On the outside

It's a little weird for me, at times, to be sitting on the sidelines during this pregnancy. I say at times, because mostly I am blissfully once-removed from the biological process that is wreaking havoc with poor AnnaRay's body. But there are moments, like when I see the full swell of her belly as she rises from a chair or the bed and I'm hit with the realization - as if for the first time - that there is a baby growing in there, that I feel a twinge of desire to be the one carrying the burden.

You'd think that if AR's daily complaints weren't enough to banish any such desires from my head, then the numerous reminders I left for myself while pregnant (in journals, emails to my future self, notes stuffed in books) that I do not want to be pregnant again would provide adequate guard against such wistful and foolish feelings. But alas, you'd be wrong.

Perhaps it's because I don't actually remember being pregnant. When I read things like this in my journal:

When people ask me how I'm feeling, I say great! And I mean it. But it occurred to me last night that I'm actually quite uncomfortable. I guess I only notice it at night - the bloated feeling, back pain, and difficulty breathing that makes it hard for me to fall asleep, not to mention the constant need to pee, which keeps me from staying asleep - so it's easy to forget during the day, when people are most likely to inquire after my physical well being. During the day, I just feel tired. Wiped out really.

it's like reading words that were written by someone else.

The one thing I do remember was feeling the baby kick, though as Anna feels the new little tiny move inside her, I realize I don't remember what it felt like so much as that it was the one part of being pregnant that I enjoyed. I had this to say about it at five months:

Sometimes, Anna can feel the baby kick when we lie in bed with her hand on my belly. It's boring when the baby doesn't kick.

And this a couple weeks later:

This is definitely the fun part. I feel the baby all the time now. Sometimes it's little pops; sometimes it feels like something swishing around.

At seven months, it seems, I became a little monomaniacal:

It has become my new obsession, staring at my vast abdomen watching for the little (sometimes large) movements that make my tummy roll like jello." I have also felt it imperative that ... anyone else in the room ... see it happening too. Or at least feel it. But the baby never wants to cooperate and put on a show, so I end up holding someone’s hand on my belly for five minutes, then give up and let them have their hand back, only to feel the little tiny kick again.

So I guess it's not all that strange when I hold my hand on AR's belly these days, I feel a little like an outsider excluded from the party. I wonder if expectant daddies ever feel that way.

Feeling less than well

I should be writing something witty or at least interesting right now about life in the little green house, my daily bus commute with TheBoy or the continuing and wonderful collapse of the Red Sox. But I can't. I just don't feel up to it.

We're at week 32 in this fascinating adventure known as pregnancy and, I have to say, it's getting a little old. Sure, I love feeling Beta kick or nudge or, as I imagine it, practice the boxing out motion he/she is going to employ someday to become the leading rebounder in Ivy League history. Yes, I actually am enjoying having people note my increasing size. Attention isn't always a bad thing.

At the same time, I'm starting to get a sense of just how uncomfortable the next eight weeks are going to be. Junior's head is resting quite firmly against my bladder, meaning I have to pee pretty much constantly, and my pelvic bone, meaning I feel like I got into a particularly unpleasant bike wreck that involved whacking my lady bits against the saddle over and over again. I can't sleep for more than two hours at a time without waking up, which has made me quite the pleasant spouse/parent. (At least the random weeping has ceased, for now.) I'm currently using four pillows in bed, and the over-under right now has me finishing up with at least six. I am a big girl, and I take big strides when I walk. Or I did. Now, the slightest incline leaves me short of breath, and if I try to stretch my legs out to their normal pace, I feel like I'm about to do a split. I don't, you might have guessed, do splits.

This week, things have gotten even more difficult. I have a cold. Normally, that would be no problem. I'd take some Nyquil or Tylenol PM, sleep for 16 hours straight and feel much better come morning. Except in my delicate condition, drugs are bad, m'kay? So I'm just suffering through. Like a stoic, as you can tell.

Despite all this, pregnancy is still a beautiful, wonderful, life-affirming experience. A disgusting, discomforting, gassy life-affirming experience. And we haven't even started childbirth classes yet. As TheBoy would say, "Owie, owie, ow!"

Oy Vey!

Ahem.
I am always a Jew. It's just that I don't always believe in God. And when The Boy came to me, apparently unsatisfied with your response to his question (was that your head I heard banging against the wall?) the query was no longer, "Who made the world?" Oh, no. I was prepared for "Who made the world?" (Sometimes, when I'm in the shower, I like to think out answers to difficult questions I think The Boy might ask as he grows, like "What is God?" and "Why don't I have a daddy?" I tend to take long showers.) But The Boy blindsided me with "Who is it we believe made the world?"

See, there's that basic assumption that we're believers that shorted my circuits. I suppose the proper answer would have been, "Well, we're Jewish, and many Jews believe that God made the world. But we also believe in science, and science tell us something different," at which point he no doubt would have stopped listening and wandered off to play with his trains. But I was preparing dinner at the time, and with no time to jump in the shower, I just blathered something noncommital - I can't remember what, and let's hope he doesn't either - while thinking, "I'm really blowing this."

Nice job, judybat - and just in time for the holidays!

Fill in the blank

OK, team, here's one for you. How are the sometimes Jew and certified heathen supposed to answer this one?

"Mommy, mommy, mommy. Who made the world?"

My grandfathers' ghosts

A moving truck arrived in front of our house on Saturday containing furniture and other items from my grandfathers' apartment that my parents generously paid to have shipped out to me. The apartment had been my dad's parent's place and sat vacant for a few years after my dad's father (Pop) died about 10 years ago until my mom moved her father (Grandpa) in when it no longer seemed like a good idea for him to be on his own in San Diego.

Grandpa died last fall, so of course it's a little bitter sweet to be the recipient of such bounty. The first thing I noticed when the stuff came off the truck was that it smelled like Pop's apartment. I opened a desk drawer that used to serve as an entry table in the hall and it hit me - the smell of polished wood gone dry and starched linens washed to within an inch of their lives. My sister is the sentimental one, but I must admit, I got little weepy.

The load included a stunning dining room table and matching buffet, which I'd been looking forward to put in our dining room since we bought the house almost two years ago, and a gorgeous bedroom set of two dressers, a night stand and vanity - all huge, solidly built and in great condition - that will replace Anna's childhood dresser and the one I bought 12 years ago at a yard sale for 40 bucks (both refinished in the shabby-chic style with the indispensible help of my mother-in-law) and the two unfinished pine tables from Ikea that that served as bedside tables but never came close to handling the mass of books, magazines and other sundry dust-covered objects that we kept heaped upon them.

In short, our furniture is finally living up to the promise of our 1922 craftsman-style house. It's a grown-up house now, though I can't shake the feeling when I open a drawer to retreive a pair of socks in morning that I'm sneeking around in my Pop's bedroom, snooping for treasure that will tell me more about who he was before he became my Pop.

The name game

Beta, Segundo, LT (Little Tiny) - these monikers are all well and good while our latest edition is still in utero, but we may have a problem when the new kid arrives. We're o.k. on girls' names - there are a couple we both like - but if the kid shows up XY, we're at a loss.

Part of the problem is we used up all boys' names we like on The Boy. (Including his Hewbrew name, he's got four, thus honoring all sides of our family.) The other part of the problem is we're trying to avoid the more common names.

When she's not trying to convince me that our next child - boy or girl - should be named Dean Smith, AR has a tendency to offer up presidential names or last names that, when used as a first name, make you think of fox hunts and polo ponies: Hunter, Archer, Weston.

I like to think my suggestions are a bit groovier, more big picture, but in fact they're not even suitable for children of the rich and famous: Benzene, Aubergine, Sudoku, Batman, Ultra, Introducing (think about it.)

Not to be outdone, The Boy has come up with some winners of his own, though I'm not sure where he gets his inspiration: Big Chair, Nothing, Bitamenamin (Vitamin), Ocean and - he's really pushing hard for this one - Flip.

Anyone else have any bright ideas?

The new New Yorker cover

Of course the brilliant people at the New Yorker did something unique and striking for the Sept. 11 anniversary. Except, and I'm ashamed to say this didn't quite work for me. Maybe it's the fact that it's two covers, and the impact sort of gets lost. Maybe I'm insane. Anyone else have thoughts?

(Also, it's worth following that link just for an interesting perspective on the creative process at work.)

The Age of Enlightenment

The Boy is becoming quite the conversationalist. A couple weeks ago, his side of the discourse was largely limited to repetitive monosyllabic exclamations. They were either inquisitive (Why? Why? Why?) or argumentative (No! No! No!)

That was back in the day. Lately, he's been asserting his expertise on a number of topics. For example, he had this to say about hygiene after playing in the dirt: "I don't have to wash my hands. My hands are clean because I washed them before." And he takes a firm stance on nutrition: "I don't like tomatoes, because tomatoes are yuck."

And yesterday, he demonstrated his deep understanding of molecular biology in an exchange we had while walking to a friend's house:

Me: Are you tired, little man?

Him: No. I have lots of energy.

Me: You sound a little out of breath.

Him: That's just my energy coming out. It's coming out very fast.

If I remember my high school biology, the kid is more or less correct.

Things you hear on the bus

TheBoy started big-boy school this week -- actually it's just a different Spanish immersion pre-school, but let's not tell him that -- and as part of the daily routine, he and I go downtown together each morning on the bus. It's a treat for both of us, especially since he became very clingy toward Judybat when she went back to work. And it's seemed to coincide with a nice burst of development in his conversational skills.

For example ... On the first day of school, he cried when I tried to leave him. Yesterday, I asked him as we rode whether he was going to be a big boy when I dropped him off. His answer: "Yes, but I'm going to be a little sad for a minute." And he was: We walked in, I put him down, and he proceeded to toddle over to a tiger-shaped chair, put his head down and mope until I left.

Not all of our conversations are sweet, however. Yesterday, he also wanted to know what would happen if you cut off someone's ear. Would it bleed? Yes, Mr. Van Gogh, it probably would. "I can feel my blood," he said. What does it feel like? "Red bubbles. Haha! Funny!" Um, OK.

Today, the other passengers got an even bigger treat. Junior wanted to know -- in a voice that carried up and down the bus -- just what you would do if you had neither a penis nor a "bagina." I told him I thought that would make it pretty hard to pee, for lack of a better response.

Mass transit in Portland is such a bargain. For $1.65, you get easy transportation and a show.

The morning commute

I was a little late to work today because of all the traffic. In the bike lane. Had I been in a car, I would have been cursing the vehicle that pulled in front of me, preventing me from slipping through that yellow light. But I live in Portland, and I could only be amused by the back-up of bicycles waiting to get on the Broadway Bridge.

Once you're on the bridge, there's not a lot of room to manuever, so there's a lot of jockeying for position, lest you be caught behind someone pedalling eight miles an hour on a comfort cruiser. This morning, as I pedalled the back streets on my way to the bridge, whistling a happy tune, I passed a guy in dress shoes riding some kind of hybrid loaded down with packed pannniers. He caught up with me and made a right on red while I was waiting to turn left, but I saw him again waiting to turn onto Broadway from a side street as I whizzed past on my way to the bridge. (So much for his alternative route.) I was slowed down by the back-up and missed the light, but managed to pull ahead of a couple slo-riders before getting onto the bridge. Then Dress Shoes passes me on the uphill. Curses! He rode the rest of the bridge in the middle of the bike lane, then peeled off onto a side street before I could pass him again -the bastard! But once you're over the bridge the real fun begins, because after a steepish downhill, Broadway makes an uphill climb, starting off gradually and getting steeper with every block, and every block has a stop light, so your timing has to be just right or you lose momentum, and you better not be stuck behind someone, because there are three lanes of traffic to your left and taxis, vans and trucks standing in the loading zone to your right, so there is definitely no room for passing, but you find a way to pass, because nothing feels better than flying past that girl on the Bianchi or the guy in the day-glo bike shorts.

Ah, the art of urban biking.