And on this day

. . . I peed on a stick and it did a little dance on the bathroom sink and said "By gum, you're comepletely and totally knocked up!"

'Twas also on this day that I decided that I'd have to scrap my NaNoWriMo plans for the year because it turns out that being pregnant, at least in the early days, is all kinds of exhausting.

Of course, no one would know until December. Had to wait for that very first beautiful ultrasound before we were comfortable spreading the news far and wide.

Cell Cakes

In the 7th grade I had one of the strangest science teachers I've ever had in my educational career. I wowed him with my ability to comprehend the basics of genetics but confounded him with my inability to tell the difference between the various guts of a preserved grasshopper. (In my defense, have you seen those things? They're all black and mushy inside. Also, I think I didn't bother to read that chapter.) He shocked and amazed us all by telling us about what he and his wife did prior to conception to make sure they didn't have a fucked up kid (like quitting drinking and smoking, and drinking a lot of cranberry juice). After all of this, however, I can't remember the guy's name.

One cool thing he did was have us make cell cakes. If memory serves me correctly, I made a paramecium. I was the only kid who brought in a full-sized hand-carved homemade batter sheet cake. Viva la Betty Crocker cookbook and la momma who has always refused to use cake mixes!

This stroll down memory lane brought to you by the letter Y and by the word count 17,010, which has destroyed all but the parts of my brain that write fiction an contain long-term memories.