Gratitude

Our fantastic Thanksgiving family! Colleen, Dewey, Greg, Irina and Sarah ("The Swiss"), and Eli.

The still life of our kitchen counter the day before T-give. (Huck likes to eat the leaves of the small rose bush Stefin's parents sent us, so we put it on the porch for the purpose of puke-avoidance.)

Baby's first Thanksgiving... sort of... in utero- thank goodness, I wouldn't have been able to manage LABOR with all this turkey-induced drowsiness). I have been feeling more Braxon-Hicks contractions lately, which are uncomfortable surprises, but good in that they're like warm-up exercises for my womb.

(Remember when I was thin?)

This recipe worked wonderfully for our first-ever turkey, and the leftovers have yielded some bombtastic turkey soup.

Oh, and this is how warm it was on Thanksgiving day. We had the AC on. Yesterday it dipped down into Washingtonian 50s with that sort of general gray dampness so omnipresent in the PacNW. Today was chilly too, but gorgeous. Don't worry, it's supposed to be 75 again by Tuesday. What a wild place.

Other things I'm grateful for:
-Only a few more weeks of pregnancy! It hasn't been awful by any means, but I am ready to be able to get out of bed like a normal human again (even if it is going to be far more often than I want to, at obscene hours of the night...), be rid of heartburn, and, you know... be able to put my socks on in a position other than fat-football-coach-sitting-on-the-bench. Plus, I'm just incredibly excited to meet this baby! Every time I sleep, I dream of it.
-An incredibly supportive baby-daddy who is so patient with my mood-swings, cravings, and complaints... Who spent parts of today attending cloth-diapering-class, prepping the birthing tub (read: kiddie pool with colorful fish on the inflatable and see-through sides), and discussing the most logical logistics for poopy situations.
-A visit from good friend and cohort Dewey Morgan.
-The good weather today when we were locked out of our car for a few hours.
-Our wonderful families and the fact that so many fantastic people are in our lives.

Dear Baby,

(Front view)


(Side)

I am glad that you are so wiggly and healthy, but your elbow jabs are getting quite uncomfortable in my side. Dad and I like watching you squirm and wiggle and make my belly into all sorts of funny, lopsided shapes. We're going to like looking at you outside of my belly, too, I'm sure.

I'm so excited that you're coming soon! I will kiss your little elbows and poke you in your sides (softly, I promise)! I am a bit nervous- in a logical way- about my uterus shrinking from watermelon to pear-sized in such a short amount of time, but meeting you will certainly be worth it.

Do me a favor and keep cooking until after Thanksgiving, if you can. There are still a few things I'd love to get in order before the big day. Of course, since you're officially "full term" now (and our baby and the obvious apple of our eyes), you're welcome anytime.

Love,
Mom

Dear Dad,

First of all, don't try to play it like you're the stereotypical non-sentimental male. You know I can hear, right? And you are a mush ball to mom a lot of the time. Don't you feel me kick and punch when you say "schnuggly baby face" right onto my back? That's not my face, Abba! It's my back!

So, since you asked about the goings-on... it has been getting kind of cramped in here. Can't you ask mom to stretch out a little more? It's kind of boring all balled up... sometimes I entertain myself by pretending her bladder is a punching bag. Other things I do for fun are: hiccup, roll and twist, and snack via the cord attached to my middle.

Hey- I've got some news for you both! Since it is getting awfully crowded in here, I've decided I'm going to come hang out there with you guys. I've gone ahead and "engaged" or "dropped" down into the pelvis, and I'm working on effacing Mama's cervix. It was all warbly of course, but at the doc's this morning I heard the lady doc's voice say she had a "good feeling" about Mom's you-know-what. All the better for me to squeeze out of!

Don't worry though, I'm not going to spoil the surprise. I still haven't decided just when I'll make my grand entrance. But whenever it is, it will be here before you know it. I hope you're ready to hold me. Right now Mom holds me all the time and I really like it. I'm excited to see what you all have out there in the "outerwombal" world.

See you soon!

Love,
Baby

The real word...for those curious

Yes. Hello babymeister. It's your papashmueler. We now share two things: half of our chromosomes and our quadrasylabic nicknames. Cool.

You have really taken some serious steps to round out your personality lately. Nice work. I won't say I'm proud or anything, I mean, that's just not fatherly to do, but hey, here's the proverbial smack on the butt.

You've taken to wiggling through meals, viewings, and social encounters. Mom treats you a little bit like a Halloween trick, showing you off to friends who ooh! and ahhh! and grasp their knees in petrified terror at your tremors; the grandparents treat you like the mystical vessel that Professor Dumbledore keeps his memories swirling in; our friends treat you like a party favor, bestowing oddly miniature items upon us in your theoretical name; and strangers...well strangers just know.

There is an odd inverse correlation between how well you actually know the baby, and how much you absolutely know about the baby. Let me say more: those confidants actually emotionally or familially close to your little fetus self only ask questions and act uncertain about every little detail (including, at times, what species you will be, what gender you will be, and if you ever actually will BE); on the other hand, those strangers who know absolutely nothing about us or you (including your species, gender, and cumulative existential certainty) seem to be endowed with the uncanny eye of the oracle--they seem confident in predicting...no, prophesizing every detail down to your neonatal dietary whims.

Well, that's the correspondence from the extrawombal word. Please dispatch a full record of interwombal goings on.

Love, papaoala

Just One More Month?!?

Huck says, "When the baby comes, it can sleep in this nice bassinet I've found."

Aunt Katie came to visit- well, she came to talk mortgages (is that seriously how you spell that word?) with other folks in the biz- but we got to hang out for an evening and have delicious treats and drinks at Three Muses on Frenchman.
Our garden (all in containers started on the roof/porch at the old place) is thriving... and even a little confused. It has been so warm here, the tomatoes have got it into their nucleuses that this is a good time to flower and fruit! There are three or four little green tomatoes insisting on hanging heavily from their plant's branches. It's November! Equally crazy is the fact that Stefin picked up local strawberries from the farmer's market yesterday. Don't strawberries usually mean it's spring? Life is popping up everywhere. And one little life is scheduled to pop into ours less than one month from today.

Hopefully it won't actually be less than one month... I'm crossing my fingers it will happen right around the 15th, when my mom gets here. Not too long afterward though, in my ideal world, because I am getting quite tired of elements of this pregnancy stuff. For example, having to push myself and roll out of bed instead of just sitting up like a normal person who has usable abs.

Baby is wiggling lots. It's fun to feel the pointy parts that jab out: elbows, knees, and heels. I can't wait to see those parts wiggling around outside of my ever-stretching belly. We got a pool (with blow-up sides) in the mail the other day (the better to labor and maybe have a water-birth in), and are acquiring the last few physical things we need to be ready for the big day. This morning, to prepare for the mental/physical part, Stefin and I practiced flexing all the muscles in our bodies for 90 seconds and then resting for 30 (the approximate pattern of contractions during the "transition" phase of labor)... I was tuckered after 3 cycles. I guess the "good thing" is that I won't be in charge of the contractions when the time's really there... all I'll be able to do is ride them out and relax as much as possible in between them.

Whoa!

Yet Another Post About My Stomach

So the weirdest thing about this big belly is how my abs have stretched... if you press-press-press going up the middle of my belly, once you get a couple of inches above my belly button, suddenly you're not pressing on abs anymore- it's like pushing on a soft warm water balloon. It freaks me out, to tell you the truth. Sometimes I imagine it popping like said water balloon and oozing guts all over the place. It just seems so weird, that that layer that's usually there- armor in between my skin and my vital organs- has opened up. I feel very protective of it and find myself resting my hands there a lot.

(Baby has the hiccups now. That's one of my favorite parts. ::Bloop:bloop:bloop:bloop:: Just a nice soft rhythm in the lower corner of my tummy. A "Hey Mom! I'm a real -hic-cup- thing! See you soon!" Yesterday s/he was doing bicycle kicks.)

Here's a picture of what some people thought was weird, but I am pretty proud of. Us as Bacon&Egg. (The old lady who helped me pick out fabric at the store thought this was the wackiest idea she'd ever heard. It was adorable.) I have some thoughts about how to make a better bacon next time, but I was surprised how many people knew what Stefin was, even when I wasn't right beside him for context.

I've been feeling a little throat-and-lung ill today and yesterday, but fortunately I have tomorrow off for election day. That means I can sleep in and then have a restful day of grading in addition to doing my democratic duties.

Eggsellent.