Pregnancy Update

Yes, I'm still pregnant. And getting bigger every day. Total weight gain to date is about 17 lbs; I've finally outpaced Minh. I'm officially 27.5 weeks along (out of 40). The start of the third trimester is here -- how did that happen already?

I'm feeling fine (thanks for asking) but am finally starting to feel "pregnant". My physical energy is now trailing behind my mental ambition. Each weekend I bite off more projects than I can chew and each Monday morning I am tired, sore, and grumpy. Otherwise, I'm feeling very healthy. The only thing even remotely medically "interesting" about this pregnancy is that next week I have to go get a shot of something in my ass because I am Rh negative. Thanks, to the 'rents for passing that on to me.

The good news about all my frantic project tackling is that both the baby's room and study are now painted. (Yes, the frickin' stripes are done!) And the new rug is in too. I'll post a pic or two of the kid's room once we get the crib in there (should be sometime next week).

Speaking of furniture, my father delivered the cradle he and his friend made, by hand, for the little guy to sleep in for the first few months. It's quite a fine piece--much better made than the crib Minh and I bought him at Babies R Us. Surely the crib was made by 7-year-olds in Indonesia, not by 70-year-old men in Nahwood.



In related news, Minh and I have joined a cult. Well, not a cult exactly, but we're taking a Bradley Method natural childbirth class. We signed up because a very friendly co-worker of ours is teaching it. And we're genuinely interested in learning the natural childbirth techniques and I think we'd both agree that a natural birth is our first choice. However, I am not about to declare a distaste for all things medical, including epidurals. The only other couple in the class surely has. That woman is so anti-medicine she won't even keep aspirin in the house.

After only two sessions I think I can say that the class is really interesting and will give us lots of good techniques for "managing the pain" of labor. Whether we make it all the way through without modern drugs remains to be seen. Actually, the really best part of class is that I have to practice relaxing and Minh has to massage me. :)

For me, the biggest problem with the class is that it seems to set you up to have an adversarial relationship with your OB (that's right, I'm using an OB not a midwife -- oh, the horror!). There's alot of talk of what the doctors will try to get you to agree to in the heat of the moment and what you need to know to be able to effectively resist them. That doesn't sound very nice and I'm not sure how much of it to believe. On the positive side, I now know what types of questions to ask my OB ahead of time so I know where he stands on things like episiotomies and such. (You didn't think we'd get all the way through my pregnancy without the word episiotomy showing up at least once in this blog, did you?)

Long story short, we're moving right along getting ready for this baby. So, what's still left on the now-infamous baby To Do Spreadsheet? The major ones are:

(1) Figuring out the whole day care thing. We've visited four family-based places and one has real potential (and a spot open!). But we want to visit a couple centers first and then we have to decide if it's worth it to spend $500 between now and April just to hold the spot at the family place.
(2) Picking a pediatrician. Any advice is welcome. I know several folks use and enjoy NAPs.
(3) Plant the rest of those damn bulbs, of course! (according to Minh we are at 55% completion)

300 Down, 900 To Go...

Minh has purchased 1,200 (yes, that's twelve-hundred) bulbs to be put in the ground this fall. The rationale behind the plan is sound -- next spring we'll be too busy with little what's-his-name Ly to be planting in the garden. So getting bulbs in the ground now will ensure a beautiful yet maintenance-free garden when the snow melts. However, he may have gotten just a tad carried away. Sometimes I catch him awake in the middle of the night reading books about flowers or ordering more bulbs on the internet. Is there a support group for this kind of thing?

The good news is, some of my obsessive list-and-spreadsheet-making-personality has rubbed off on him. He has a hand-drawn map of the yard and a spreadsheet of all the bulbs he has. The spreadsheet lists the quantity, color, height, and bloom time of each type of bulb. And, of course, where in the yard they should be planted.

And he's so darned romantic. He realizes that 1,200 bulbs is alot of planting and that I am, indeed, quite pregnant. So he went out and bought me a 1.5" foam pad to kneel on while I plant. Isn't that just the sweetest thing ever?

This past weekend, in and around childbirth class, a trip to Costco, and a parental visit, we managed to get 300 in the ground. So only 900 more to go. It's actually not quite as daunting as it sounds. We don't have to drill 1,200 separate holes in the ground. Generally, we dig a shallow grave and throw several bulbs in together. That way they come up in clumps, which looks more natural anyway.

So this spring, I should be able to take the little dude out in the yard to see our crocuses, daffodils, tulips, hyacinth, anemonies, and about 5 other things I can't remember the names of. It should be quite a site to see.

We're Either Really Cool or Total Losers

It's October and that means it's time to buy Halloween Candy. So Minh and I recently hit Costco with the intention of buying a huge bag of assorted chocolate bars, like we always do. (We also always way over-buy so that we get to eat at least half ourselves).

But this year, as we were browsing the various assortments and trying to decide which to buy, we spotted something totally different--tiny little containers of Play-Dough to be handed out for Halloween. Having been a huge fan of Play-Dough myself, I thought this was really fun. But it never occurred to me that we would actually buy that instead of chocolate. Until Minh said "If we buy all that candy, we'll only eat it." How true. This sudden and unprecedented concern of his for our candy consumption is undoubtedly rooted in the fact that Minh is keeping pace with my pregnancy weight-gain.

So, we bought the Play-Dough. And no chocolate at all. There are 80 containers of dough, in assorted colors. And since we only get about 30 kids each year, they can each take a few.

But we couldn't send the neighborhood kids away from our front door with nothing edible, so we also bought a small bag of gummy eyeballs. Yes, gummy eyeballs. They are the size of large jaw breakers and each is contained in a clear plastic sphere. They are, of course, all blood shot and Halloweeny. I think the point is really that they just look cool. Minh tried to eat one and ended up spitting it out in the garbage--he said all he could taste was plastic. Yum. That's one way to lose weight - buy shitty Halloween candy!

So, this is our little experiment. We'll either be the coolest house in the neighborhood for giving out something different....or we'll go down in history as the house that once handed out "stupid Play Dough and gummy candy that tasted like plastic". We'll see how it goes.

Those Frickin' Yellow Stripes

OK, lots of you have heard that I somehow got the crazy idea to paint the baby's room in vertical stripes, 12 inches wide, in two shades of yellow. I must be watching too many interior decorating shows and Home Depot commercials, to think that this would be "fun and easy." Anyway, my intention with the yellow stripes was to make the room:

lighter and brighter
fun
gender neutral
kid-friendly, but not baby-ish

Minh (foolishly) agreed to go along with my plan. So, about a week and a half ago I gave the room a coat of primer and two coats of the lighter yellow. Minh spent a few minutes standing in the doorway shaking his head and asking "Are you sure that's the lighter yellow?....That's awfully yellow." And it is, really, quite yellow.

This past Sunday night we spent a good two hours measuring out and taping off the stripes. There was math involved and the math got even more complicated when we realized (after we had already taped off one whole wall) that I had measured the room inaccurately. So, Minh did some fudging--some of the stripes are actually 12.5" wide, and one or two are 11.75" wide. Here's how the room looked all taped off:


Kind of retro and 70's looking with the brown and yellow, eh? It's actually a brighter yellow than it looks here - the flash washed it out a bit.

Anyway, last night was the big night. We painted on the brighter shade of yellow, with zero technical difficulties. No problems with painting the wrong stripes or with pulling the tape neatly off afterward. All went well. EXCEPT for the fact that the two shades of yellow are so similar you can barely see the stripes.

It really depends on the light, actually. Without the bright worklight on, it all looks like one shade of yellow. And with the usual halogen lamp on, it's pretty much a blur of yellow too. Oddly enough, when I take pictures of the walls the camera's flash lights it up just perfectly and it comes out looking like this:

But it does not actually look like this to the naked eye. This is unfortunate, because this is exactly what I want it to look like. So now we are trying to decide what action to take. The brighter stripes actually look great, so we are thinking about re-painting the lighter stripes even lighter. A very pale yellow? Or perhaps a shade of cream?

Anyone have any thoughts? If you want to make suggestions, you should know that the rug we've ordered for the room is a light slivery blue with circles all over it. The circles are darker blue, pale green, and cream. So we need something that will compliment those colors. And don't even try to talk me out of the combination of stripes on the walls and circles on the floor -- the rug has already been ordered. (And yes, I'm a tad worried all this mixing of patterns may cause seizures later in life).

Family Reunion, of Sorts

This past weekend I had the unfortunate task of going to my grandmother's wake and funeral. But, that meant I got to see lots of family I hadn't seen in a while. Like my sister, the infamous Taylor Hicks stalker. And my other sister, who is the "do my gold metallic shoes match my handbag?" type. I also got to see my nephew, the self-proclaimed Beer Pong champion, who had to celebrate his 24th birthday the day of the wake. Others I hadn't seen since I was little also showed up--I met my mothers cousins who, apparently, I had already "met" when I was two.

As with all family gatherings, there was a bit of drama. But that's what makes it family--endless discussions over who should (and shouldn't) get to ride in the limo...tension over who will and won't attend the services...and my father (the loudest man on earth) telling my sister she was talking too loudly at the wake. All that good stuff.

We were loud and boisterous at the wake, laughing and sharing stories about my often-racy, always-trouble-making grandmother. Until the Mormons showed up. Although she was a bit "spicy," my grandmother somehow also managed to be Mormon. Unfortunately, all of our best stories about her were therefore inappropriate for the Mormon funeral service. The man from her church did a great job making the service personal, but it was painfully clear to most of us that he didn't know her that well when he announced that she never gossiped about anyone. I mean, c'mon, who would gossip in front of a Mormon Bishop?

Overall, it was a pretty typical family gathering, which would have pleased my grandmother. I do hope, however, that the next family reunion is under different circumstances.