Ever since J used my favorite teapot to clean out his sinuses several years ago I’ve been pretty appalled by the idea of using a neti pot. Well, until a few months back when I thought I’d give it a try and realized it actually produces some pretty awesome results. It’s taken me a while to get ok with the idea, but now I even encourage others to give it a try. I was just telling my mother about its nearly instant benefits last night, in fact, when she explained she was having sinus pain. She said back to me, “I don’t like the neti pot,” and I said, “Have you ever tried it?” and she said, “No.” Then I told her the story of how I, too, had been firmly against the practice without even giving it a try. And that now, I was a convert.

This morning I was explaining to J how I’d done the neti yesterday, due to some pretty intense sinus pressure, and how I was feeling better and maybe I should keep it up. And he was all, “Yeah, the thing with the neti for me, though, is…” and I was all of a sudden like, wait a second, why are we, as husband and wife, having neti pot conversations that are on the same level as discussing a favorite television show, and before I could ask him to please remember that I was only a recent fan of the whole business, and could we please take this slow, he was telling me about how there’s always leftover mucus in the back of his throat, and there’s this advanced form of doing the neti pot where you pour the water in through one nostril and it comes out of your mouth. And it comes out of your mouth. So that’s when I had to forcibly shut him up and explain that, unfortunately, he’d just hurdled my neti pot evolution back to the dark ages, hopefully not causing so much damage as to put me off it forever.

So maybe I didn’t complete all my goals. You know what I did do? Made a baby inside my body.

2011 Winter Goals

make the perfect pot of French press coffee
go away for a child-free weekend with my husband
finish “For Whom the Bell Tolls” FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST
go to Stew Leonard’s
get a prenatal massage
paint the dining room (do I ever mention to you guys how hot my husband is?) and kitchen (or, more realistically, make someone else do it)
begin a knitting project
celebrate President’s Day 2011 with good friends (cheers, Chester A. Arthur!)
organize the basement for real (see husband comment above)
purchase and listen to Kanye West’s latest album (seriously)
make a photo album of our 2009 Italy trip
take Nora back to Stepping Stones Museum for Children in Norwalk
go to the movies…twice
exercise three times a week (barring any unforeseen doctor’s orders that I don’t) - change this to “once a week” and I’m GOLDEN
read The New York Times in bed

I got an email from my father this morning and wanted to share it with all of you. It was especially timely as I experienced a near-fainting experience while I was getting my hair cut last night, after sitting still in a chair for too long (just like when the same thing happened last time), and I was kind of like, “Wow, maybe I’m over this.”

I really like this image of waking up to cupcakes and all and it is, from here on out, how I am going to envision my delivery.

From: Fred Rotondaro
To:Cara McDonough
Date: Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 9:36 AM
Subject: If God Were a Woman

Pregnancy would last 27 days

The mom would have no weight gain. Fathers would gain approximately 5 times the weight of the child. Fathers would experience frequent gas pains.

Doctors would insist moms keep up their strength by drinking large amounts of strong red wine

On the morning of the 27th day, just before mom woke up, the child would slip quietly out of mom’s left ear.
As mom awoke, the child would give her coffee and cupcakes.
And would turn the tv to “Morning Joe.”

From then on, life would get better for mom.

If God Were A Woman.

As I’ve mentioned, I have continued to exercise throughout this pregnancy, going to my boot camp classes and to the gym from time to time, but at this point I am pretty over thinking I’m going to be super active or anything over this next month. I’m sitting here, real huge, thinking about the above, and I just want to point out that it is really, really hilarious. As in, funniest ever.

As in, this one is so not happening.

This morning we decided to take out all our 2010 tax information, in the hopes of getting taxes filed in the next few days.

If there is such a thing as a “nesting” instinct, the way mine has manifested during these last few months of pregnancy is that I get super worked up about completing various clerical and organizational items before the baby comes, but what I really want is someone else to do these things for me (my husband).

So we’re sitting on the couch having coffee and J is looking through the manila folder containing all the tax forms he’s collected. He had made a pledge to be more organized about the whole thing this year and he totally took that pledge to heart. I was already impressed.

But then, as he was assessing the information, including a detailed checklist he’d made outlining what he believed we would need to complete the project, he was like, “Hm, I’m not sure about this one…let me check and see what we did last year,” and then he pulled out this huge binder with all our tax forms and returns from years past, included carefully typed, labeled tabs and clear plastic folders and coordinating items stapled together ever so carefully.

And I was like, “What is that? What is that?” And he was like, “I told you I was going to be more organized this year.” Then I asked him if he was going to be like this forever? Because I was not. I was never going to be like this. I would make sure we always had diapers in the house and I’ll plan dinner every single night, but I will never, ever be like this, and he said “Of course.”

And that is how our love story, which began when we made out at a New Year’s party in 2002, just got that much more romantic.