My Photogenic Sweetheart

I know, it's been nearly two months to the day since I posted anything. The first trimester of pregnancy number two was a little rough. Nausea settled in around 11 AM and lasted until about 10 PM, and I was so tired I was in bed about as soon as I could be after getting Harper down. Work also got really busy and sapped any extra energy I had, so pretty much all non-essential activities (like blogging, returning emails to friends, exercising, unpacking the remaining boxes from our remodel) came to a standstill in the last few months.

But I hit the magic second trimester (well, plus a few weeks) and I'm finally feeling good again. I even went on my first vacation without Harper a week ago (went to New England for five days with friends), and yesterday I made it to a yoga class. I'm definitely glad to be back in the world of the living.

To celebrate my return to the blog, here are a few pictures of my oh-so-photogenic toddler. She's one cute kid, but man, she takes terrible pictures. Most of the time she won't hold still long enough to get a photo, and she never smiles. This time she did stand still, but she just stood in the middle of the room with her eyes closed. Then she needed to see what was happening behind the camera so my opportunity for a still shot was gone, which is when I got the third "I'm coming to get you" photo. At least she has cute clothes.

By the way, as you can tell from the bear in the pictures, Harper has finally decided stuffed animals are fun, rather than something to stick in your mouth once and then chuck on the floor in disgust. In the last two weeks she's suddenly very interested in playing with her baby doll, and she's taken this purple bear with her everywhere the last two mornings. I had to pry it out of her hands so she could eat breakfast.

Secret Keeping

Monday and Tuesday afternoons this week I heard a great series on NPR about day care. Michele Norris hosted a round table discussion with several parents from the D.C. area, all talking about day care and its costs, the guilt you feel dropping your kids off, how important it is to find a great center or nanny to care for your kids, and the challenges of parenting away from your own parents or siblings.

I heard these discussions as I was driving to pick up Harper from day care, and since I missed a little bit of each one, Tuesday night I logged onto my computer, looked them up on NPR's website and listened to the whole series, something I've often meant to do but never have. When I was done I was thinking, "That was really interesting," and then I saw the button that said Contact Us. "Okay," I thought, "since I'm here at my computer, I will." And I emailed my first comment ever to NPR, telling them how timely I thought the series was--after all, I heard it while driving to pick up my kid from day care--and that I appreciated the discussion.

The next day they read my comment on the air. It was shocking to hear my own name announced on national radio. It was extra shocking because I hadn't really realized what I'd written: that the piece was very timely for me because I found out last week I'm pregnant again.

Yes folks, I'm pregnant with Kiddo 2 and I unwittingly announced it to the entire country yesterday. We were planning to keep it a secret for a few more weeks--since I'm only five weeks along--but then I went and told a national news organization about it. Brilliant. Within 30 seconds of it airing on NPR my phone and inbox were flooded with friends and family contacting me saying, "Hey, I just heard on NPR that your pregnant!" This morning my neighbor came over and said, "Um, my husband was in San Diego yesterday and said he heard Harper was going to have a sibling. Is that true?" Even my GC knew.

If you missed the grand reveal, you can listen to it here. Hey, if you're going to tell a secret, might as well do it with style, right?

And for those of you who need the facts: I'm due April 10 and so far am feeling pretty good. The nausea has been limited to just the afternoon, which is an improvement over last time. Of course, I've only known I'm pregnant for about a week, so we'll give it a little time before doing too much comparison.

The Big Day...sort of

Well, today's the big due date. I've had some contractions today, but so far there's nothing to make us head to the hospital...or keep us from putting in a full day at work. Baby Beer has four hours to make it on her due date. Probably not going to happen, but I'll keep you posted!

By the way, watching a nature show on PBS with vivid footage of animals giving birth on a TV with an extremely clear picture only a few days before you yourself give birth is not recommended. The footage of the chameleon birth was the worst. So much goo. So very much goo. And baby chameleons aren't really all that cute. The baby has to at least be cute to make up for having to watch it come out. Even the hippo was better than the chameleon.

1 day left...

Yep, still pregnant.

At my appointment on Friday the doctor said there really hadn't been any progress since the initial announcement of dilation four weeks ago. Not exactly the news we were hoping for. Joe had a meeting during my appointment, so I sent a text with the lack of news, and he called me as soon as his meeting was done at 10am. "You mean I have to work all day?" he asked. He apparently had been convinced that I was going to walk into the appointment without any labor symptoms and walk out with the doctor's instructions to get to the hospital immediately because the baby was coming.

We used the weekend to keep working on the house, this time tackling the living room. The couches we ordered back in March are scheduled to be delivered on Friday (fantastic timing, eh?), so we decided it was finally time to go out and buy the new TV we'd been discussing. That's right, for the first time in our lives, we paid money for a TV. And my goodness, did we pay. However, when we first turned the TV on at home, we both sat stunned for a good 20 minutes. It was almost creepy how clear the picture was--who knew that actors had pores on their faces like everyone else?

The living room is definitely looking better thanks to the slim new TV and the new TV cabinet we bought. Joe carried in the new TV under one arm, and had to carry the old one out on a dolly (with much cursing). Our friends, who have had to help us move that beast of a TV several times (Joe refers to it as a boat anchor), will be glad to know that my initial suggestion that we keep it in our basement was adamantly rejected by Joe. Goodwill will be getting a new donation--as soon as we can get someone to help lift it into the back of the car, that is.

Between the new TV, cabinet, and the few pictures we finally hung up, the house is starting to look like a real home with some personality, rather than some college kids squatting in someone else's house. Now if we can just get that baby to show up before the delivery men arrive on our porch with two couches, we'll be in good shape.

Five days...

The results of the low pressure system:

Snow = Yes
Baby = No

Since we weren't headed to the hospital last night, Joe and I were able to attend our first HOA meeting for the new house. Believe me, labor would have been more enjoyable.

There were about 30 people at the meeting, and we were the youngest by at least 25 years. There were two old men in particular who must have been board presidents in the past, and who found something to argue about in absolutely every discussion. After two hours we'd only gotten through two of seven agenda items.

The third agenda item was an ancient lady who gave a presentation on her company, which the HOA was considering using to do our accounting. After listening to her talk about her method for keeping extensive manila file folders on each homeowner for the fourth time, I finally got up to use the bathroom. When I came back in, she was attempting to answer someone's question about whether or not the HOA covenant would be available on her website. "No, no, we don't use a website. We keep everything in a file, see, where you can find all the information you'll need about the homeowner, the deed, the house..."

Thirty-five minutes later she was still talking about her files and I was starting to seriously consider faking labor to get the heck out of there. We were meeting in a room at the community library, and it was ungodly hot in there. I had already removed as many layers as could be considered decent, and started fanning myself with the handout on the lady's file system. Joe gave me a questioning look that said, "Are you having a baby?" and I tried as best I could to give him a look that said, "No, I'm having a meltdown. Literally, if this lady doesn't stop talking I'm going to melt into a puddle of exasperated sweat."

My non-verbals must have been a bit lacking, however, because we had to resort to whispering (we were some of the last ones who were politely pretending to pay attention anyway). He understood my exasperation with the lady, but he was pretty surprised I was that hot. He was still wearing his fleece. That's probably been one of the strangest parts of being pregnant--consistently being warmer than Joe. He's actually had to go inside before me because he's been cold and I haven't. That's just never happened before.

Anyway, he finally understood that I was not going to have a baby right there in the HOA meeting, shook his head, and said something about the correlation between SBUs and BTUs.

We survived the rest of the meeting (thank God the library closes at 9, whether ancient ladies are done with their presentations or not), and made it home for a late dinner. Joe is doing his best to develop his own set of BTU-producing SBUs. Guess who had the salad on the right, and who supplemented his salad with leftover bacon?

Six days and counting...

Still no baby. After a weekend of 75+ degree weather, we're supposed to get 1-2 feet of snow in the next 36 hours. Everyone keeps saying maybe the low pressure system will finally get Baby Beer motivated...sounds a little crazy to me, but if it works I'd be very happy. And it does seem appropriate that our child would decide to arrive when the driving conditions to the hospital will be at their most treacherous. If the impending snow storm doesn't do the trick, I have an appointment on Friday morning where the doctors will discuss my post-date strategy: most likely another ultrasound and depending on what they see, up to one more week of waiting. Driving in the snow storm doesn't sound so bad...

In other news, I finally went to my last pre-paid yoga class on Thursday, and my decision to be done with prenatal yoga was reaffirmed. We had a sub who seemed to have forgotten that pregnant women can't bend over very well. I swear we spent 85% of the class in a forward fold with our heads between our knees--or at least, that's where our heads were supposed to be. Mine wasn't even below my shoulders, since all I can do is the classic "slouch" position.

The lady also introduced two new moves, both of which involved standing on one leg, bending to touch the floor in front of you with one hand, and raising the other arm and leg in some combination of poses above and behind you. One was called Flying Star and one was "not Flying Star." I never really figured out the difference because it didn't matter. I couldn't even stand on one leg and start to bend over without falling, much less touch the floor and then worry about turning or not turning my hips to lift the other leg behind me.

The sub saw me struggling (for once I was the most pregnant person there--no 41-weekers this time) and graciously suggested we could use a block to help balance if we couldn't reach the floor. I actually snorted out loud it was such a ridiculous suggestion. There's two feet between my hand and the floor, lady. The block is six inches high. Unless you've got some extend-o blocks in the back that I don't know about, this pose is never going to happen. Besides, these hefty SBUs I'm packing might be helpful in stabilizing side to side movement when standing upright, but when you start throwing that kind of weight around in the air, no amount of leg muscle is going to keep it suspended and balanced for long.

After several hastily aborted attempts at the not-so-Flying Star where I nearly started a domino chain of pregnant women by toppling into the person next to me, I gave up and spent most of the class squatting in camper's pose. Sticking out my rear end with two feet planted solidly on the floor: now that's a workout.