I might need to start wearing one of those id bracelets for when i inevitably get lost and can't remember my name, let alone how to get home.

If the whole idea of pregnancy causing mild (and hopefully temporary) stupidity is a myth, than I could be in trouble.  This morning I put my cereal bowl in the dishwasher.  I then turned and began walking toward the trash can.  I stopped a couple of steps short of it, turned around, walked back to the dishwasher and put my spoon in it.  For some reason I was originally planning on throwing it away.  

Boy or Girl?

We have our ultrasound at 10:45 this morning.  We HOPE to find out if it's a boy or a girl, and of course that everything is coming along normally.  Since I can't use my overabundance of sick days for my maternity leave, I decided to take off the whole day today.  Yesterday I told my students why I wouldn't be there today.  My second period wanted to guess whether I was having a boy or girl, so I passed around a voting sheet.  They were split right down the middle, fifty-fifty.  The rest of my classes were all slanted to boy.  Or maybe all but one, I can't remember.  The winners get candy tomorrow.  So, I probably won't send out any candy to you reading, but if anyone would like to venture a guess, have at it.  Now is the time because hopefully it will no longer be a mystery by this afternoon...Stay tuned : )

style.

Don't you love it when you see a young child who's parent obviously allowed them to put their own outfit together that day?  It's almost always part costume.  The socks are generally a focal point.  And confidence just seems to waft all around the little fashionista/fashionisto.

Signs

Stevie Nicks is haunting me.  

For the last couple of weeks, I walk into a store or change the station on the radio and find Stevie singing in her uber-raspy voice---one day it happened three times, and it was the same song each time.  Today NPR was talking to a woman about her parrot.  I lost interest and switched the station.  Of course it was Stevie.  Sometimes when the same song, or comment from people I know, or the same book title-- or anything really-- keeps coming up in my life repeatedly I wonder, is God trying to tell me something ?   A lot of times I find some relevance or meaning.  But this...I'm having trouble connecting to anything in my life...

Did she make you cry?

Make you break down?

Shatter your illusions of love?

Is it over now?   

Do you know how...

To pick up the pieces and go hooome?

Rock on ancient queen

Follow those who pale in your shadow

Rulers make bad lovers

You better put your kingdom up for sale.

Hmmm...I got nothin'.

On a totally different note, I can feel the bun moving now!  This is a very exciting development. All of a sudden a couple of days ago I just started feeling these little patters on and off.  The signs all keep pointing to being pregnant. I guess it really is true.  Still hard to believe.

And one more thing:  I have found out about two other people (who shall remain nameless) being pregnant in the last 24 hours.  Anyone else have an announcement?...

Home sick

Well, I am home and I am sick.  I caught the cold that many of my students have been trying so hard to give me by coughing and sneezing in my face for the last two weeks.  I woke up at about 3:30 this morning coughing uncontrollably.  I called Gabe (he was downstairs on the couch where I had banished him for his own good) up and requested some tea.  The coughing finally let up after about a half and hour.  By that time I was wide awake, so I called the district substitute line and typed up some sub plans until about 6:15.  I "slept" for about 20 minutes, got up and dragged my sorry self to school.  This is not so big of a deal considering the drive to school takes all of three minutes.  Once there, of course two of the (closest) main copiers were down, and my computer decided to not let me print off an activity sheet for no good reason.  I managed, met my sub and left just as kids were coming in.

Gabe has taken out the trash, the recycling, loaded the dishwasher, done a couple loads of laundry, gotten me softer kleenex and gone to work for a meeting, promising to return with my favorite orange juice that I just happened to have a coupon for.   

Daly has slept.

I am now surrounded by a mountain of crumpled kleenex, my nose is far redder than normal, my hair is stringy, and could I smell at all, I'm sure I would notice my breath which has to smell awful by now after hours upon hours of breathing through my mouth.  And yes, I have brushed my teeth.   

One week from today hopefully we will find out if I'm having a boy or a girl.  I'll be sure to post what we find.  

In the meantime, stay healthy everybody!

YAHOO!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY!!!!

Prego update (there will probably be a lot of these...)

We had our second baby-doctor's appointment yesterday and met my doctor for the first time. We both really liked her.  After pushing on my belly a bit, looking over my blood tests, and asking and answering some questions, she congratulated us on the fact that I'm having a "very normal" pregnancy.  Very welcomed words.  We did not have an ultrasound, but we did get to listen to the bun's heartbeat.  This was a big relief, as I've felt so normal it's hard to believe I'm actually pregnant.  I've gotten used to telling people I'm "pregnant", and used to thinking of myself as a "pregnant" person...but actually believing there is in fact a person growing inside of me seems a little too strange to be real---and somehow different from saying I'm pregnant.  It's like pregnant is just my new state of being: I'm pregnant.  Like I'm 5'8" or have blue eyes.  These things don't have consequences, they are just facts of my life.  So it's hard to wrap my brain around the idea (and reality) that in just under 6 months I won't be pregnant, but --God willing-- I will have a person to show for it. Strange.  And completely wonderful and exciting, don't get me wrong, but also bizarre.  

I gained 8 pounds since my last doctor visit.  This proves to me that it can't just be bloating from gas.  

I watched about a dozen different 3-5 minute videos online this morning dealing with labor, delivery, what happens right after and so on.  I now know all about APGAR, antibiotic goop that goes into your baby's eyes right after birth, what exactly is happening when your water breaks, vitamin k shots, why baby's don't drown in water births, and that hippies appear to experience the least amount of pain during childbirth.   It's convinced me to look more into their hippie ways when it comes to childbirth. From what I can tell so far, these are some of the hippie recommendations: dim lights, have husband constantly massaging your back ---um, OKAY, keep your eyes closed a lot and listen to music you like, and maybe rock back and forth on your hands and knees. And keep telling yourself, and those around you that your body was designed for this.  None of that seems very extreme or out there.  I'll forego the incense burning next to my bed and the summoning Mother Earth of course, substituted with some serious praying I imagine. 

 And does anyone have any input regarding water births?  Because from where I'm sitting, that looks like the way to go.  The lady I watched for the water birth video barely grunted or frowned during the two pushes it took to deliver her baby.  My hospital has a jacuzzi in every room...I'm not against (at this point) delivering my first child by sea.

We met the king.

Last night I got a hankerin' for gyros.  It turns out that the "Gyro King" is located just three short miles from our house. So we got it together, and found the king.

Things I liked about the restaurant:

1.  Definitely qualifies as a "hole in the wall"---this means it has a gritty authenticity to it, where the message is, "Our food is so good, we don't have to care what decorates the walls or if all of the tables and chairs match, or if we get the floor swept everyday, or not.  In fact, it's so good, we can have two televisions, that's right, two, facing us behind the counter at all times so we can stay up to date with the Greek shows.  In fact, while we're taking your order and ringing it up, we'll probably keep right on watching our Greek television shows.  Don't worry, you'll get your food."   I like this very much.

2.  Because of the television watching during the order taking, they brought us two orders of baklava instead of the one we ordered.  And they were delicious.

3.  Real Greek people working (a family-including one very bored adolescent boy and one slightly less bored teenage boy) with accents so thick you can barely understand them.

4.  The patriarch of the family is the cook.  And don't expect him to smile at you, either.

5.  The food was very good.

Things I didn't like:

1. The small hair (that I chose to believe was a arm hair) I found on the edge of my hommos.

2.  The second small hair (another arm hair) I spotted on my lettuce once I was finished with my meal.  

I chose to believe Gabe when he told me not to worry because my stomach acid would destroy any hairs that I didn't see before eating.  This allowed me to eat my meal, but until I fell asleep last night I definitely felt like there was a hair stuck on the back of my throat.  There wasn't, it was all in my head, but I could have sworn it was real.  I woke up alive this morning, so it seems I'm no worse for the wear.

Did you think it would ever happen?

Helloooooooooo, everybody!!! Alrighty roo, I have about 30 minutes before going to Gabe's writing class.  What's that, you ask?  Be patient, it's all in this blog.  There's no reason you should know yet, because as you may have noticed, it's been ages since I last blogged anything very informative.

So I am currently in the very comfortable second trimester of my pregnancy.  Amen for that.  Literally overnight (a few weeks ago, now) I woke up back to (almost) my normal self.  Rather than becoming an incoherent blob around 3:00, I now make it all the way to 9 pm.  I no longer require 18 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period, and standing up from the sofa does not cause me to need an immediate nap.  This is much easier to live with.  PLUS, my constant state of being is queasy?  No sir, not anymore.  After three months of it, I actually got pretty used to always feeling like if I thought about it too much I could throw up at any given moment.  So when I woke up that glorious day feeling fine again, I have to say, I was not just a little worried that something was wrong.  I've now come to accept and embrace this not nauseous feeling.

We have our next dr's appointment on Tuesday.  Say a little (or big) prayer that everything is on track and developing normally.  If we have an ultrasound, we should be able to find out the gender---but I'm not sure we'll have another u.s. until November.  Yes.  We are finding out if Bobbie is a boy or girl.  And I'm very excited to find out. I don't know how people can wait.

Since my last respectable blog, Tim and Kristi have been back to visit twice and since moved to Vancouver.  We were very happy to spend time with them in Aurora, as well as on a trip to Indiana...more on that later.

Here are Maci and Kya at Sonya and Kendal's the night we had dinner over there during T and K's first visit.  
Chrissie and Krisit:

This was FOREVER ago! For whatever reason, since I've been prego, I have taken an interest in cooking!  Who would have though?!  This was one of my first big endeavors, a wild rice and wild mushroom soup with garlic butter.  It was delicious and I was quite proud of how similar my soup looked to the picture.  At the stage of cooking skill I am currently at, I generally prefer to cook recipes that show me what the outcome should look like.  Very helpful.
Magazine photo on left, my soup on right:

Gabe is teaching his final creative writing class tonight, a requirement for grad school.  I think it's been eight weeks.  I took this on the first Wednesday.  Notice how bright it was at 7 pm.  No longer.  It's pitch black out now, and I need to leave soon.  He does a fantastic job, and even someone like me (who isn't all that interested in creative writing) has enjoyed and benefitted from his creativity and ideas.  
Daly basking:
Some student projects:

This was Tate's first birthday party.  Notice the four heads facing away from the camera in the second photo (Dylan, Maci, Kya, Conner)---all related to each other, either sibling or cousin.  Anyway, don't they all have amazing hair?  I get a little jealous every time I see them :)

This was on the last day of our family trip to Plymouth, IN.  Gabe's grandparents, Vic and MaryLou celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary, and we all got to be there to share it with them.  It was a fantastic weekend.  I got to meet a lot of Gabe's relatives for the first time.   We had a really nice time.   Here is the family band, Gabe, Kristi and Janae---rocking that church youth building like it's never been rocked before.  On this last day, Gabe's cousin Kristi Kavicky put together a surprise baby shower for us, which was so thoughtful.  We felt very loved.



Here is Kristi's little boy, Jacob being rolled in a tire by his dad, Eric.  There were all sorts of giggles coming from the rolling tire.
I will post some belly progress pictures soon...

so, it's monday...

It's gonna happen. Today. I'd promise, but I did that this weekend, and I'm guessing it would sound kind of hollow now.