four miles for forty weeks

Today we were planning on meeting up with Robbie's grandpa for a little bit at Arlington Cemetery because he had flown out with a group of fellow World War II vets on an Honor Flight, but thanks to the Marine Corps Marathon it took us like an hour to drive there instead of 15 minutes and then we had to park by the Mall and walk over the bridge. Long story short we ended up walking four miles and I was wearing a pair of moccasins which in hindsight wasn't the greatest idea but I guess this is what you do once your due date comes and goes and you start walking everywhere in your fair city to get the party started. But the weather has been nothing short of amazing and the leaves are really starting to look incredible so I really have no reason to complain. Robbie also told me that he always wanted to remember how I looked today and that made me feel really sentimental. I will miss being pregnant.

it's a little bit funny, this feeling inside

Li'l Ham two weeks ago at 37 weeks

This is such a weird time in my life. So weird, and so awesome! People have been asking me if I'm "ready" for the baby to come. I interpret this to mean one of two things—there is the practical "ready," like is my hospital bag packed (yes), is the crib set up (yes), did I hire a cleaning lady to come and deep clean my apartment so I wouldn't have to stare at a dirty floor during labor (yes). But really, even though I've checked off many of those practical boxes, you're never really "ready," are you?

Then after the practical "ready" is the physical "ready." "I'm sure you are just READY for this baby to get out already!" "Aren't you exhausted?" "Are you just... done?" Well, yes and no. I told my midwife today that I actually really like being pregnant! I'm okay waiting till the baby's ready to come. The baby hasn't given me much trouble and I'd be totally ungrateful if I complained about being pregnant. I'm tired of having to pee all the time and not getting a good night's sleep, but if that's the worst that's going to happen during pregnancy—I'll take it.

It's really such an amazing thing and—trite as it sounds—I realize that this is the last time I'll ever be in this season. I mean, I hope that we have more children, but this is the last time it'll just be me and the baby inside. There will be more distractions, I might be in a more fragile physical state next time, I just don't know. So I'm trying to enjoy it.

The other thing that's been weird about this season of life is the change I've undergone that hasn't been physical. Not the "I'm going to be a mom!" change but the "I'm not really a mom yet, what am I?" change. Lots of people probably know that I left my old job back in March, which wasa decision I made in the fall, and it just so happened that I found out I was pregnant that week too. Which was great! That's what I wanted and hoped for. But it shifted my focus from "what job am I going to look for now?" to "what can I do to get ready for life with a baby?" I had grand plans to find a different job when I was planning all this out and I just threw it all aside, other than some freelance projects I have worked on over the past few months. I feel like living in DC has made me feel like I have to explain myself all the time when it comes to work because that's how most people define themselves. You can basically predict how any conversation with a new acquaintance in DC will go—it inevitably starts with "so, what do you do for work?"(followed by "so, where are you from? No, not where do you live, like where are you FROM, originally?") and I don't have a good answer! The good answer, I realize, is "I'm growing a baby—that's a lot of work" but for whatever reason I haven't been able to muster up the courage to tell people what I do all day. I take care of my house, I make stuff, I visit people? I don't know. It sounds dumb. That's probably why I couch my answer in some sort of vague answer like "oh, I work from home," which is technically true. 

What further complicates all of that is that I was never really happy with the type of work that I was doing before I got pregnant and I spent many tearful nights trying to figure out what I wanted to DO with my life and I never got a good feeling about any of it. I mean, I guess it's not that complicated after all—what I want to do is raise kids and be a good mom and contribute to society in some way, and maybe "some way" is by raising good kids and not by spending my evenings and weekends doing work I was only mildly enthusiastic about at times. 

I have a feeling that once the baby does come and I have a little bit more purpose than merely being a vessel of sorts then some of this anxiety might be alleviated. I realized the other day at brunch with some friends how boring my conversations have become these past few months as I blabbed on about red raspberry leaf tea and doulas and birth stories and prenatal yoga and other things completely uninteresting to people who don't care about pregnancy or babies. I have always found these things totally fascinating but if I didn't have Robbie there to turn and find someone else to talk to I probably would be ignorant of the fact that some people just don't care. (Only slightly kidding—though this is how I feel any time the conversation turns to airline points too so it's only fair that he and I treat these conversations similarly.) But I really don't have anything else to talk about right now except for how I just finished five seasons of Doctor Who in a matter of weeks and some people find Doctor Who more boring and foreign than pregnancy so I'm just kind of stuck. 

Unless, of course, you want to talk about Twin Peaks—I'm totally your girl. Team Coop all the way.

fête paradiso

Well, you know what they say—the days are long and the weeks are short. Actually, I think they say that the years are short but right now it's the weeks that are feeling really short. I'm now 36 weeks pregnant and we've been trying to fit in lots of last minute activities to celebrate the end of the summer and to celebrate the end of just the two of us. 

So! A recap of a couple of things we've done. We went to NYC a couple weekends ago (and I actually went on another whirlwind 24 hour trip a few weeks ago with Julie and Henry before they left for London) and spent most of our time having no agenda and spending QT together over donuts every day for breakfast and with old friends. I felt bad that we weren't able to see everyone that we wanted to see over the couple of days that we were there, but it all boiled down to us not having a schedule and me not feeling like I wanted to lug my 35 week pregnant self across town because I needed to stop to go to the bathroom every 5 seconds and I was just tired! But we did get to fit in some fun excursions. Our trip was accidentally well-coordinated with a visit from our college buddies Carrie and Courtney who were in town from Utah, so we met up with them and Kate/Regan/Gwen for a Utah reunion on Governors Island. I'd always wanted to go out there but every time we go to New York it's either way too hot or way too cold and it just doesn't feel like a good time to check it out. Fête Paradiso was also going on that day so we got to check out the "vintage" (their word, not mine) amusement park rides. I use quotation marks around "vintage" because I'd say they were more, er, "antique." Like, I wasn't really sure if everything would fall apart once the rides started going. But they were really cool to look at! Apparently some of the parts of the carousels actually dated back to 1850's France so that was pretty cool. The girls and Robbie all decided to go on the swings which sounded like a safe idea at the time but by the end of the ride we were all feeling kind of queasy. They should have had a warning saying that ride wasn't safe for adults. Robbie and Regan also went on a rollercoaster that they looked like they'd fly off of any second and after that everyone just stuck to the more benign carousel rides.

The rest of the weekend involved good eats and laying around in the park and catching up with some more friends that used to live in DC and really just spending time together as just the two of us. It was a perfect weekend with perfect weather and I'm excited to go back again some day when Li'l Ham can enjoy the sights and sounds and not be leaning on my bladder. Speaking of Li'l Ham, here's what he/she looked like at 35 weeks:

I still haven't learned how to turn to the side in pictures so I don't look like a chubby bunny. So sue me.

a li'l shower for li'l ham

Zacky vying for "Best Hair" award

The beautiful hostesses: Jesse (who made most of the awesome food and hosted at her apartment), Julie (who did... I don't know, everything??), and Christina (who designed the most adorable invites and favors that I don't seem to have pictures of??)

Last weekend my dear Capitol Hill friends threw a shower for the wee babe. It is always kind of a hilarious challenge to host gatherings in our tiny city apartments, but Julie bravely stepped up to the task and orchestrated a really lovely afternoon full of friends and delicious food and "awwww"-ing over tiny baby things. We are so blessed to have made such wonderful friends at church, work, and in our neighborhood during our time in DC and it was really nice to see everyone together at the same time!

My niece Ida was awesome and helped me unwrap my presents. I really wish that someone had a camera to capture the look on her face when she walked in the room—it was her first ever baby shower and she looked like she was going to explode with excitement. An entire party dedicated to giving presents to an unborn baby? This concept was blowing her mind. (It is kind of funny.) We got lots of books for baby (and no duplicates! I have very literary friends with excellent and diverse tastes) and she kept pausing to say, "Oh, this is a REALLY good one—should I read it to you?" Also, when did she get old enough to read? I'm freaking out a little.

Also. Julie is moving to London next week. I don't even want to talk about it. She is one of my very best besties here in DC (she moved back to DC from NYC around the same time we moved here from Paris and we were a match made in internet heaven) and I don't know what I'm going to do without her being in the neighborhood anymore. She is amazing for taking the time to plan this shower in the midst of a hectic move overseas and I am just so thankful for her. 

Anyway, enough sappy talk. I can't get into it here. So here we are, just acting natural:

Thanks everyone for showering this little Ham with so much love!

whoop! there it is

Welcome, third trimester!

Thus far my pregnancy has been uneventful (except for the time at thirteen weeks I threw up in the gutter of a Big Lots parking lot in the ghetto), for which I am extremely grateful and fortunate. But today my body seemed to say "okay, it's officially your third trimester, so you better get used to being uncomfortable." While we were waiting for our friends' baby's baptism to begin this afternoon I suddenly started feeling dizzy and the room started spinning so I spent most of the ceremony in the dark basement of the church chugging a ton of water to combat what was probably dehydration, and then a couple minutes after Robbie took these pictures I went inside and pulled off my bra because my ribcage has expanded too much for me to comfortably fit in it anymore. So, you know. Minor inconveniences. But it would be nice to be able to wear a bra again.

I really do feel good though. I started really showing a couple of weeks ago so now I've gotten a couple of random stranger compliments, and the baby moves around like crazy. I love and crave fish (used to hate it) and really spicy food. When I eat dessert/processed sugar (which I'm not supposed to be doing thanks to our midwife practice's strict nutrition guidelines) I get severe headaches, so I guess that's probably a good thing since I'm not supposed to be doing it. It is hard to sit and watch people eat my favorite treats in front of me so I hope my perseverance pays off in the end.

I'm still biking around town, and I'm wondering when I'm going to start losing my balance and can't do it anymore. A really nice (and fit) woman was riding behind me up the Hill the other day as I was huffing and puffing my way up and she said "You know, I had my first baby 6 months ago and I was riding almost until my due date and I think it really helped me bounce back afterward, so keep up the good work!" It was really encouraging and it makes me happy that I haven't gotten lots of unsolicited advice or rude comments from strangers. People really are nice. Except for like 90% of Metro riders who never offer me their seat on crowded trains.

Speaking of Metro, please bless that I won't have my baby on the Metro platform.

We don't know the sex of the baby, but Robbie thinks it's a boy. I kind of do too because I've had lots of dreams about it being a boy (even before I was pregnant), but then I had two girl dreams recently and I just don't know what to believe anymore. People sometimes ask me if I want one over the other, but really—I'm just happy to be here, folks.

I am nesting up a storm and I've made hats, blankets, and burp cloths galore. We're also spending lots of time rearranging and buying new furniture (mostly just stuff with drawers) and our house looks like a construction zone.

Thanks to magic grease-zapping hormones, I only have to wash my hair every week and a half. What?? Can this last forever, please? That kind of makes up for the sugar-induced migraines.

Robbie is done traveling for work. HALLELUJAH.

I can't believe we're just twelve weeks away from D-Day because that seems really close and also really far away.

But I'm super excited.

just practicing

We got our crib in the mail the other day and I was like, guess I'd better test it out. Isn't swaddling a teddy bear and putting it in a crib a rite of passage or something? I took a nap after I set up the crib and Robbie came home to me sleeping and the bear baby next to me in the crib and I think he thought I had gone a little crazy.

Also, I have to brag a little bit about the quilt in the crib—while I was at my parents' house, I pieced together some of my mom's leftover fabric scraps to make a quilt and I decided that I wanted to learn how to machine quilt (or "stipple," but I hate that word for obvious reasons). So I looked up a tutorial on YouTube and voila! I have a tiny machine quilted blanket now. All it takes is a special presser foot and really strong forearms because all that maneuvering in the machine really takes it out of you.

summer magic

I've been at my parents' house for the past week while Robbie is off gallivanting on (another) work trip and it has been heaven. I haven't been in California during summer since I got married and I had almost forgotten that there are places in the world that cool down at night during the summer. DC has apparently been a stormy, humid mess this week and meanwhile, I have been basking in 80 degree temperatures during the day and covering up with a cardigan at night. (Nah nah nah nah-nah.) I have been so uncomfortable these past few weeks and now I'm feeling pretty good about life and facing my third trimester (coming up in just a couple of weeks!!).

So, speaking of pregnancy, I had kind of a surreal pregnancy moment the other night. We went as a family to the Hollywood Bowl to picnic and see the LA Philharmonic perform—in this case it was Gustav Mahler's Resurrection symphony—which is an old family tradition that I hadn't participated in for a really long time and it was so fun to relive those memories (though, admittedly, most of my memories involve me being disappointed that there were never fireworks at the end of symphonies or ballets—I've since grown out of that [mostly]). Anyway, you know how when a movie or concert starts and the lights dim and you get that little tingle of excitement and anticipation? This time around, when the ominous strings came in and I was feeling that giddy anticipation, the baby started doing its nightly acrobatics that only got wilder when the brass and percussion made their way in. I guess it could have been that time of night where this is a common occurrence (i.e., bedtime—are you preparing me for many more hard nights, baby?), or because the music was loud, or just because the baby felt like moving? Who knows. But I kept thinking, this is definitely my baby. Not because of the inability to sit still at inopportune moments (that's part of it too) but that I felt like the baby and I seemed to be feeling the same thing at the same moment. Could the baby feel my heart race? Could the baby tell that the music was sparking emotions within me? Does the baby love music too? Are our hearts and minds somehow connected already? When I am lying in bed at night feeling the baby move, does it know that I am mentally trying to will him or her to give me a little reassuring kick? (If there are facts disputing these theories, please allow me to continue to live in ignorance.)

I know that some of the criticism about not finding out the sex of your baby is that you can't relate as much to your baby before he or she is born, and admittedly, I feel that way sometimes. But on Tuesday I felt like the baby and I were finally having a moment together, just like I have moments experiencing something beautiful and I feel like I'm the only one in the room. It made me finally feel, 25 weeks later, how real this experience is and how much I need to seek out these moments in my final weeks of pregnancy. 

Now that you've suffered through my emotionally charged crazy musings, here's part of the 5th movement of the symphony for you to enjoy, if you so desire (it REALLY gets going just after the 10 minute mark and brings on the tears for me every time, especially when you see the conductor singing along). Apparently Mahler was an atheist, but darn it if he couldn't write an account of the resurrection to bring even the most cynical atheist to tears. (You can read the full text of the symphony here.)

Die shall I in order to live.

Rise again, yes, rise again,

Will you, my heart, in an instant!

That for which you suffered,

To God will it lead you!

and the rain rain rain came down down down

Hello June. Rainy, hurricaney, sticky June. Every year I'm caught a little off guard by this month, because I forget how miserable June can be. Last night I walked to the metro after dinner with a friend and the skies just opened up and poured buckets of hot, sticky rain for about ten minutes, and all I could do was laugh while getting drenched with nasty DC street water because this is just what it's like around here and I need to get used to it. But June is wonderful too, because June is when the public pools open for weekday use in DC.

This has been a really weird few weeks over at the homestead. Robbie was traveling overseas for about three weeks, and the day after he came back, I left for a trip to Minnesota with my mom and sisters (more on that later). Then he left and came back the day after I did, and then two days later we went to Chicago for the weekend (more on that later too). 

And all during that while, I've suddenly started feeling and looking very pregnant. I'm 20 weeks along now so I guess it's about time that started happening. I had to finally break down and buy a pair of maternity jeans (revelation! they are awesome), and the baby has started moving like a crazy person too. Which is really cool, but it is also a little disconcerting because it feels like something is knocking on my belly and trying to get out? Also I'm regretting telling people I've been feeling pretty good so far because suddenly I'm just not feeling super great, mostly because I have developed a cold after all that traveling and sharing airplane air with strangers, so I hope that goes away soon.

But all complaints aside, things are pretty good. Robbie is back for the time being and the weird things that usually happen while he's gone have waited to appear till he is here to deal with them. We came home on Sunday night to a legion of dead termites in our hallway that seem to have appeared out of nowhere (they weren't there when we left for my sister's house that afternoon), and then half of our bedroom flooded last night during a bout of torrential rain. Our house is just kind of a mess and smells like wet rugs and I have no groceries, but at least it's still standing and a tornado didn't hit it? (Though it kind of looks like it on the inside?) Just looking on the bright side here, people. 

the haps

Well, now that the cat's out of the bag (ha! I couldn't resist), anything I have to say after that is less and less exciting until about five months from now. At least for now. I've got nothing! I haven't been updating posts as frequently because my life right now is kind of boring, not because I've been sick. Which is great! I really can't complain. Here's what's happening/what's on my mind these days, in case you are curious:

1. I feel pretty good—thanks for asking. My sisters and mom generally have pretty horrible morning sickness so I didn't really believe I was pregnant for a long time. For most of my first trimester I did go to bed before 10, sleep twelve hours, nap 2-3 times a day and still fell asleep before 10 each night, so I guess that should have been an indicator. Now I'm 17 weeks (~4 months for those who don't measure time in weeks—it's so confusing) and feeling pretty good still, but I am hungry all the time. And still kind of tired. So, not really that different from when I wasn't pregnant. Though I do look far less pregnant when I wake up than I do by the end of the day, which is still a small mystery to me.

2. How are we going to fit a baby in our apartment? This will be a recurring feature from here on out, as I am finding a dearth of resources online for people who don't move to two-bedroom apartments once they have a baby, so I'm going to make it my mission to make this little place feel less cramped. Several people have told me that their kids sleep in their bathroom so I know all is not lost. Also, Robbie made me laugh last week when we were looking at mini cribs online and he said "it's smaller than normal-sized baby stuff; shouldn't it be cheaper?" Oh, Robbie.

3. I'm not ready for crazy summer weather. Last week it dropped below 60 degrees and I needed to turn on our heater because I was So Cold, and today it's supposed to hit the high 80s and the air is supposed to be dripping with humidity. Never a dull moment with DC's weather.

4. Last week I kitty-sat for our friends' two cats, and I spent a good 45 minutes with their purring cat Ira on my lap and I didn't want to get up and go home. So my question is, will Robbie mind if I still beg for a cat even though there's a baby coming?

too busy thinking 'bout my baby

My mom has left me with the impression that if I didn't blog it, it's not official yet. So, here it is—Li'l Ham, joining our family this October. Robbie and I are pretty much beside ourselves. I even made a playlist to commemorate it.

Also, please don't judge my apparent lack of eyebrows, which are always hiding behind my glasses—I need some fake ones a la Stan Sitwell.

Also also, that bump is part baby and part big lunch. It's kind of touch and go around here with "is she pregnant? or is she chubby?"