First of all, this chiropractor was amazing. She clearly knew her way around a pregnant back and was personable and reasonable. Second of all, she explained what’s up with me in a way that contextualized why Little Girl has been having trouble flipping.

Essentially, the problem is that the Infernal Storm Trooper Boot of last summer strikes back.

The Boot made my left leg longer than my right despite my best efforts and the ensuing effect is muscular compensation and torquing on my pelvis. My right leg was two inches shorter than my left leg this morning, but when I left they were about the same. Hooray!

So let this be a lesson to you: If you have to wear a boot that makes one leg longer than the other, GO SEE A CHIROPRACTOR AFTER YOU GET IT OFF! Otherwise you’ll be walking around with a tortured, twisted pelvis and one leg shorter than the other.

True story.

BOO.

So yeah, it was kind of rough. Lucky for me I had a whole bunch of leftover lemon cheesecake in the fridge to help me through it. Anyone who says you can’t work out your feelings with a big honking wedge of cream cheesey goodness is lying to you.

Other than that, there’s really nothing to report. I’m kind of boring and preoccupied, which makes me such fascinating company I simply must hide from you to save you from being overwhelmed by everything I have to offer at the moment.

You’re welcome.

(By the way, I wrote a guest post for The Writers Vineyard and it went live today. You can check it out here if you’re interested. Thanks!)

The funny thing is, I never had any idea how I would’ve decorated the nursery if we’d been expecting a girl instead. Two years passed by and I found myself expecting again and still had no idea how I’d want to decorate a girl’s nursery. If this baby had been a boy, he would’ve had an Angry Birds nursery, but alas, we’re having a girl.

So, to the Internets for me! I scoured Pinterest, Babies R Us, and Amazon for inspiration and never came up with a theme per se, but did discover two things about myself:

1. Pastels are not my cup of tea.

2. Color makes me happy!

With this aesthetic in mind, I shopped and consulted with Wes and shopped some more until I found the perfect decorations for Little Girl’s nursery. Behold!

It's like pink exploded in here, I love it :)

This room is aggressively colorful and makes me feel girly and happy and relaxed. Aidan loves it too, he gleefully calls it “Baby Sister’s Room” and enjoys hiding under the crib.

So that’s it, mischief managed! The only thing we have left to do is wait for her to finish growing and we’re all set to go for Baby Round 2.

It’s all about writing because you like it and not caring whether anyone will ever like it or read it because the joy’s in the pursuit. It’s not terribly deep, but it’s my hope that it’ll be encouraging to anyone who might be on the fence about writing.

Suddenly, everything seems to be moving at warp speed. Maybe I’m slowing down, or maybe life just really is rocketing along regardless of how I feel about it, but it all seems to be happening so fast.

It seems like we just potty trained Aidan, but then I look at the calendar and realize he’s been potty trained for a month. I keep thinking I have tons of midwife appointments to go until July, but then I realize it’s MAY and that means JUNE IS COMING and I don’t need my knuckles to tell me which month comes after that.

When I got pregnant, July 11 seemed forever away. It is simply amazing to me that it’s May already, because that means soon it’ll be Mother’s Day. And then it’ll be my birthday. And then it’ll be Memorial Day weekend. And then it’ll be June, which means I’ll be able to tell people I’m due next month.

And I really will be. Oh my gosh.

Example:

Erika’s Inner Monologue: I really should start working on my back cover copy so I can turn that marketing sheet in to my publisher.

Oh, but look how dusty the dining table looks. I should polish it.

You know what would be more fun, though? Getting that back cover copy written. Then you’ll have all the time in the world to polish all the furniture you want.

Yeah, but that table really is pretty dusty. This’ll just take a second…

One hour later…

Hooray! The entire house is cleaned top to bottom. Oh, I’m so tired though. My poor pregnant body feels like someone pummeled it with a meat tenderizer. I better go take a nap. I’ll get to that back cover copy tomorrow…

End scene.

This is so weird for me, I’ve never been a procrastinator. Ever. In school, I was that kid who finished essays the day after they were assigned so I wouldn’t have to stress out over them in the future. I’ve always been all about Making Future Erika’s Life Easier but now that I’ve got a publishing contract…Well, Future Erika seems to always have a better grasp of what’s going on and I keep thinking maybe I should just wait for her to get on it.

Preposterous. Because you know why? Future Erika’s just gonna keep being more pregnant than me. I should really give her a break. And maybe go admire my freshly polished table one more time.

Anyway, enough coyness! On Monday of last week, I heard back from one of the publishers I’d met at the PNWA Writer’s Conference last year. I opened the email without any trepidation whatsoever, fully convinced it’d be a standard rejection letter I could chalk up to paying my dues.

Which is why I had to read the email three times before I understood what she was saying. She wanted to publish my book Enemy Accountant. Like, actually publish it. As in, here’s a publishing contract, I’ll put you in touch with your editor.

It really did feel like my universe shrank in that moment. There was only this amazing, unbelievable email and the blood I could hear rushing around past my ears. Bunches of phone calls with loved ones later and I believed it a tiny bit more, but it really didn’t sink in until I signed the contract and sent it back a week later.

So, barring some unforeseen circumstance, I’ll be an officially official published author in February of next year. Yes, I know, I published PWNED which technically makes me a published author, but this is different. There were no contracts with PWNED. No professional editors. It was just me and whatever friends were willing to read and critique it for me, plus an amazing graphic designer who did me a favor, plus the handful of early supporters and readers who were kind enough to give my work a chance.

This will be different in some ways. Cover design, title, and layout are all out of my hands. I’ll still be primarily responsible for the marketing and footwork in getting the book out there, but I’ll be able to say the book was published, that I stand with the full support of my publisher who read my work and thought it was worth sharing.

This is going to be a wild ride, and I’m so glad to be on it with all of you who have encouraged me, supported me, bought and read and reviewed my writing. You guys are the best, and I can’t wait to share Enemy Accountant (title likely to be changed) with you soon!

Of course it wasn’t there when I woke up.

Truthfully, it probably wasn’t very good. I know it had the word “run” in it interspersed at periodic intervals. It was all very black turtleneck and beret, sipping espresso by candlelight. There may even have been an allegory in there somewhere. I know for a fact that it had nothing to do with pillows, which is odd because that’s what I was surrounded by at the time.

In other news, I’m supremely grateful that Easter is behind us. For some reason, this year’s Easter was the cherry on top of an exceedingly stressful sundae and I’ve been anxiously looking forward to it as the culmination of the last crop of nerve-wracking crap I’ll have to deal with for awhile. Not that Easter was nerve-wracking crap. Well, parts of it were, but that’s not Jesus’s fault.

It’s not even worth going into all the things that are making my blood pressure rise, because they probably wouldn’t vex you like they do me. Suffice it to say, I’m hoping (pleading for, really) smooth sailing until July, when Baby Girl will join our family and then everything will go kablooey again.

*******************************************

This is as far as I was able to write before Aidan woke up and needed something from me. Then, the next day was Tuesday and I took my car in for repairs only to find out the repairs would cost more than the car was worth. SO we hightailed it to a Honda dealership and ended up driving a brand new Odyssey home.

How’s THAT for no more stressful crap?

My life’s like an extremely mundane thriller show. “Will the housewife end up with a new minivan? Stay tuned for next week’s thrilling episode, The Odyssey Osyssey.”

Then, one day, I’d just get it. Out of nowhere. One day bellyflops, the next day perfect dives.

Well, it turns out my son got a lot more from me than just my hair. After a weekend of potty training, it turns out he’s wired in much the same way.

I studied and researched potty training, determined to attack it with a PLAN. Aidan took one look at my plan and said, “No thank you very much.”

Frustrated to the point of tears (because of my failure to do it right, not his) I put him down for his nap and sat down for a good, hard cry. Ten minutes later Aidan was asking to get up, and a minute later he was using the potty like he’d been doing it all his life.

I have absolutely no idea how that happened. I can’t take credit for it, I don’t even understand it, but it sure made a happy ending out of what was turning into a pretty dismal day.

It’s a good reminder to stay humble about the whole parenting thing. Sometimes your kid is awesome because of how you’re raising him, and sometimes he’s awesome because you got the heck out of his way.

Nevertheless, the pregnancy hormones will not be ignored. I am swept along on the tide of their demands, crossing items off my to-do lists with one hand while I stifle yawns with the other.

I think we’re nearing the end, though. The two last big looming items on my Big List Of Stuff That Needs to Get Done Before Little Girl Gets Here In July are:

• Set up her nursery. All the decor has been ordered and is sitting in her room, it just needs to be set up and arranged. I’d like to wait just a litttttle bit longer to do this, because I want to give Aidan time to forget how much he loved his crib before I set it back up again.
• Potty train Aidan. Oh yes, this is happening. I waffled about whether or not to do this before Little Girl gets here, but I figure he’s ready for the skill and this will be the last time for a long time I’ll have this much time to devote to giving him one-on-one attention.