The Big 6

Jono and I have been married six years today. My friend Annie called and asked how long it had been. When I answered, she started laughing and couldn't believe it. Yep, we got married right after college and we've been out of college for a LOOONG time. I get it...

We did most of our celebrating yesterday because more things would be open (today is Sunday). Originally we had these big plans to go to a winery down south etc. etc., but when we woke up Saturday morning we opted to go out for breakfast at the Schnitz by our house and then bike the White Pine trail to Rockford and back - about 16 miles total. It was low-key and fun.















Here we are looking a little sweaty. I am wearing my "nerdy helmet", which reminds me of the half ping-pong ball Ralph the mouse wore in "The Mouse and the Motorcycle". No good excuse to throw it out.

We saw some cool native plants on the way there. There wasn't a lot to see in Rockford, but it's a cute town. We walked on the dam over the Rogue River and got ice cream, then had a late lunch and biked home.


























































We spent most of today holed up at home, since our next three weekends will be spent packing and moving. It's been nice.

I keep meaning to make it through the next chapter in "What to Expect When You're Expecting", but every time I sit down to read it I fall asleep. I took two naps yesterday and a big long one today, so I've been on the same chapter for three days. I haven't made it through Saturday Night Live in months.

Overall I've been feeling great, other than some leg cramps, mild heartburn, and the fact that my tummy hurts whenever we go on a long walk -- apparently it's those lower abdominals stretching with the weight of a little human being. They've got it coming: I just read that in a month my uterus will be the size of a basketball. Seriously?! I still can't get over how weird it is that he is just hanging out in there :)

Lately

Not much new is going on with Gordito, as we're calling him ("little fat one", in Spanish), other than he gets bigger and more active every day. Therefore this post isn't really about him, just things we've been up to lately.

Cadillac...
We went up to Cadillac to see Jan & Dad Klooster (Jono's dad and step-mom) a few weeks ago. In stereotypical fashion, Jono and his dad put in a fence around their backyard while Jan and I went garage saling ;) Jan got a kiddie camp chair so that the little guy can eventually sit with us around the fire, and I found sweet tie-dyed onesies with matching socks. Here we are with Jan and the two huskies. Dad K. took the pic.















One thing that was monumental that weekend is it was the first time someone asked me if I knew what I was having without asking me if I was pregnant first! Risky business, but I was pretty happy about it. As I've said before, the beer gut look ran it's course with me pretty quickly and I was ready to look pregnant.

Nordhouse...
A couple of weeks ago we went camping with a big group at our favorite spot in Michigan, Nordhouse Dunes. It's 12 miles of state wilderness along the big lake. This trip was in honor of our friends Rhoda and Johan, who were home from Korea for a couple of weeks.

We backpacked out a couple of miles and set up camp in the woods a couple of dunes from the lake. It was a little rougher going than usual because a tornado had come through the area two weeks before and we had to crawl over downed trees to get to our spot.

We spent the next day on the beach lying around, swimming, and sharing a trashy mag. It's a tradition of Nordhouse females to take at least one of them out there for "lite" beach reading, but it's funny how often one of us is looking for the communal mag and a guy has it. Once one of them picks it up, it's really hard to get it back.






























































We see unbelievable sunsets out there, sitting on the top of the dunes or on the beach, usually sipping red wine (or the latest drink I'm making hip again, apple juice). It's almost always completely isolated. We go a few times each summer, and we like it so much that we haven't really camped anywhere else in Michigan over the past couple of years.

I'm sure we'll get back there at least once more before the little dude arrives. Although we may have to shorten the hike a bit and camp closer to the trail head when I can hardly waddle down the beach anymore.




















Holland...
My cousin Jenna came up for the night on business, so I went down to Holland to see her and the rest of the fam for an evening. We went to the beach and got ice cream at Captain Sundae's, which apparently was visited by George W. Bush a couple of years ago, and he is plastered all over the place for your viewing pleasure while you're picking out the flavor you want. I guess I don't blame them. He was kind of a big deal.















I knew Mom would love it if I took this pic. These two are in Haiti right now working with teachers. Mom gets to go to an orphanage where some of the kids her work is placing live.










Jenna always cracks me up. We laughed a lot while she was here. And Mom felt Gordito move for the first time.

Brett just moved to Phoenix! He took a PE teaching position in Scottsdale. So this was one of the last times I hung out with him before he left. The next time he sees us, there will be four (counting Mona).

The last night I saw Brett, my family was over and everyone was trying to get a turn feeling the kid kick. Not much luck until the end of the night, as they were about to leave, I laid on the couch and UNDER PRESSURE tried to coax him into kicking or punching me. I was so happy when he did, and Brett and Grant both got to feel him. (Way to go buddy!)

Now that you're sick of all these beachy, sunset pics, here's a classic 70's silk screen shot to wrap this up:

"Bum Genius 2.0"

We're looking for some easy-to-use cloth diapers, but there are too many choices. I guess they aren't squares of white cloth and safety pins any more. And they have names like "bum genius 2.0", "fuzzi bunz" and "happy heinys". We don't know where to start. Any suggestions?

BFFs

The 50/50 chance...

We had our 20-week ultrasound this morning. I was instructed to drink 16 oz. of water in the span of an hour right before I came to increase the quality of the footage. I was nervous about having to pee so badly I wouldn't be able to concentrate on the baby, so I paced myself.

When we got there, the technician brought us into a dark room and had me lay on a table next to the ultrasound screen. First she asked if we "wanted to know". We eagerly said yes.

She worked quickly, squirting the goop on my stomach and moving the little sensor around. First she checked my ovaries, placenta and the umbilical cord. It was hard to tell what anything was. Then she moved to the baby, and we saw it's little face! I could hardly breathe. I wanted to look behind me at Jono to see his reaction, but I didn't dare look away from the screen. I heard him laugh a little.

She moved to the top of the head and made all of these little measurements with her tools. She slowly worked her way down the body, making sure everything was there and functioning: arms, legs, fingers, toes, spine, heart, kidneys. She told us what we were looking at as she went, but for the most part we could tell what things were before she said it.

I kept thinking "private parts, private parts, get to the private parts..." even though I was loving the entire process. I noticed I'd been clenching the towel she had draped over me in my fists and my legs were fully flexed and straight as boards. I tried to relax. She stopped giving us the play-by-play as she moved around to the baby's bum. We had a full view and both of us thought the same thing:

"Hmm. Is that...?"

....

"Looks like it's a boy," said the technician, in a nonchalant, "I-do-this-every-day" sort of way.

!!!!

I started laughing, and the ultrasound screen got all blurry as my uterus moved around. "Sorry," I said, and tried to stop. But all I wanted to do was laugh. I laughed the first time I heard his heartbeat too and the doctor lost track of it.

Afterwards she gave us five pictures of him and told us he is about the size he should be for his age, and his heart rate is normal. When she left the room we were all giggly and smirky about it. Both of us secretly felt more comfortable with the idea of our first being a boy, since we have six brothers between us and wouldn't know quite what to do with a little girl. (Of course we're hoping we have one eventually, and we'll love her to pieces if and when we get her). Last week I had two vivid dreams that he would be a boy, but as my dad pointed out, "There's a 50/50 chance, so I don't see why people think it's so great when they guess right." So true.

Anyways, HERE HE IS!!!
















Isn't he cute? And I think he's sucking his thumb in this one. See his little hand? (You can click on the picture to see a full-size version).

The other four pictures are of his profile (sans the hand), arm, feet, and "gender". It's on our fridge if you want to come over.

Over the past few days his movements have been getting stronger, and I've been able to feel him on the outside too. He wasn't doing much during the ultrasound, but when I woke up this morning at around 6:00 he was engaged in some serious acrobatics. I woke Jono up and put his hand on my stomach -- he felt him at least three times. I feel him moving around in there five or six times a day for a few minutes each time. We've been joking that he is "squirrelly" like his dad and that I'm in for another few months of interior pummeling. I don't mind. It's nice to know he's alive.

So that's that. I guess this means Jono's step-mom Jan can stop buying "gender neutral" clothing at garage sales, which I'm sure she is relieved about :)

20 weeks / 5 months

I've gotten multiple comments about how huge I was in the last photo (16 weeks). I know...I don't know what happened there. It really depends on the time of day (gravity), camera angles, and how much I've eaten. Here I am a month later, at 20 weeks, looking 1) pregnant, 2) tough, and 3) sassy.

It's nice to actually look pregnant now. I was sick of sporting a beer gut and wishing I had a t-shirt that said "I'm not fat, I'm pregnant."

Jono and my Mom think I'm going to start "blowing up" now that I've hit the 5-month mark. We shall see...

Freedom

We are no longer the proud owners of a home, but we are free!! Our house sold last week, and we're relieved. It was for sale for just over a month, but we were anxious most of the time because of how bad the market is. We cleaned like maniacs and had an open house every weekend. The offer we ended up taking was pretty good, and we're thankful for it. Last night we filled up a couple of glasses of sparkling grape juice and toasted to freedom, a break from paying a mortgage, and Mona (we just tossed that in because she was in the kitchen with us looking cute -- get over it Dad).

So now we're going to be homeless for awhile. We close on July 16 and the new owners are allowing us a month after that to move out, which is great. But after that we don't have anything lined up yet. The plan is to move in with family for awhile and save. The prospect of being mortgage-free for a few months makes me giddy. And the fact that our lives are suddenly not-so-planned-out is refreshing too.

The lucky recipients of our little fam (ha) will probably be Joel & Jessie Klooster, our brother and sister-in-law, and possibly my parents later on after J & J get sick of us.

Thanks to all of you who listened to our panicky monologues over the past few weeks about whether the place would sell or not. This is a fresh start for us, and we appreciate all of you who will be helping us during the transition.

The Quickening

The other night Jono and I were talking about how I would probably be able to feel the baby move soon. When there was a lull in the conversation he said ominously, "the quickening". I told him that had always sounded like the title of a horror film to me (imagine a big booming voice saying "the quickening" for a movie trailer). Ha ha.

I'd been told that you're supposed to feel the baby move between 18 and 22 weeks. I just hit the 19-week mark, so I've been trying to concentrate on what might be going on in my abdomen. Two nights ago while lying in bed I felt what seemed to be a little bubble or a sporadic muscle twitch moving around just below my belly button. At first I wrote it off because everyone has been telling me "It feels just like a butterfly fluttering gently in your stomach." Hmm. This wasn't really that gentle or fluttery. It was kind of firm and meant business, at least moreso than a butterfly. So I mentioned it briefly to Jono but decided I needed to wait a few days to see what else came along before getting too excited about it.

Today at work I was kind of slouching in front of my computer as I typed. My tummy was pressed against my desk, and I started feeling that little bubble stirring around in there again. I stopped typing and concentrated on it for a few minutes. This time it felt a bit stronger and was in the same general area as before. It pretty much felt like you would think it would feel to have a tiny organism rolling around in a little pouch and kicking in different directions. That's when I remembered my mom saying it didn't feel like a butterfly for her - but instead like....a GAS BUBBLE. I had a little moment of truth and called her up. She confirmed that the butterfly comparison didn't apply to her either and that the movement was too strong to feel fluttery. She then told me about the first time she felt Brett move. Tyler was sitting on her lap and kind of squishing her tummy. Brett gave him one swift kick and Mom knew exactly what it was. And so began a long rivalry... ha ha ha.

So I think we've confirmed today that what I am feeling is most likely the little dude or dudette exercising in my womb (!)

It's what they call THE QUICKENING...