got me a book for Valentine's Day that is so spiffy, I feel compelled to share parts of it with you right now. It's called Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure, edited by Smith Magazine. Inspired by (my beloved) Ernest Hemingway's response to a challenge that he couldn't write a complete story in six words, ("For sale: baby shoes, never worn.") the book asked all sorts of people what their six-word memoir would look like. And the book is truly addictive. I finished it in about a half hour, because I could not put it down. I've already dog-eared (the horror!) pages with my favorites. I will now proceed to (a) loan and/or give a new copy of the book to all my friends and realtives who would appreciate such a thing, and (b) reproduce my favorites here.

And he nerded as never before. - Jon Thysell
I wrote it all down somewhere. - Ben Greenman
Verbal hemophilia. Why can't I clot? - Scott Mebus
Artsy married Fartsy, has two kids. - Mary Organ
No shit I'm critical - you're flawed. - Elizabeth Koch
Boys liked her. She preferred books. - Annelise Cuttle
Beat death thrice. Still not religious. - Shan Palmer
Without me, it is just aweso. - Chris Madigan
Hope my obituary spells "debonair" correctly. - Gregg Easterbrook
Underachieving...but willing to overcompensate halfheartedly. - Frank J. Lepaine
Where the hell are my keys? - Brady Udall
Well, I thought it was funny. - Stephen Colbert
Put whole self in, shook about. - Melissa Delzio
God who? Oh, him. No thanks. - Carin Rhoden
Cheese is the essence of life. - Mary Lynch
Maybe you had to be there. - Roy Blount, Jr.
Surname rhymes with profanity. Childhood torture. - Noah Smit

And just a little aside...Obama is leading! w00t.

dy-uh-BEET-us

When you become preggers and are taking a distinctly non-holistic route to getting the little booger out of you, you go to your OB/GYN about once a month until the magic time of around 32 weeks, when you get to go BI-monthly. (what fun!) Just before that happens, at 28 weeks, you take a test that monitors your blood sugar levels, to see if you might have gestational diabetes. This test involves drinking what tastes like Tang with craploads of sugar added, then waiting an hour and letting them stick a needle in your arm and draw blood. If the blood sugar level is high, you get to come back again and take a three-hour test, where you drink that god-awful beverage again, then let them stick you FOUR DIFFERENT TIMES to get blood. Do they put in an IV for this test? Of course not. You get to leave with a total of FIVE holes in your arms (four from the three-hour test and the one from the initial test). And since the gods really dislike you, you're stuck in the waiting room of LabCorp, along with everyone having drug tests. The bathroom there has no soap, and the back of the toilet is taped down like they're expecting Michael Corleone to stop by. And the magazine selection is limited to Men's Health and two-month old issues of Newsweek.

Well, kids, I've got the dy-uh-BEET-us.

I went to a class yesterday for TWO AND A HALF HOURS and got the poop on just what all this means. I could have a HUGE baby. I will probably (50% increased chance) get type 2 diabetes in the future. I can't eat chocolate for the duration of the pregnancy. It's a special kind of hell.

But ever the optimist (heh heh) I decided that this might be a good jump-start to healthier eating. But I was wrong. The diet I have to follow is like Atkin's on crack. It's all protein and fat. Lots of fat. Fast food is okay (just watch the buns and breading!) and microwave popcorn, movie theater butter lover's is okay. I'm sure that straight lard would be fine too, if I had the inclination to eat it. Why? Because fat doesn't do that much to your blood sugar.

So my daily routine goes something like this: wake up and pee on a piece of paper. (I have to measure my ketones to make sure that I'm not burning too much fat) Then prick finger and test blood sugar. Eat. Two hours later, test again. Eat snack. Eat lunch. Two hours later, test. Eat snack. Eat dinner. Two hours later, test. Eat snack. Go to bed and make sure not to sleep more than 9 hours.

The only perk to all this? I can eat as much sugar-free jell-o as I can stand.