Kicking me

So, this child, Tadpole, has decided to make today the First Day of Serious Kicking! I've had movement for the last few weeks, and felt kicks internally for a little while. Thursday I felt a kick with my hand (during class) and last night during a movie we watched there were a few more. But today has been completely different. I was taking a break from homework this morning, sitting in a chair and reading a book (Birth: The surprising history of how we are born by Tina Cassidy, more on this later) and Tadpole just starting moving and kicking or elbowing or whatever. It's just a strange sensation. I couldn't understand it before it happened, and I find it difficult to explain just how it feels. This whole process is a very surreal and strange.

Which I guess is my segway to Birth. I picked this up at the library yesterday along with a few other baby/pregnancy/birthing books. It's an interesting look at the history of human birth, from Lucy to modern times. Cassidy discusses how human birth differs from other mammels and describes how birthing practices have changed of the centuries (and even the last decade). While it's certainly not the book for the squeamish (she unflinchingly describes horrific events and procedures), it's very interesting to hear how we've ended up using the tools and techiques we now rely on. It's also fascinating to consider how quickly things have changed since WW2. I wish I could talk with my grandmother (who, although living, wouldn't be able to have a conversation like this if she even remembers it) about what it was like to have my dad and aunts in the 40s and 50s. I never thought to ask about this before. Now that I'm pregnant, an entirely new area of conversation is available - topics that I was never interested in nor even thought about before now.

Is This Really Our First Garden Post of 2009?

I do believe it is.

This year, we decided to keep our garden fairly small and just do what we could in our front patio area. We have a small dirt patch, maybe 3' by 12', where we planted 5 tomato plants, 5 eggplants, peas, and a bunch of potatoes.

If you can see around Kimberly in this picture, you can see the start of our container garden from a few weeks back:
On the concrete part of our patio, we put a bunch of stuff into containers, including an additional 5 tomatoes, 6 sweet peppers, 6 hot peppers, basil, oregano, thyme, sage, rosemary, parsley, nasturtiums, and our trusty fig trees.

If you can see around Kimberly in this picture, you can see the start of our container garden from a few weeks back:[On a side note, the guy we had out garden with last year, the Hippy Librarian, was in France this past year teaching english. While he was there, he bought a bunch of seeds from the fantastic Seed Savers. He had a garden center start the seeds for him, so when he got back he could immediately put them in the ground. He was pretty surprised to find over 800 plant starts going when he got back (something like 600 tomato plants, 100 eggplants, and 100 peppers). Needless to say, he had more plants than he could plant. We originally were only going to have the dirt patch garden, but since he had such an abundance of plants, we took pity and took some. I have to say, they look fantastic.]

The garden has been going now for about 2 months, and things are starting to get ripe. As you can see from above, we have some peas, although the delicate plants have not fared well against the violent rains that have rolled through over the last few weeks.

We also have a pepper plant that is going crazy - there has to be 40-50 of the hottest peppers I've ever eaten on it. And some of them are even starting to turn red [it should be noted that this plant is actually from last year that we wintered over in our living room; I think this is why it's already so large and fruitful]:


As always, we have a photo set started on Flickr, which we will be updating as things become ripe and ready to eat.

Things are Progressing Nicely...

...if not rapidly.

Here's the latest photo of Kimberly and the Tadpole in front of our patio garden (more coming on that in a little while).

As you can see, her belly is getting larger, and larger. She says it's not really her fault, and that the "stupid tadpole" (her words, not mine) is getting big and her short torso can't handle it. She said something about taking up smoking to slow down the growth, but I'm not sure what that's all about. Sometimes my wife says weird things., unlike me.

If you want to compare pictures of the giant-ness of her belly over the course of time, I made up a set on Flickr of all the baby pics. Feel free to check it out.

And here's another picture of Kimberly, looking lovely in her stylish maternity dress. This is from a wedding we went to this past weekend in Pella, which is a lovely little town in central Iowa.

Reaching the end

I've mentioned before (but not for a while) that a classmate of mine is struggling with the recurrance of her cancer. We just found out that she was moved to a hospice home this weekend after a brief visit to the ER. She's got a great blog set up and it's so nice to see all of the messages of support from the friends she made far and wide. But it's terribly sad as well. Her father has been able to fly in (he's not local) and her sister and niece have come to visit. But this feels like a sudden downturn and has come as a shock to most of us.

No one's talking about time lines, but hospice is a clear signal that recovery isn't what we're hoping for now. I just wish her peace and hope that her family has left nothing unsaid.

Dressing this body

So, I've never been a clothes horse. I'm not particularly concerned with name brands or current fashion and I generally dislike fashion. My shopping memories consist to a large extent of me, Mom and Sis laughing hysterically at each other in dressing rooms at the terrible garments we'd find, and then try on. An ugly swimsuit, prom dress, and even the outfits we made Mom try on for my wedding were all humor mines. And, the important thing here is that we weren't laughing at our bodies or mocking how each other looked but rather at how terrible the clothes were for our bodies. The bodies, eh, they were what we have, it was the clothes that were problematic. Somehow I think that we've all ended up with fairly functional body images (which is an impressive feat I think for Mom, raising two daughters in this challenging era of women's figures).

Anyway, this is all prologue to this new pregnant body. I'm not particularly distressed by the extra weight (as much as I joke about feeling like a hippo these days!) nor do I feel unattractive. But this body surprises me frequently. I still regularly wake up in the morning and am surprised to find out that I'm pregnant. I don't notice until I move, and then, oops, there's a belly there! And I am a poor judge at the amount of space that I take up these days.

The most recent surprise has come with some new clothes. I finally can't wear any of my pre-pregancy pants/skirts and needed to get some new clothes. I'm actually amazed that I was able to last until 22 weeks without nay major purchases (except for the shirts that Sis helped me find). So, I ordered a stack of stuff from Old Navy (good choice for the pregnant among you if you're looking for "disposable" maternity clothes for not much money). I got them in the mail yesterday and I'm having a hard time figuring out if these clothes fit. They certainly don't fit the body I currently have (everything is loose and a little tent-like) but I suspect that they'll fit the body I'll have in a few weeks. Thus, I'm having a bit of a disconnect. I feel like I'm swimming in these new clothes and that they make me look like I'm hiding or wearing a sheet, but I don't want to buy clothes that fit my current body, as I won't have it for long! It's very strange. I've always tried hard to buy for the body I have (versus buying clothes hoping that I'll lose those 10 pounds or whatever). So, in the meantime, I'm trying to remember that this body is very temporary and whatever it looks like today will be different tomorrow... and if my clothes don't fit now, they certainly will in another month.

I'm in my 6th month (counting medically) at 22 weeks. I'm doing great other than the heartburn. If we do this again, I'm stocking up on Tums in advance. Being shortwaisted is definitely not convenient when pregnant. But, I have few other complaints and compared to some of the women in my swim group, I'm getting off easy with side effects.

Bring Back the Slide Rule!!!

In real life, I'm a Luddite. Although computers are great for watching Red Sox games, listening to radio stations from the West Coast, and managing my financial investments (read: losing money), I think they're kind of over-rated. Sure, they do lots of good things, but really, they're just an expensive way to kill time. Give me a quill and some ink, and I'll make do.

Because of my status, it's kind of funny that this blog even exists. Actually, it probably doesn't exist, it's just a bunch of 1's and 0's in some server farm in a Googleplex somewhere in eastern Oregon. And it's even funnier that I have a Flickr page, and a Facebook account. These things are great because they allow me to look like I'm feverishly doing actual work on my computer, when in fact, I'm killing time.

This is my way of announcing that I'm sinking further into the world of computers. We have a Twitter feed. Its right there ---------> on the sidebarof the blog, as well as on the Twitter page, and its synched up with my Facebook account. The feed is intended to keep everyone updated on the baby, and its easier because I can update it with text messages (oh yeah, I'm addicted to texting too - see how luddite-ish I am).

I'm sure there's some way to receive tweets (what a nerd I am) on your mobile device, if you can't wait to be in front of a computer to keep track of our mundane lives. My goal is to update it every couple of days up til the birth, then "live tweet" the labor and delivery. Kimberly is excited for that. If only I could instantaneously upload video, too (actually, I'm working on that, but don't tell Kimberly).

I keep telling myself I'll get rid of it once the baby pops out, but I probably won't. It will just get incorporated into all the other technology crap I update half-heartedly.

Anyways, please follow us. The only thing worse than having no friends in real life is having no followers in cyber-life. And really, you can't wait for exciting updates like: "baby kicked" and "Kimberly is the size of one of Jupiter's moons" or "baby x just pooped through her diaper" and other exciting 140 character-or-less/poorly punctuated and spelled non-sequitors. Just do it.

[And an internet shout-out to whoever gets the tag below]

There once was a little toad

who liked to live outdoors in the nice plants. One day, some mean people trapped him and left him overnight. The next day, the woman discovered him and screamed and shouted. "Oh my" she said. "A toad!"

The orange cat got so excited by all the noise that he came over to investigate. "What strange creature is this?" he wondered. Mr Toad was very confused. He didn't like all the loud sounds nor the look of that orange cat. "I must get away" he thought. So, he jumped and jumped.

That just made the sounds louder! and the cat got closer! "Oh no" Mr Toad thought. "How do I get away from this terrible place?"

The orange cat was very intrigued by this new toy. All of his old toys only moved when he touched them, but his owners must have realized that he found them boring. This new toy was so much fun. He put out his paw and tapped the new toy.

"Wow, look at it move!" thought the orange cat. Mr Toad got so scared that he just kept jumping. "Maybe I can get away if I jump further" he thought. Then, a big fleshy hand appeared from the sky. Mr Toad tried to jump away, but the hand took him. And then, "what is this I see?" wondered Mr Toad. "Oh, it is the outside! Hooray!" Mr Toad jumped out onto the grass. "Oh no" thought the orange cat. "I've lost my toy again. well, maybe they'll get me a new one soon."

Events described above based on true events. Some identifying details may have been changed. Current status of Mr Toad is unknown.

Happy Birthday

So today's the day when the entire nation celebrates PEter's birthday (at least this is what he tells me)!

Happy Birthday PEter, and Happy 4th of July to all of you. Enjoy some fireworks for us.

I can now

rest my arms on my belly. That is all.