1.31.2008

at least you've got a plan...

the hubster is so happy/scared/excited he doesn't know what to do with himself. we saw a new baby @ the hospital nursery tour last nite and he said that made it even more real. he anticipates not sleeping for a few days, just staring at the kid like crazy trying to learn things like how he sleeps, the sounds he makes, etc. he says he'll just be crazy worried and will hover over the baby like a crazy person.

i was like, well at least you've got a plan! lol.

a friend reminded me today of something dh said years ago, that if we ever had children, he would just cover the floor in plastic and let the baby run around diaperless. that doesn't sound like a half bad idea! with the extra added bonus that the next time someone asks about the 'theme' for the 'nursery,' we can just say we're going with floor to ceiling plastic sheeting!

1.22.2008

news from the neighborhood

so the the word is out about the pregnancy among the neighborhood kids.

it started a couple of weeks ago, when we were going out and like 4 kids were sitting on the porch swing across the street - this is the two little homeschooled glasses-wearing nerds (a boy who is maybe 8, a girl who is 10 or 11) and a couple of 7 or 8 yr old girls from down the street. the occasional 4 yr old tagalong baby sibling might have been there too, but i'm not sure. i waved and they waved back, and then in a sudden burst, one of them called out 'are you pregnant?' - and then i looked, and they were all scandalized and shushing the one who had said it. LOL! so i told them yes, and then they were like, 'see i told you' and stuff, to each other. they asked was it twins, was it a boy or a girl, etc.

yesterday they were outside when we were leaving and they asked where we were going. 'just to the store.' they said 'all three of you?' just too enthused about their own cleverness. and i said 'all two and a half of us' and they cracked up.

hee hee. i can't wait till they're babysitting age.

1.19.2008

thankful to be a heavy sleeper

so, we're heading into month 7 now, right? the little monster has either suddenly become much more active, bigger, and/or stronger: the kicks are becoming really hard core. the other night i was sitting and could actually see the kicks from the outside of my belly for the first time. i mean, at previous times the hubster has gotten kicked in the head if he put his face to the belly to talk to the bun, so we know he's been manifesting to the outside world for a little while now. but to actually SEE it like see the bump come to the surface and move across like the loch ness monster?? talk about a weird sci-fi moment!!

we were sleeping face to face last night, or perhaps i should say *i* was sleeping last night. dh said he could feel the baby's kicks pummeling HIS stomach, and it was keeping him awake! he had to finally roll over so he could get some sleep! LOL.

1.07.2008

preggeritis symptom #4,080: wacko dreams

okey doke, had my first wacko pregnancy dream last night. at first, it was a wacko dream like my dreams are often wacko - some storage place we'd had things stored at went out of business and came in the dead of night and deposited like a whole houseful of stuff on our front lawn... old furniture, boxes, armoires full of historical costumery, knicknacks galore. we woke up astonished and eventually decided to just stick a 'yard sale' sign up in front of it and go with the flow. there was also some lovely sex stuff which happened, which was nice, since my bladder-sitting baby has been conspiring to keep me from getting any lately. at least my subconscious is getting off.

so then, in the dream there we are sitting on the lawn amid a bunch of old furniture, and also cooking out for some reason. this play-cousin of mine who recently had a baby in september comes up, holding her naked baby out in front of her in a big, translucent, exterior womb. the baby's skin is like translucent whitish, and s/he's shivering. she woman goes on to explain that when the baby was born, the skin wasn't strong enough, so they had to like create this psuedo womb (or surgically move her womb outside her body, the method wasn't entirely clear, even though i kept on asking incredulous questions throughout the dream) so that the baby's skin could keep on growing and getting stronger. there was fluid sloshing around in there between two layers, but it wasn't fully surrounding the baby, it was more like s/he was sitting in a puddle.

i could feel my dream-face scrunched up in disgust and disbelief, and kept asking her things like, 'they didn't have a NICU or something?' 'why can't you just take her out and put her in a bubble' and 'could you put a blanket around that? s/he looks freezing' and 'how do you shower with that thing attached to you?' but she and her mother were in placid denial that anything out of the ordinary was happening.

ew.

1.02.2008

it's hard out here for a hermit

been talking to my family more than i think i ever have in my whole life entire.

we did a lot of video chatting over xmas, wherein i showcased the belly on pixelated videocams for roomsfull of people we love who we did not travel out of state to go see. hooray! for high technology keeping yr nerdy a$$ at home.

been thinking lately abt the kids thing, namely how many? are we committed to having? it took us 9 yrs together to have kid the first... and i've always thought i would have zero, or two. 'tawk amongst yahselves' is my motto. LOL! maybe we'll get away with one, like if kaiju turns out to be a really self-amusing kid who learns to read at 3 and/or spends his time playing outside in the yard with other neighborhood kids. but i've never thought i'd have the attention span for one child.

at the same time, i can totally see the benefits of a larger family. i am one of four, and i HEART my sibs to death. it was a lot of fun growing up in our house. plus, since the little ones are 7 and 10 yrs younger than me, i got a chance to babysit, read stories, learn responsibility and participate in their upbringing a little. we weren't primary caretakers by any means, but i did get a chance to see how our age spread made it possible for my mom to put some kid-sustained systems in place that helped things run more smoothly.

also in preparing for our child to enter the world, be are becoming even more cognizant that we're building and adding onto longer-standing and extended structures when we procreate and move and marry and make life decisions like that. me and the hubster tend to isolate ourselves, but with a bun coming we're thinking about it in a different way. how far do we live from the rest of the extended fam? how often are the cousins going to see each other? dh only has one brother, but they were raised really close to their 4 cousins; now they are all adults and it's really cute to see how important they are in each others' lives, even tho they're spread out over the NY tri-state area. there were four of us siblings but we were isolated from extended family and only saw any given set of cousins like once a year when we made holiday-related road trips. now we're adults and only just now getting back into sporadic email contact.

kaiju will have a 1st cousin almost exactly 1 yr older than him; a 2nd cousin the same exact age. they will all live in 3 different states... LI, NJ, and we're the farflung ones in MD. what will their relationships be like? it's sobering to know that that's entirely up to us.