metaphorically speaking

Is that an ear of corn in your soccer ball? Or are you just happy to see me?

I get a weekly email from a site called babycenter.com that lets me know approximately what JJ is up to in there. It includes development stages and average growth stats, and the description of the baby's current size is often expressed in terms of food. Because we all know food, right? Well, I don't get it exactly...one week I had a spaghetti squash and the next a large mango. That seems a bit backwards to me, but maybe I've never had a really large mango.

According to this week's news, JJ is as long as an ear of corn, and my lady bits are the size of a soccer ball. Weldam, that's just plain funny. I was already estimating a basketball or better, but I can go with soccer ball. That would explain JJ's impressions of Pelé.

This past Christmas, I was trying to figure out a clever way to break the baby news to my family. I made a list of all the metaphors I knew for pregnancy that I could perhaps put a creative twist on. The list went like this:

1. Bun in the oven -- put a dinner roll in everyone's stocking!! HA HA HA!
2. ???

Even after a Google search, that was the only metaphor I could find. I had a vision of Ollie taking out the stockings before the big reveal (think Bumpus dogs and the turkey in A Christmas Story), so the roll-in-the-stocking idea was quickly nixed. It would have required an explanation anyway, and probably ended up in a strange debate on how a roll is not a bun.

I went with another reveal that ended up being just as effective as the roll-in-the-stocking idea, but I won't bore anyone with that story (let's just say the lottery scratch tickets we gave everyone proved to be too great a distraction). Instead, I'll share a few of the metaphors that I made up for pregnancy:

1. Bat in the cave
2. Fox in the hole
3. Pearl in the oyster
4. Canary in the mine
5. Fish in the whale

I thought I might give each family member one of these as a drawing and let them figure out what it meant. They would have been cute drawings, but they just didn't seem to have the same happy connotation that bun in the oven does. Maybe that's why it's the only pregnancy metaphor that makes the Google charts. And I just don't see corn in the soccer ball becoming a common expression for momma's condition, but if JJ is anything like his/her momma, then a little cornball isn't a metaphor after all.

little blessings

It's an exciting year for our family. Not only am I expecting my first, but my brother and his wife are as well, just a few weeks after us. This means my parents are getting their first two grandchildren within a month. Fun, fun, fun.

And in the early hours of this past Friday morning, my cousin and his wife welcomed their first baby into the world, a gorgeous little girl named Lily Sabine [Sigh]. Just typing this makes my throat lump and my eyes tear up, I'm so humbled and euphoric. She was a couple of weeks earlier than expected, but is healthy and doing well. Happy, happy day. My dear friend and college roomie was in town visiting us with her family, and the two of us went to see the newest member of my family. I got to meet Lily just 5 hours after her birth...a sleepy, squeaky little bundle of tiny breaths and grunts and wiggles. oof. The new parents had a little dedication prepared and asked me and my friend to be part of it. He handed us printouts of the ceremony and asked us each to do a scripture reading. Again, so humbling and so special. It was tearful and happy and a very powerful celebration of this new little life.

They too decided to be surprised, so there were sentences that said "he/she" and also blanks left to insert the baby's name. In the moment, I didn't process that detail, but reflecting on it later, it strikes me as really profound and I'm struggling to put it into adequate words. Before the birth, that blank is simply a line on a page. After, it's so much more...like a space you didn't even know needed filling before the birth of your child. Once here, it's hard to imagine your lives without that little person. I'm not describing this well, but I will ponder it more and perhaps make more sense of it another time.

At any rate, there's a lifetime of filling in the blanks ahead, of unwritten stories and new adventures. Our personal choose-your-own-adventure is on the horizon and we're patiently anticipating our leading character's debut so we can begin filling in his/her blanks. For now we are going to absorb all the joys and wonderment that Lily Sabine has just brought into the world and celebrate as her new stories unfold.

booomp!

Saturday was a rainy day. I was relaxing on the sofa and talking on the phone to my hubby, who was camping in the woods. He asked me to hold the phone up to my belly so he could talk to JJ (our nickname for bebe, because he/she is DY-NO-MITE!). A few funny comments and giggles and we were talking again as my hand rested on my belly. Next thing I know my hand moved. Moved! I interrupted him with a WHOAAAAA. He said, "What, what?!?" and I felt it again. JJ was moving, right where my hand was.

Sooooooo coooooool!

In retrospect, I'm certain that some other feelings have been movement, but my hand being on my belly -- right in the spot of the first feel-it-at-the-surface booomp -- was cooler than cool. I was sad that my hubby was on the phone and not sitting right beside me to feel it himself, but he was very excited and I like to think it made his rainy camping trip brighter. We've seen the sonograms and heard the heartbeats. There really is something special about feeling bebe move. I've had a gnarly head cold, and I must say this was some of the best medicine I've ever had. 22 weeks and 2 days, a memorable marker for the first mom/bebe hi-five.

The bump is a booompin'. Hi, bebe.

a six-pack of random

The lady bugs are rampant and biz-ay up in my windows. A little research on the web tells me that it is incorrect to call them lady bugs. Huh? They are actually Asian Lady Beetles. Oh. That is a huge difference. I don't want to kill them, and apparently releasing them outside is an exercise in futility. They have pheremoned my walls so completely that any ALB's within a quarter mile will be showing up to hibernate in the cold and get biz-ay when it warms up, from now until all eternity. Good thing they are cute and not here to eat the house.

Do not wash black denim with powder detergent. Even if you think you let the powder detergent completely dissolve. The splotchy jeans look was barely cool enough in the 80s; it has no chance here in the future.

I got a new-to-me car. Wheeee! It was first bought in North Pole, Alaska, so we named it Santa's Little Helper.

I really, really, really wish the neighborhood dogs would stop barking right now. Really.

Pre-natal vitamins have turned my finger and toe nails into steak knives, and they seem to be growing faster than I can maintain them. For the first time in my life, though, they kinda look pretty, even when sticking out of the holes in my socks.

Ollie and I went for a walk the other day on a lovely trail, and next to it was a small pond with the most glorious frog chorus I've heard in some time. It sounded like thousands of frogs chirping away. Ollie didn't know what to make of it and kept trying to figure out where each sound was coming from. I just stood there and basked in the noise of it all. It got louder and deeper and more complex and fervent and I just giggled and smiled like a lunatic. Two ladies walked by talking loudly and they all stopped croaking simultaneously. Instant silence. I was a little sad but still giddy about it all. A moment or two passed and a lone bullfrog rat-a-tat-tatted off an indignant call at the interruption. I laughed and began walking again, and a few minutes later I could hear in the distance that the party started again. It was tremendous fun.

What every new mom wants...

...is a clue about what to register for. So if you're still hanging in there with this blerg and you know what goods made your mom arsenal better, please lay it on me. I'm pretty sure I need a crib, but I'd like your expert advice on the rest of it, as opposed to consulting another sponsored checklist on a baby site.

thanky kindly.