Sorry, no journal entry yesterday. I took Penny to the ear doctor in the morning so he could make sure that she was still doing okay (diagnosis -- mild sinus infection probably due to allergies, otherwise things look great). And then I came back to work and actually had work to do before my doctor appointment in the afternoon.

Summary of my doctor appointment, because I amused myself with this yesterday:

"Congratulations, you're pregnant. Due Jan 1. Nice healthy BP and urinalysis results... Previous pregnancy and delivery were without complications, good. You know about eating healthy, yes? Well, if you weren't exercising before you got pregnant, don't jump in with both feet now; you could injure yourself. Take it slow. Here, have some reading material. Don't forget to read the purple book, because we don't want you paging the doctor at 3am to ask about heartburn medication, because it's right there on page 14. Let's make some appointments: One for your internal exam, and one for your first ultrasound. Great. Now head over to the lab so we can draw SIX VIALS OF BLOOD for a bewildering array of tests. See you in a month!"

The good news is that I was in and out in just half an hour.

Here's the funny thing: When I was pregnant with Penny, I went in for this first confirmation visit and it was pretty much exactly the same (though I'd forgotten about the tests) and then I remember them setting up that next appointment about four weeks out and at the time I thought, A whole month? But. But but... But there's a baby in me! I was so anxious about it that it seemed a month was forever.

This time, it's more like, "That soon? Ug. Can't we just push it to a solid six weeks or so and do the internal and the ultrasound in the same visit?"

I'm all jaded and stuff, I guess.

I roasted a chicken last night for dinner. I'd just taken it out of the oven to cool a bit, and sat down to watch the last little bit of Elmo with Penny before we ate, when there was a tremendous clap of thunder, and the lights went out.

They did not flicker back on, either. Good thing the chicken was finished, or I'd have been kind of irritable about it.

We ate dinner by candlelight, which delighted Penny to no end, though she did not quite grasp the idea of candles as light to see by -- she kept asking if she could blow them out.

(I should roast chicken more often, by the way. It takes a long time, but it's very low-effort, and Penny loves chicken wings.)

After dinner, Matt called the power company, and the recording told him that there were widespread outages in our area, and they thought they'd have our power back on by about 9:30. So we went out on the front porch for a while to watch the rain, and Matt and Penny were playing silly games getting wet, and our neighbors came out to do the same thing, so Penny and Ray got to yell at each other across the yard and visit each others' porches.

We read Penny's bedtime books by flashlight, and tucked her into bed, and then sat down and looked at each other. No computers. No TV. Reading by candlelight is hard on the eyes. Ditto for board games. We talked for a little while, but I kept dozing off in the conversational pauses anyway. So we went to bed at about 8:30.

Around 11:15, the power came back on. Matt got up to check his mail and stuff. I got up long enough to reset my alarm clock, and then went downstairs because I was thirsty. I thought about sitting up for a bit, but I was so groggy, I gave up and went back to bed.

I woke up around 4:30 or so this morning. Felt pretty good, too. I thought about getting up, but it was warm and comfy in the bed, so I stayed there and dozed for another hour and a half until the alarms went off.

It certainly wasn't what I was planning for my no-computer night, but I suspect I needed it.