He's a Bruiser

This is my first time at this so I don't know what's normal, but our boy seems to be rather active. His favorite thing is to punch the mattress when I'm lying on my side in bed. Whenever I talk about it Jono gets this proud little smirk on his face, and I know what he's thinking: "Just like his dad." Jono is fidgety. Actually we both fidget, so I guess the situation isn't surprising.

My doctor commented on it too. During my check-ups she feels around to see where he is, and I guess she can tell he's squirmy. "I think you're going to have an active little one here," she said. A few check-ups ago he kicked the sonogram machine when she put it on my belly. I think the machine is loud for him, but instead of waiting patiently for her to remove it he got annoyed and gave it two direct hits. Cutie :)

I can feel it now when he gets hiccups. They feel like mild, regular muscle twitches, and I can tell right where his head is when he gets them because of the location of the twitch. (He is often in the head-down position with his legs flailing up around my upper right side.) He usually has them for a few minutes, and it makes me want to pinch his cheeks or squish his leg rolls just picturing him in there hiccuping by himself.

Speaking of pinching, there are times when he sticks his knee or elbow out so far that I can actually grasp part of it between my thumb and index finger. Jono can be across the room and clearly see this or that little body part sticking out under my skin. I give him gentle squeezes, partly because I can't resist, but also because the doctor told me they like the physical contact. Jono used to say, “Don’t hurt him!” when I did things like that, but now that I have a physician’s permission I like to pat and prod him a bit when he’s moving around.

I think my body is just now starting to release the hormones that cause my hip joints to loosen up a bit in preparation for birth. Last week I was bragging to Jono about how spry I was still feeling. One should never brag while pregnant. I think the next day my left hip was wonky. I felt like an old lady when I got up in the morning, limping around for a few minutes like an injured bird until I was limbered up. I also have a hard time standing up straight right away after I've been laying down because my abdominals are so tight.

The hip thing went away after a few days, but I can't wait to find out what lovely side effect will show up next.

I've Been Showered

I had my first "baby shower/party/thing" yesterday at my parents' place. The baby got lots of nice presents that we're relieved we won't have to buy ourselves (thanks ladies!). Now all we need is a room to put them in. (I am fighting the "nesting" instinct... until we move into our house and I can start indulging it.) We ate chili soup and my Aunt Rosemary's pumpkin bars, and I hope people didn't get bored watching me open things.

We'll have two more baby parties before he comes: a co-ed one next weekend for Jono's side and one in Iowa for my mom's side. It's amazing how friends and family help you prepare materially and otherwise for big life changes like this. We are grateful.

The pic shows my friend Cassie giving me a cloth diaper tutorial that I wish I'd taken notes on. I was given lots of good advice by everyone, mostly things like "sleep whenever you can", and "don't be afraid to ask for help". We're feeling good about the fact that we have three sets of family nearby, and he'll be the first grandchild on all three sides. My guess is we will have the help we need. He might be a leeeeetle bit spoiled actually. We'll try our best to keep him humble.

Banned from Funny Movies

Since I've been pregnant I've had this thing where, if I start laughing pretty hard about something, it gets out of control fast and practically becomes an emotional breakdown. It's hard to describe, but it will start as giggling and quickly turn into five minutes of laughing so hard I'm gasping and tears are streaming down my face. Emotionally it's one of the weirdest things I've ever experienced because I have almost no control over it whatsoever. By the end I am pretty much crying.

The first couple of times it happened it was as a result of something my brothers said around the dinner table. The third time Mom took a picture of me by the moving truck and I acted like I was picking my nose. When she showed me the photo I was so amused by it that within seconds I was almost passed out on the lawn. This is embarassing, but the fourth time I was actually alone. I was at work and it was time to go home, so I quickly checked Facebook before shutting my computer down. My friend Kristen had posted pics from our camping trip in which she'd done an "extreme close-up series" of all of our faces. I started giggling immediately and couldn't stop even as I walked down the hallway, out of the office and into my car. By the time I was pulling out of the parking lot I had completely lost it and had to wipe my eyes to see the road.

Last night Jono and I decided I was no longer allowed to go to funny movies in the theater. We closed on our house yesterday, and Jono got his deviated septum fixed this week (!!!), so to celebrate we went out for dinner and then hit the cheap theater afterwards to see Get Smart. We love watching "The Office", and Steve Carell, a character from the show, is in the movie. Things were going smoothly and I wasn't really finding it that funny until the SC character and this secret-agent woman have to go through a sewer in order to secretly enter a building. SC says, "James Bond never had to go into a sewer. There's poop and rats down here. Oh great, look, there's a rat riding on a piece of poop." My mental image of the rat riding on the piece of poop combined with how sarcastically the line was delivered just did me in. The plot moved on but a few minutes later I still couldn't stop laughing about that one line. I sunk down into my seat and covered my mouth to muffle things, but I'm sure people could still hear me. Throughout the rest of the movie it happened two more times, so that by the end when we walked out I was relieved to be going to the car so that I could recover.

I guess I can't totally blame this phenomenon on being pregnant, since the only time I got in trouble in first grade was because I couldn't stop laughing about the opera music we were listening to in music class. I was sent out to the hallway, and I remember vividly that a moment later the pastor walked by and saw me standing there. Growing up I also had this problem during devotions after supper. The difference is how powerful the wave of laughter is now, how emotional it becomes, and the frequency. From this point on I can watch funny movies in the privacy of my home, but no longer in public, at least until I give birth.

If anyone else has had this happen to them, I'd love to hear about it :)

The Pregnant Olympics

We had our first childbirth class on Monday night. The most fascinating thing we learned is that a pregnant woman burns 18 to 20,000 calories while giving birth. When we got home we asked Joel how many he thought a person burns while running a marathon. "Not that many, I don't think," he said.

Our instructor told us, "Ladies...this is your Olympic event."

Aaaaaaaaahhh!!!

Sleeping Bear Dunes

We went on a mini-vacation to Sleeping Bear Dunes in northern Michigan this year, instead of the usual ten-day trip out of state. (We're saving up our vacation days for you-know-who.)

Not much to say except that it was fun, we slept fine, we had some really good Michigan cherry pie in a nearby small town, and we only got rained out once. Here's a slide show for y'all. We are tiny in some of the shots. You can click on the photos to see a larger version.

One of them is of me on top of a huge dune. I felt pretty tough topping that sucker when I'm this far along, but in reality I stopped a whole bunch of times to let the blood flow back into my legs ( = not that tough).

28 weeks / 7 months

So I chopped my hair... but I made sure to tell her she couldn't give me a "mom cut" :)

Here we are at seven months by Lake Michigan.

P.S. If you're on a Mac the lay-out on some of these posts might be weird. Especially the ones where I use multiple photos. My apologies.