August 2010 – Jacob and Marcia

Ch…ch…ch…changes

Here is a picture of my current condition. 26 weeks.

2010 08 31 26weeks bellyshot

Funny story. A few days ago, I was standing next to Jacob. He was sitting on his computer chair. I turned to walk away, and hit him with my belly. I wonder if I will get used to this belly sticking out so far. And if I do, I wonder how long it will take to get used to not having such a big belly after Copyright is born. Time will tell.

Today was a productive sewing day. I was able to sew a dress, I had already cut it out. And I was able to turn a t-shirt into a half-shirt (someone makes and sells them as half-tees, I think). I have heard great reviews on them, and so I decided to make one and see what I think. I think it will work well for layering.

We got to see and hear little Copyright

If you were not able to get your guess posted, you still have time. Like 3 months* to make your guess.

Little Copyright was not as cooperative as we would have liked. So, no, we still do not know if this baby is a boy or a girl**. Copyright kept legs closed and while we did not learn that, we did learn other things.

We learned that this child is definitely ours***. This child is modest (takes after mom). This child is stubborn (takes after dad, okay takes after mom too). This child is healthy. All the other parts were there, in their proper places, and measured well. Heart beats properly.

I had to laugh as we saw the baby’s face. Copyright was sucking, and as a result we saw the tongue go in and out. It was like it was sticking its tongue out at us for wanting to know the sex. In all seriousness, it was really cool to watch.

*Unless we can find a way to have another ultrasound somewhere before that. Preferably not very costly, and if at all possible some 3D ultrasounds would be fun to see.
**Which totally presents us with the enormous challenge of agreeing on names for both a boy and a girl. We were hoping to only have to figure out one name.
***This child is not a lizard.

Boy or Girl?

This friday afternoon we will have an ultrasound where we will [likely] find out if we’re having a boy or a girl. Post your guesses here!

Rules are meant to be followed

There are protection/safety/blessings in obeying the rules. From playing games to laws of the land. If you think about it, it may sound funny to think of “protection” in keeping the rules if you are say, five years old and playing Candy Land. Though, there is protection, if you cheat you are likely to be hit (or something similar) by your playmate(s). Sports, there is potential serious injury or death if any of the players thinks they do not have to keep the rules. If you cheat in school, you face bad grades or possible expulsion; often times this goes on your “permanent record” and makes it nearly impossible to get into another school. The basic ten commandments are there for our benefit. So, as we think about it, there really is safety in keeping the rules. This includes the high school track.

A friend and I walk in the mornings at the *high school track. Diana is my fifth (and longest enduring) walking partner in the three-ish years I have been doing this early morning practice. I have not always had a walking partner, but I find that while I do not like to be in a big group for exercise, it does help to have one other person that keeps mee going. Sometimes I can handle having a second person, any more than that, and I start to get a wee bit uncomfortable.

Back on topic, we get to the track fairly early, and over the years I have seen many people come and go. I see most people for less than two months. This summer however there are two ladies that have been on and off through the summer. We always greet each other. I have a story from this Wednesday morning. In this story I will refer to them as **OSL and ISL, standing for Out of Shape Lady and In-Shape Lady.

Well, Diana and I were walking and we were just past the middle of our second lap, and we heard a voice yell something at us, we did not understand the words, and we both asked, “What?” as I placed my hand up to cup my ear.
OSL: Could you let us have the inside lane!
Diana: There is no jogging on the inside lanes. There is a big sign posted.
OSL: We are just timing sprints!

I know she felt entitled to request this on Wednesday because they actually arrived a few minutes earlier than we did. ***Normally we are the first people on the track. Also, OSL and ISL had not been coming for the last three weeks. When they would go to the track, it was sporadic. Each time though they would give us dirty looks like they could not believe we wouldn’t move when we should know to get out of their way. OSL would grunt at us each time she passed by us and get as close to us as she could, and half of her dirty looks were the stink-eye. About five weeks ago (two before they took a three week break) ISL arrived after us, but still about five minutes before OSL. She did some stretches and then decided she would go over and read the posted track rules. She no longer gave us dirty looks or tried to make us uncomfortable with her body language. In fact, she would even politely greet us. It is amazing what knowing the rules can do. Here is a picture of the sign posted:

trackrules

Back to the story: if it were up to mee alone, we would have stayed put and continued walking in the inside lanes. However, Diana is a good person. She suggested to mee that we go ahead and allow them to jog (or sprint jog) in the inside lane. I didn’t want to. Because I am stubborn and it is a posted rule. Diana however, saw a potential lesson in it for OSL if we gave her the lanes after pointing out the rule. So we moved to a couple outer lanes.

The next time our paths crossed (we were walking the opposite direction from the one they were jogging) OSL yelled out “Thank you!” We chose not to respond, for a couple reasons. First being that by that point I was ****starting to feel a bit snarky, and my reply would not have been very polite. Second, I was not about to allow her to think I in any way approved of her actions. Thirdly, I did not want to give her the validation. This seemed to bother her, because the following time we crossed paths, she tried to thank us with more explanation as to why she was entitled to do what she wants.

If the rules were not posted (and if it was not common knowledge that joggers/runners leave the inside lanes for walkers on a track), and if she had not been giving us the stink-eye through out each encounter thus far in the summer…maybe, just maybe it would not bug mee so much. I think it would still bug mee, just not as much.

The other part of her *****sense of entitlement that really gets to mee is that she totally seems to think that she is so much more important and that it is okay for her to break the rules. And that she thinks nothing of requesting us (not a “please” escaped her mouth) to allow her to break the rules. And did she even consider our wanting to keep track of how far we walk? Why does she think we use the track, and everyday the same lanes? Does it not occur to her that we want to walk a certain distance, and by making us switch lanes mid walk, we no longer have an accurate measuring of the distance?

No, it does not matter to her (or any one else who lives in entitlement-land) what the needs or wants of other individuals may be.

I guess that is why I like/appreciate rules. They are just what they claim to be. Following rules keeps us in check, and helps us not step on others’ toes. What a less thoughtless world this would be (or at least appear to be) if we would all follow the rules out there, and stop looking for ways that they apply to everyone but ourselves.

Jacob suggested that perhaps she may be the bumper sticker driver from here.

* School starts this next week, and we don’t want to have to get up as early as we would have to in order to be off the track so as to not be there after the school day has begun (last year we did it), so we will have to move our walking to the university track, or walk laps around the town square.

** This reference is only to her inability to breathe as she runs/jogs. She is a fairly small person, she just breathes really hard as she goes around the track, and looks as if she will pass out from exhaustion, doubled over at the end of each lap. She might be able to breathe better if she would just drink some water and get her mouth/throat wet.

***While some days there may be other individuals who arrive earlier than us, we have always been there earlier than these two.

**** Oh we all know I was snarky feeling as soon as she demanded we give her permission to break the rules.

*****Really any person’s sense of entitlement bugs mee. You don’t get things just because. You can’t go around demanding things and still have friends (at least not friends that like you).

Belly shot (not that kind)

Here I am this evening at 24 weeks.

24weeksbelly

You can’t really see it in this picture, but I am wearing my rubber chicken earrings.

FAQs

Q: How are you feeling?

A: Hungry. Tired. Gotta pee. So mostly good! (However, not as tired as I once was.)

Q: How many weeks are you?

A: Today marks 24 weeks (LMP) however, gestationally 22 weeks. It is weird, and can be confusing. LMP stands for last menstrual period. Ovulation, and therefore conception does not occur for (an average of) two weeks after that. So while we are told that we are at 24 weeks, Copyright has only been in there for 22 weeks.

Q: Have you felt the baby move/kick?

A: Yes, yes I have. I thought I was feeling something for a while, and then because I have never been through this before, I was doubting what I was feeling. And then what I felt was more obvious at 21 1/2 weeks. A few days later I was trying to hear for a heart beat with the stethoscope, and must have been crowding little Copyright, because there was a strong movement that pushed the stethoscope over. A week later I was able to place Jacob’s hand on my abdomen and He was able to feel baby movements. There have been stronger and more movements in the short weeks that followed. When I lay down, we can see movements with our eyes. We try to use the stethoscope to listen for the heartbeat, but we are not as skilled at that. We do have a thing-basically an electronic stethoscope-and we heard the “whooshing” that is Copyright’s heart and last night I decided that we should try again, and we heard the heartbeat pretty strongly. This time it was more like the thumping of my heart, and less like the whooshing from before, however we know it was not mine, because we could still hear my heartbeat as well. So that was pretty neat.

A: Well, this baby is uniquely made from us, and so the “copyright” part. And this baby was started and will be born in 2010. And we felt that we wanted a “name” so we are not always calling the baby “the baby” or “it” or “he or she.”

Q: How many are in there?

A: We are assuming there is only one in there. We will find out for sure next week. This is also the appointment that we will learn if we are getting a he or a she. Also, the dreaded glucose testing appointment.

There is hope for this world yet

I was running some errands, and needed to get some salsa. Jacob loves salsa and we were out of it. I went to get the White Corn and Black Bean salsa because he likes it. Today, it was on the top shelf, and pushed all the way back. I am short. I stood on the tips of my toes, and reached. I could not even touch a jar. So I took a few steps back to survey the scene. Would the bottom shelf or two be sturdy enough to hold mee? How much would I get hurt if it would not hold mee? Does Jacob really need salsa?

At this point another shopper man came over and asked if I would like some assistance. I admitted it would be great. He got on his toes (also not that tall). Reached and pulled down the first jar he could get. It was covered in dried/sticky salsa. He offered to get mee a clean one. I appreciate that even people who don’t know mee also want clean products. He asked if there was anything else I needed. I told him there was not and thanked him. The teenage boy with him was “patient,” his body language indicated that this is a regular occurrence with his dad(?). It made mee tear up as I walked on to find bread. They were happy tears. I am so glad to know that people are still willing to help a person they do not know, and (at least by example) are teaching the next generation how to be kind to others.

Thank you kind sir, you are a gentleman!

Dear gum-chewer-lady

I walked away because I almost vomited on the toothbrush display. I am pleased that you were showing interest in oral hygiene (next let’s work on showers, please) however, chewing gum just won’t help your efforts. Though, the part that made me walk away was the fact that you were chewing loudly. I thought a cow had walked up to mee and was masticating very wet cud. The mental image I had before I looked over was of a nasty puree of grass and mucus spilling out onto the floor. While I was relieved to discover that they did not allow a cow in the store to purchase toothbrushes, it was slightly more disturbing that a human was making the sound. Please learn to 1) chew gum (and I suspect all your food) so that it does not sound as if it would fall out of your mouth at any moment, and 2) chew with your mouth closed-this, even if you keep chewing in the same style, will keep the rest of the world from hearing the sloshing inside your mouth, and frankly we don’t want to see what is in there either.

Sincerely,

mee

P.S. Are you the same person we saw the other day who has bumper stickers that read, “Why am I the only one on this planet that knows how to drive” and “My future’s so bright I need sunglasses” and then blew through a stop sign only to follow 2-3 feet behind a car in the left lane and then make a right turn with no use of turn signal (or lane change)? -m

23 down 17 to go

…approximately.

So here are some pictures, mostly for my own documenting purposes. And some of you don’t see mee very often, and for those that have been around for the gradual changes, here is a more distinct view.

On 14 April 2010 I decided I would take a few pictures before I started growing my belly very much. At that time I was only 7 weeks (lmp) along and was not close to showing outwardly what was happening inwardly.

20100414 a 20100414 b

These next two are blurry, I was not really very focused myself when I took them. I felt kind of silly since there was no progress to record. But the first here is the most side-ways shot I got. The second I just felt good in that one since I had not really gotten a shot of how I looked after losing all that weight last year.

20100414 c 20100414 d

I had this grand idea to take a picture once a week and then I could compare week to week. If I had started it four weeks earlier (we knew close to the day that Copyright came to be) I might have really tried to stick to the plan. But I had not been taking weekly pictures, and life got a little crazy. And I figured that I would start to take pictures when I started to notice a difference, the next thing I know I was hanging out with some family and one of the nieces was leaning her head into mee and I looked down and did not see her head. It occurred to mee in that moment, I missed the point when I started showing (I did take a picture of that view, though I have to search through lots of pictures to find it to post).

The next picture shoot I did was this afternoon. 16 weeks later. What a slacker (in pictures, I have been sewing and doing other stuff like crazy). The next picture is a side by side of “7 weeks” and “23 weeks” in the same clothes.

20100810 sidebyside

Now for more comfortable clothes.

20100810 hoy

And lest anyone think I am not excited (cause really it is fun to see the belly grow-in this way).

20100810 happy

Frizzy hair and all-I know many of you think it is because of the humidity, it is not so with my hair. My hair does well in humidity, my hair gets frizzy when the air is dry-the air-conditioner is on and I had been in that all day.

I want them to go faster and louder

Almost a month ago (July 6-8) we had our first house guests in our new home. They are such fun three (and-a-half) year olds. I think they left wanting more. Which means they will be happy to come stay again!

They arrived and I showed them where to find the toy box in this house, and we had our was-a-stove-box-converted-house ready for them to play in. G3 said, “We love ours house in yours house, Marcia!” Yay a successful play-house.

Here is a picture of them playing with the toys from the toy box, the hand-cuffs are from our Halloween costumes when we were prisoners. (We keep the other set out of reach of children, thank you very much.) At some point during this playtime, G2 told us, “Daddy smokes. I like him smoking.” Her daddy does not smoke.

First item on the schedule was to get in the car and travel to a drum corps show. G3 fell asleep in the car before we left town.

G2 said, “I am not going to sleep, I want to be awake.” I told her that was fine.

Then not ten minutes later she did not answer when I asked her a question, and this is what I saw.

It was raining when we got to the show location, and we were hoping that it would have stopped, so while the girls and I sat in the car and ate the food we brought, Jacob went to see if the show was going to be cancelled or moved indoors. (We had already purchased our tickets.) The answer was that it looked like the rain would stop soon, and we would wait and the show would just be delayed a bit. So, we went in and waited under the shelter of the bleachers. We had to entertain ourselves. Only when making this post did I notice the sunglasses; I did not see them like that when this was taken.

G3 helped G2 fix her skirt (which is a very cute skirt, btw).

They found drips coming from empty rivet holes.

G3 wanted her picture taken too. And just so you know, that is not a tear under her eye, it is a water drop.

Here is G3 sitting on Jacob’s lap watching the show.

Here is G2 sitting on my lap watching the show. After a while, she wanted to switch places with G3 because 1) the guy in front of us was very VERY tall and 2) my lap was/is not as big as it used to be, she had to share with her unborn cousin.

Here is a picture of the first corps that performed. They won their category/class. And as a special treat that guy there in the front ensemble is/was one of Jacob’s pitt students. We are proud of Jason, he played good.

We enjoyed this pretty sunset over the performances. ( I just realized that could mean that we preferred the sunset, that is not what I intended to say.)

We had arrived right as the show was supposed to start, and we could not see the corps busses. We had brought a lot of fruit with us to donate to Jason’s corps and we did not want to take all that fruit home with us, lest it go to waste. So when the shows were all done we drove around and found where the corps buses were parked, and Jacob went in search of someone we could give the fruit to. This was after 10 pm and the girls were tired, but very well behaved. In fact, all the people that were sitting around us were very complimentary of how well they behaved and were impressed that they watched the shows. G2 at one point told mee that one of the corps was going too slow and needed to be faster and louder. Both girls were in awe of the flags (color guard). If there had been any souvenir flags they would have been able to go home with their very own flags. Fruit delivered, and we started our two-ish hour drive home. They fell asleep in the car pretty quickly.

The next morning while I was walking (the girls were still asleep when I left, but insisted that they go walk with mee the next morning) Jacob got pancakes going. After breakfast, the girls took a BUBBLE BATH in my “tiny tub.”

While they were in the tub, their happy-things took a bath too. A very much so needed bath. Don’t tell Ronda that I let them have Happys with them at the drum corps show, but I did and they dropped them a number of times in the rain puddles, and may or may not have dropped them on the floor in the (public) bathroom when they took turns before getting back in the car to head home. Once it was clean, G3 told mee that she was unable to chew on her happy because it was clean. She makes me laugh!

After the bath they wanted to watch a movie in “ours house in yours house.” (Jacob thinks it is funny that the first thing they did when they started playing with the house was to find the object that was too big and try to get it in the door! We all do it at least once with our own homes, right?)

What did they watch? “Mahana you ugly, get down from that tree!” “Do you want Johnny Lingo to see what a disobedient daughter you are?”

They watched all but the last 3ish minutes of the movie. Then on to another activity.

I let them paint their own nails with what ever color(s) they wanted. They had fun. G3, “Boys can’t paint theirs nails!”

G3 first picture, G2 second picture. (In case you couldn’t have figured it out by the colors they chose.) I offered to paint G2’s right thumb nail, but she insisted she did not want that one painted. Well, okay then.

Lunch time, they asked if I would make them oatmeal, because G3 told mee, “Oatmeal is ours favorite food.”

G2 had her apple slices and cheese all lined up-I suspect we are related.

G2 right at the end of lunch told mee, “Marcia, I am tired, I want to lay down.” I gave her permission, and G3 followed her in and five minutes or so later they were out. About three and a half hours later they were still sleeping, and this is what we saw.

Somehow G2 turned into Dora. They slept for about four hours and 15-30 minutes. I guess we did a good job of keeping them entertained. When they woke up they stayed in there talking for a few minutes and then came out and asked if they could have another bubble bath! I would have let them if we weren’t headed out the door. We went over to Jacob’s parents’ house and they had a lot of fun pillow fighting with the adults. I wish I had taken pictures of that, or even video would have been great!

They went to bed, and before falling asleep double checked with mee that they can walk with mee in the morning with my friend, right?

They walked a mile with us before sitting on the track playing.

I let them take another bubble bath. They loved that, maybe for a birthday or something they need bubble bath soap. While making stacks of toys that I let them use in the tub, I heard G2 say to G3, “G3 do you know I love you, you is my best friend. Don’t put that on mine!” They got out of the tub just in time to start playing when Grammy, Ronda, G1, and G4 arrived to pick them up. We all had lunch and then they went on their way.

We really had fun having the girls here, maybe it can become a sort of tradition? What think you?