Unaccustomed Earth

Between 2000 and 2007, I lived in eight different residences: Mom's, Dad's, Alumni Hall, Scheele Hall, University Park Apartments, College Apartments, Annapolis, and Bowie.  Since 2007, I have only lived in one place: our home.  I love our house.  I like that we began building our life as a family in it.  I like spending time in rooms I've decorated and on furniture I've picked out.  I like having enough space.  I like not having to pick up and move every year.

The one drawback of living in the same home for over four years is the accumulation of four years worth of stuff.  When I moved frequently, I got rid of the junk I didn't need because I didn't want to pack it up and move it.  Since moving into our house, though, it's been even easier to accumulate things because there is much more room here than we've had anywhere else.  This Spring, though, I realized that our house had reached full capacity.  We have had the three boxes of stuff that came from Dad's house sitting in our front room for several months because we didn't have anywhere to put it.  This started me on a mission to get rid of all the junk we don't need so I could make room for these boxes while also getting the house ready for the invasion of baby stuff that has already begun.

The biggest improvement is in our office.  This used to be a sort of junk room where we set stuff aside to get it out of the way.  We have had an ever increasing accumulation of computer guts on the floor in there, and even though we bought an extra bookshelf when I returned to grad school, there were books everywhere.  Sometimes I could clear enough room on my desk to set my laptop there.  But now:

The computer guts are gone!  I got rid of the books I don't need, so now all the books are all shelved-- properly!  That's worth repeating: I got rid of books!  I can take things in and out of the closet without everything crashing down on my head!  Both of our chairs can be pushed in all the way under our desks!

My desk resembles a workspace where a professional thinker could sit down and do some work!  All my graduate school notes and other important documents are organized and filed in my new filing cabinet!

Another type of junk I tend to accumulate is bathroom and personal care junk.  Yes, it kind of makes sense to keep an extra blow dryer and hair straightener on hand in case one breaks while I'm doing my hair.  It even makes sense to keep extra bottles of half used shampoo and conditioner in case I run out of those.  It does not make sense to keep three straighteners and two blow dryers I don't like enough for daily use in addition to a whole shelf full of extra shampoos, conditioners, and lotions.  Our linen closet, under sink storage, and bathroom cabinet are the places where I have been shoving these things for four years.  But now:

There is more than enough room in the linen closet for all of the carefully folded linens we own!  All the expired medicines are gone!  I actually know what products are in the cupboard under the sink and in the cabinet!  I can put something new in either of these places without shoving four other bottles out of the way!

The final place we put stuff to get it out of the way is our basement laundry and storage room.  We keep more permanent storage and less frequently used items like our Christmas tree and suitcases here, so this is where I was going to have to make room for the boxes from Dad.  Since we were taking the single bed out of the baby's room, we also had to make room for that to be stored in the basement.  The pile of boxes stacked up in the basement had begun to intrude so far into the laundry space that getting to the washer and dryer while holding the laundry basket required some impressive acts of contortion.  But now:

The boxes are out of the front room and the bed is out of the baby's room!  I am no longer hanging onto ten cans containing paint that is no longer be found anywhere in my house!  I can walk straight up to the laundry room sink and washer and dryer without the risk of bumping my ever growing belly!  A green sweater Vickie misplaced months ago is no longer wedged under the treadmill!

So that's what I've been up to in my off time for the past few weeks.  It feels great to have everything sorted, organized, and put away.  It's also nice to know that I not only made room for everything we want to keep but also made some extra room for the baby's stuff.  Making the big and small decisions about what to keep, what to donate, and what to trash was time consuming and at some points difficult, but I feel so relieved now that it is behind me.  Billy and I like to keep the house cleaned up, but we get so busy that it's easy to let the piles overwhelm our open spaces.  We stop and put everything away when the clutter starts to bother us, but this is the first time in a while those away areas are also neat and organized.  I also feel like I've learned an important lesson about how to keep stuff from overwhelming our space now that we've pleasantly settled into our home.  I don't know if anyone else cares about what the inside of my linen closet looks like, and plenty of people who are neater than me might look at these pictures and feel compelled to come re-organize my bathroom cupboard.  I wanted to write this post, though, as a reminder to myself to not let another four years pass before I make the effort to get rid of the stuff we don't need in order to make room for our sanity and the things we do.

Also, I wanted to write the post in order to admit that Billy was probably right when he first began claiming that I have begun nesting.  : )

(Unaccustomed Earth is a collection of short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri about Indian immigrants living in various locations inside the US.  She borrows the title from a quote from a Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Custom-House" that she uses as an epigraph for the book.  He writes "Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn out soil.  My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, will strike their roots into unaccustomed earth."  The book is also fairly recent (2009), and if you're looking for something to read this summer which is smart and entertaining, I'd definitely recommend it.  I know a lot of the books I talk about here might have a limited audience outside academia, but this is not one of them.)

The Belly Book

Yesterday, Billy and I attended our first childbirth class.  This was an eight hour class hosted by the hospital where I'll deliver, and it's designed as a general overview of the labor and delivery process.  We enjoyed having the chance to hear the questions and concerns of other expectant parents, the explanation of how the process is handled at our hospital, and the presentation from a local pediatrician who spoke about things to consider when choosing the baby's doctor.  The class also addressed the different stages of labor and types of complications that can arise, and though I've read much of that information already, it was helpful to hear it again and have the chance to ask questions.  In August, Billy and I will begin attending a weekly childbirth class presented by a certified doula.  This one will probably cover much of the same information, but it will also give us more time in guidance in learning the specific techniques and comfort measures that will help us get through the birth.

If you're reading this post on the blog itself, you've probably already noticed that I added a small slideshow in the right sidebar that shows the expansion of my belly.  If you're reading the post on a blogreader, you should click over to the blog to check out the growing bump!  My friend Krista recommended The Belly Book, and the book has a spot for my weekly belly picture, so we've been taking the same photo every week since we got the positive pregnancy test.  Now that there is a really significant difference between how big my bump is getting and how flat my belly was when we began, I thought it might be fun for others to watch the belly's progress.  The numbers in the corners show how many weeks along I am in each photo.  The book also has a place to keep track of each prenatal visit and asks a series of questions for each trimester that help me keep track of different milestones.  Filling it out has been fun, and I think it will be a nice keepsake for our daughter, but I am also looking forward to having a careful record of my progress to look back on when I am pregnant next time.

I hope each of you are enjoying your weekend!  Those of us out east are trying to beat the record-breaking heat, but I hear the Pacific Northwest finally had a nice, warm, sunny weekend summer day!

The Land of Little Rain, Part 2

Our trip to Austin was too memorable to fit in one post, so here goes part two!  For some reason, my first Austin post didn't show up in my Google Reader.  If you missed it, you can read that here.  As I wrote before, to me Austin felt like a place where simple moments were unexpectedly memorable, so I've decided to recap the trip by writing about some of these types of moments.

-My favorite shopping experience was wandering around South Congress Ave, even though I didn't end up buying anything.  Billy and I had a good time looking through all the boutiques at the various selections of crafts, jewelry, housewares, and the like.  There were also a few open lots where they set up booths in the evening which had a distinct Portland Saturday Market feel, though there were significantly fewer vendors.  We went inside Allens Boots, and I wish I'd taken a picture of the walls and walls of distinctive boots they have in there.  When I found myself wondering why I thought I would like purchase a $300 pair of distressed green leather cowboy boots, I remembered the pair of pink cowboy boots I had as a child.  They only came from Mervyn's, but they had fringe and a huge patch of glitter shaped like a lightning bolt on the side.  I believe I wore them until they fell apart on my feet.  When I was looking at the shelves inside the newly opened South Congress Books, my heart actually started pounding noticeably when I saw a vintage copy of Katherine Anne Porter's Pale Horse, Pale Rider prominently displayed.  I wanted to buy that, too, until I decided that this book should not belong to someone who already loves the book, has largely memorized the book, and has held KAP's own print copies and manuscripts of the book.  This particular book needed to stay there, perched on its stand, until someone new has the chance to discover how great it is.  Thinking I wanted to buy the boots made me feel like there might be a little bit of Austinite in me, and seeing KAP get some much-deserved love and exposure near her birthplace made me feel like there is a little bit of what makes me me inside other Austinites.

-Anyone who visits me here on the blog knows I am a big tennis fan.  I don't know if anyone who hasn't lived with me in my house realizes just how much of a tennis fan I am.  I can watch it literally all day.  I watch it whether or not one of my favorite players is playing.  I love watching the players construct the points, I love watching them succeed and fail in executing their shots, and I love watching to see if they have the mental toughness it takes to keep it together in the match's difficult and intense moments.  The one thing I do not love about tennis, especially about attending it live, is that it's a sport for fancy people and thus, you have to behave yourself in certain ways as a spectator.  This is not true for the Davis Cup.  Attending a round of Davis Cup matches, which is called a "tie" for reasons that are unclear to me (though it seems to be borrowed from cricket), is the major exception to the etiquette rules.  When you watch Davis Cup on TV, you can tell the crowds get really loud.  The chair umpires have to quiet them down.  Now that I've seen a home Davis Cup tie for myself, the closest comparison I can draw is to say that it is like attending a home playoff series in a major American sport, if one team was allowed to be the home team for the entire series.  Your team needs to win 3 of 5 matches to advance and avoid elimination, so the tension is high, but so is the excitement.  They give out thundersticks, GO USA signs that also double as noisemakers, and red white and blue pom-pons that also have a noisemaking clicker built inside.  This means that attending these matches might be the only chance I get to demonstrate in a physical way how much I love and enjoy watching this sport.  I wasn't just allowed to scream at the top of my lungs, clap until my hands hurt, and jump out of my chair in excitement-- I was joined in these behaviors by 17,000 other people.

It was the best, even though Team USA lost all three of the singles matches they played.  First, Mardy Fish lost to Feliciano Lopez, 4-6 6-3 3-6 7-6(2) 6-8.  Then, Andy Roddick lost to David Ferrer, 6-7(9) 5-7 3-6.  If Mardy had beaten Ferrer on Sunday, it would have extended the tie to the equivalent of a playoff series Game 7 between Roddick and Lopez, but Fish lost that match 5-7 6-7(3) 7-5 6-7(5).  The combination of these losing efforts and the unique atmosphere of Davis Cup helped me realize, though, just how many exciting moments there can be in a tennis match, even in a losing effort.  Mardy had trouble taking advantage of the opportunities he had to win both matches, but he kept fighting.  I don't know how he managed to mentally stay in the match on Sunday.  It was unbelievable to watch.  If I'm being unbiased, I also have to admit it was quite impressive to watch Ferrer finally put Mardy away despite his refusal to give in.  Andy's scoreline looks like a pretty straightforward win for Ferrer, but the play was more even than the score reveals.  Andy came out with his forehand and serve blazing, and he was not behind in the first set until set point.  Though Andy has developed a more well-rounded game in recent years than he had when he won the 2003 US Open, I've started to feel like he has forgotten about the weapons that got him to the #1 ranking in the first place.  So I loved seeing him play high risk tennis, even if the risk did not pay off in this particular match.  (I only start to get a little depressed about the loss if I begin to think of how huge it would have been for him to win it, or to have the chance to win again to clinch the tie on Sunday.  Those wins would have been, I think, a complete rebirth for Andy's career, because he loves Davis Cup and Austin is his adopted hometown... but they didn't happen.)

Watching tennis live with Billy is easily one of my very favorite things to do.  Attending this tie with him could quite literally be the best time I have watching tennis in my entire life.  It may be my only chance, ever, to watch my favorite sport while acting like the type of enthusiastic fan I like to be.  I was glad that I was able to keep sight of that throughout the weekend, even though I was initially disappointed that Rafael Nadal decided not to represent Spain and even though the scores were not turning out the way I'd hoped.  The other thing that never left my mind was that I had decided to attend this tie because we had been unable to attend the Australian Open.  I know that if Dad could have seen how happy I was while sitting in the stands, he would have been thrilled that he figured so importantly into my decision to go.  He would have understood that to go see Andy, Mardy, and the Bryan Brothers play tennis, live, with Billy, while being allowed to cheer loudly, was exactly what I needed for me to feel like me again... but I didn't know it until it happened. 

-Speaking of the Bryan Brothers, they gave us our one singularly thrilling victory of the weekend.  Bob and Mike Bryan are identical twins from Camarillo, California, and they are the best doubles team of all time.  They've won more titles than any other team in history, and by winning Wimbledon a few weeks ago, they tied the current record of 12 doubles major championships.  They're only 33, which is still fairly young for doubles players, so they'll likely win quite a few more titles before they're done.  But they're a doubles team, so they're not nearly as famous as all of these accolades might suggest.  A few years ago, the ATP tried to do away with doubles competition altogether, and the Bryans played a significant role in keeping the competition afloat.  They are great ambassadors for the game, and they love Davis Cup because they grew up watching it and they get excited about representing their country.  I imagine they also love doubles because this is the time they get more exposure than any other time.  Davis Cup ties feature two singles matches on Friday, one doubles match on Saturday, and two singles matches on Sunday.  Since they sell tickets for the whole series, not individual days or matches, Davis Cup is the only time the Bryans get to be the featured match in front of a huge sell-out crowd.  They perform well under this pressure, and prior to the Austin match, they were 18-2 in Davis Cup play.  Since they play the third match of the tie, they have the chance to keep the team's hopes alive by winning even if the US loses the first two singles matches, as they did this time around.

I had no doubt that the Bryans were going to beat Fernando Verdasco and Marcel Granollers in Saturday's doubles match, even when they lost the first set tiebreaker.  From that point onward, they were fairly dominant.  I love watching doubles tennis, and this was the first time I'd gotten to see a best of 5 doubles match live.  Points are played more quickly in doubles, so the games and sets tend to go by quickly, and I really enjoyed getting to watch four whole sets of competitive doubles tennis.  Because our singles players were playing from behind the entire time, watching the Bryans and feeling confident that they were steering toward victory was exciting in a different way.  Knowing how much they love the game and seeing how amped they were to play the match in front of so many enthusiastic fans made it an even more enjoyable experience.  In the post-match interview, they said this was the best atmosphere they had ever played in.  It's possible that they say that after every home Davis Cup win, but it enhanced my sense that being there to see that match was a chance to be a part of something special.

-We had to eat several meals at concession stands inside the arena, but when we got to choose meals for ourselves we tried to sample the various types of food Austin has to offer.  Like Portland, Austin is home to quite a few gourmet food trucks, but we couldn't bring ourselves to sample any of their food because it would have required us to eat outside, sweating, in the near 100 degree heat.  We enjoyed Tex Mex food at Iron Cactus, had a good meal at Vespaio while deciding we are just not sophisticated enough to appreciate fine dining, and tried Texas barbeque at Stubb's.  We went to Stubb's BBQ because I thought someone had recommended it to me, and maybe someone did, but when we were accompanied by quite a few other tennis fans, I wondered if I had heard of this restaurant because it might be the place where Andy Roddick hosted a reception the day after his wedding.  (Google confirms this to be the case.)  Over the first turkey I had been able to eat in months, Billy said "Thank you for coming to Austin with me."  As if I was doing him some kind of favor by agreeing to this vacation destination... when in reality, we were there because he had graciously agreed to do everything I wanted to do.  He let me choose each place I wanted go, and then he walked around the city with me for miles so we could accomplish everything I'd planned.

So that's about it, I think.  Thanks for indulging my ruminations on our trip.  If I had to sum it up more succinctly, I'd say:
I loved Austin.  I loved seeing Davis Cup tennis live.  I love my husband.  I loved having the chance to spend one last vacation alone together while we wait anxiously for the two of us to become the three of us.  I loved knowing that my dad would have been tickled, to borrow one of his words, that he played a large role in our decision to take a trip that turned out to be so therapeutic.

The Land of Little Rain, Part 1

A few months ago, when the USTA announced that the USA vs. Spain Davis Cup quarterfinal round would be held in Austin, Texas over our anniversary weekend, I knew we had to go.  I've wanted to attend the Davis Cup for several years because it is the one time that tennis fans get to cheer wildly for their country's best players.  I've wanted to go to Austin ever since people began telling me I would love it there.  Billy and I try to take a vacation for our anniversary every year rather than exchanging gifts, but the two of us haven't had a vacation alone since 2008.  This year, a tennis-centric vacation felt appropriate, since Dad was unable to take us on the trip to the Australian Open we had all been looking forward to for a year.  I could hear him in my head insisting that we go. And we needed a vacation in the worst way.

Now that we've returned from our Austin trip, I have been trying to figure out how I can write about it to share the experience with everyone.  I thought about writing a synopsis of what we saw and did every day, but that seemed too boring, too linear, and too un-Austin-ish.  For me, Austin feels like a notable city because it is a place where unexpected moments feel a little bit magic.  Or, at least, it is a place that enabled me to recognize the magic in these unexpected moments.  So rather than trying to capture everything, I thought I'd try to write about those moments.

- On Thursday morning, we took a tour of the Capitol building, which was only a few blocks from our hotel room.  I enjoyed learning about the building and was interested in the mini Texas history lesson we got from our tour guide.  We looked up at the star inside the top of the dome, and I couldn't believe it was eight feet across.  But it wasn't until later that evening, when we were walking back to the hotel just past sundown, that I looked up at the Capitol and thought, Wow.  It was already illuminated, and you could just barely tell that it's a rose colored limestone rather than the white kind we're used to seeing in DC.  The sky was a beautiful, darkening blue, and the trees that line the entrance already looked black.  In that moment, it made sense to me why we build monuments and why we pay to keep them air conditioned and lit up at night.

- The tennis tournament got underway on Friday afternoon, and it began with an "opening ceremony" during which both teams were introduced.  Waiting for the matches to begin made me reflect on how I never would have splurged to take this trip if it hadn't been for the missed trip to Australia.  I'd like to say Billy and I will go to Australia some other time, because I know Dad would want us to, but I really can't see us doing it-- not when there are college tuition bills to pay down the road.  So I stood there during the opening fanfare, trying to keep it together while thinking about my dad, about how sorry I am for all of us that we didn't get to take that Australia trip, and about how glad he would be that we were taking this one.  Then they brought out Freddie Couples to do the coin toss.  So far as I know, Freddie Couples has no link to Austin or the Davis Cup.  But he does have a link to my childhood.  I grew up watching him with my dad on TV, and we both liked that he never wears golf gloves. I can remember seeing him in person when my dad used to take me to PGA tournaments.  So somehow, it both made perfect sense and made absolutely no sense to have him flip the coin.  All I could think when I saw him take his seat (right on the aisle, in my section) is how fun it would have been to ask him for a picture so I could text it to Dad with just the caption, "Look who I found!"

- Austin markets itself as the "live music capital of the world," so although I have what must be the least refined musical tastes of anyone I know, I wanted to see a live show while we were there.  A few weeks before we went, I was checking out different music venues when I discovered that Marc Broussard was playing at a blues club on the first night of our trip.  I bought his CD in 2004 because I liked his single big hit, "Home," and because I really liked the rest of the CD, I have bought each of his CDs since.  I've been trying to see him for a few years, but he always comes through DC and Baltimore on weeknights when I can't go.  I couldn't believe that of all nights, and all the places on tour, I'd be able to see him in Austin.  Billy and I were surprised to discover we enjoyed the Austin based opening band named Alpha Rev, but since the club had no chairs, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to stand long enough to hear much of Marc Broussard's set.  When he came out, though, he was so good, and I enjoyed the show so much, that for a while I completely forgot about being uncomfortable.  I don't normally consider myself a concert-going type person, but I loved hearing him live.  He had a group of Austin-based horn players join him during quite a few of the songs, and that made the songs I sing along with in my car sound even better.  Billy and I also took advantage of the great opportunity for people watching, and we couldn't believe the wide variety of "types" of people who were all enjoying the same music.  It felt like we were really getting to experience an authentic Austin moment, especially when Broussard thanked the audience and said that Austin is always the best show on the tour.

- Austin's unofficial slogan is "Keep Austin Weird."  From what I understand, the Keep Austin Weird movement began as one that tried to highlight the city's unique features, to support local businesses, and to fight what locals saw as the growing commercialization of their city.  I've heard that the Keep Austin Weird movement has since been commercialized, but I still like the spirit of it.  (So did Portlanders, who were either inspired to copy it or directly ripped it off, depending on how you see it.)  Hands down, the weirdest thing I experienced in Austin was watching the Congress Avenue Bridge Bats.  Over 1.5 million bats make their summer home beneath this bridge that spans Town Lake, and every evening they leave at the same time to go somewhere else to feed.  First, we watched them from a park below the bridge.  Thinking they were done, we walked up on the bridge to head to the hotel, but there were still a lot of people up there, and the sightseeing boats that give people a view from the lake were still sitting in the water.  Plus, we could still hear the bats (and smell them!) beneath the bridge, so we waited too, and watched the second wave of the exodus from directly above.  And this was, for lack of a better word, exceptionally weird.  I stood there with Billy thinking, Well, chalk this up as a way I never anticipated spending my anniversary evening.  But if sometimes the most memorable things are those you never expected to enjoy, this was definitely one of those moments.  The bats are about the size of your thumb, and they are in a hurry, so my still photos don't really capture what seeing them is like.  I did take this short video, though, which does a better job-- especially if you figure out how to view it full screen.

-Speaking of keeping Austin weird, you see people wearing t-shirts with this slogan on them everywhere you go.  I'm not much of a souvenir buyer, so I didn't really consider purchasing one.  During some downtime at the tennis matches, though, I decided it would be fun to buy a "Keep Austin Weird" onesie for the baby if I could find one.  Then I decided that this onesie should be tie-dyed, though I don't know why, because I hadn't seen any tie-dyed t-shirts.  I told Billy about wanting the onesie, so the next time we were wandering around 6th Street, he suggested we stop into a small t-shirt shop.  After admiring their line of tees featuring cartoon dachshunds and hilariously bad "weiner" puns (i.e. "My weiner wants to come out and play"), we found the Keep Austin Weird section, and what do you know!  They had Baby D's souvenir.  : )  Thankfully, the weiner shirts were not available in infant sizes.

This post was getting quite long, so I've split it in two.  Check back soon to read about the other memorable moments we experienced on our trip.

(The Land of Little Rain is a short story collection written by Mary Austin, so although its subject matter is the desert lands in California rather than Texas, I couldn't resist the title.  And even if it's not about the same land of little rain as the one we visited, it is most certainly a text about place, and about the importance of place and landscape, so it still felt appropriate.)

Visual and Other Pleasures

Hi all!  We're back from a fantastic vacation in Austin, and I'm working on a post about our trip.  In the meantime, though, Aunt Carrie requested photos of the new baby-related developments here in Millersville, so I thought I'd share a few with everyone.

Every time I think people are done telling me "You don't even look pregnant," someone says it again.  In the past week or so, though, I must've crossed some kind of imaginary threshold of pregnancy, because strangers have begun taking my pregnancy for granted.  They ask me when I'm due, if it's our first baby, and the like.  A Southwest employee told me I could have preboarded and the usher at the tennis match asked me if I have "a little Roddick in there."  I suspect that the difference in peoples' reactions relates to the angle from which they see me and what I'm wearing.  I think I tend to look more visibly pregnant in tighter tops with ruching on the sides, like this one, though they give me a bit of a lumpy profile from the front.

The baby's crib shipped a few weeks early and arrived while we were gone, so Patti and Chuck were nice enough to stop by the house and bring it inside for us.  We put it together yesterday and the mattress arrived today, so the baby's room is really coming together!  The recently painted walls look completely different in these photos, but hopefully they give you an idea of what the room looks like.  The crib is supposed to have a "walnut" finish, but the best way to describe it is to say it's almost the exact same color as Oscar. : )

As of this evening, we are also the proud new owners of a 2008 Honda CR-V!  I spent about a month narrowing my search down to the CR-V and the Ford Edge before we test drove both.  After we decided that the CR-V was the most practical fit for our growing family, we were able to find a used one that met our specifications.  I have never gotten to pick out a car for myself, and each car I've had has been between 5 and 13 years old, so I was pretty nervous pulling our new ride out of the lot.  My past two cars have been an Acura Integra and a Honda Civic, though, so being in a Honda helps me feel more comfortable with making the transition from compact car to compact SUV.  Billy pointed out that my preference for navy blue will fit right in at the Navy tailgate, and we could tell from the original title that the only previous owner lived in Salem, Oregon, so we feel pretty confident that this was the right car for us. : )

Billy thinks I have begun the "nesting" stage of pregnancy.  I don't know if this is accurate, because though I am trying to get everything ready, I certainly haven't been doing any additional cleaning around the house. : )  But I suppose it is nicer for him to say I'm nesting than for him to call it "spending money while under employed," so I'll take it!  Speaking of pregnancy itself, we had our most recent doctor's visit yesterday, and Baby D and I are both growing and progressing healthily.  She weighs about two pounds now, and I can feel her moving around all the time!  The main reason for yesterday's visit, besides the periodic check-up, was to give blood to be tested for gestational diabetes.  Aside from the discomfort of getting bigger, I've been feeling better all the time, so I feel like I have no reason to be worried about those results.

And so he doesn't feel left out, here are some gratuitous shots of Oscar celebrating our return from vacation with some nesting of his own.  It always takes him a week or so to rest up and recover from all the excitement and attention he gets at Camp Nancy while we are away!

I can't wait to share details and photos from our vacation, but as you can see, we've been plenty busy in the two days since we returned!  I have a feeling this baby is going to be here before we know it.  26 weeks down, 14 weeks to go!

While you're waiting for that Austin post, please pop over to Vickie's blog to read her very eloquent thoughts about facing the six month mark since Dad passed away.  You can view that here.  I also wanted say a quick thank-you to Catherine, Sarah D, and Kelsey for reading the blog and commenting recently.  I write the blog mostly as a way of sorting out my own thoughts and because it helps me keep my family members posted on what I'm doing.  To know that any of what I'm working through here resonates with other thoughtful women is an unexpected but delightful fringe benefit of blogging. : )

(Visual and Other Pleasures is a collection of Laura Mulvey's essays, including the one that completely changed the way I view and think about cinema.)

Of Mice and Men

Today is our fourth anniversary.  When this posts, we will be unplugged in Austin, though Billy might see it on his phone.  Or he might not see it until we get back.  But what I would like to say publicly to him on this anniversary is: 

Billy, thanks for being my gardener.

At some point early in our life together, we heard somewhere that in every relationship, one person acts as the gardener and one person acts as the flower that the gardener tends.  We used to make jokes about how I was the gardener and Billy was the flower.  Somewhere along the way, those roles seem to have reversed so significantly that I really can't remember why I ever thought I was doing the tending and he was doing the growing.  Because I manage the finances?  Because I did more of the chores when I was off during the summer?  I can't think of any other reasons.

One of the things that has served as the greatest comforts to me since losing Dad is that Dad knew I was going to be well tended after he was gone.  When I was home during his final weeks, we had several conversations which have since made it clear to me that he had a very good idea of how things would play out after his death.  He was always very intuitive, but-- and this is the case with most people in our family-- he wouldn't openly talk about his attitudes or opinions about specific issues unless you got him in a one-on-one conversation and you pressed him with questions.  Then he was happy to talk about things, though he rarely brought them up.  Thankfully for me, with nothing else to do but sit in his bed and talk, we got to have several such conversations before he passed away.  (It's also part of the reason why I miss talking to him so much on the phone.  Being a distance daughter meant I missed out on a lot of time spent with Dad, but it also meant that I regularly got to engage in the kind of conversations I rarely had with him when we were in the same geographic location.)

In one of these conversations, Dad told me that he knows "things like this," meaning his general battle with cancer but also the fairly quick way in which it was coming to an end, are difficult for people like me and him to handle because we like to plan everything out well in advance and we don't always react well when things do not go according to our plans.  So then I talked about how it felt like the universe had been trying to remind me for the past six months or so that it operates largely without respect to my plans, and we discussed how it is important to find a middle ground of continuing to do my best to plan for things while also learning to adjust well when things do not go according to plan.  And then Dad said something to me that I hope I will never forget, either as a moment or as a guiding principle.  He said, "Just keep planning on loving Billy, and everything will work out."

There have been days since January 12 where thinking about that sentence is the only thing that has enabled me to get out of bed and start my day.  Every day since January 12, having Billy as my gardener has been the main thing that has kept me functioning and moving forward.  People ask me if I think Billy will "be able to handle" watching me give birth, and I think this is a pretty standard question.  I don't think my dad would have asked it, though.  I regret that Billy, Dad, and I didn't get to spend more time together, but it is a great comfort to me to know that we spent enough time together for Dad to realize what Billy means to me, what Billy has been able to do for me so far, and what Billy will continue to learn to do for me in the future. 

To answer the question: Yes.  Billy will be able to "handle" it.  I continue to be amazed at the ability my husband has developed to intuit exactly what I need for him to do.  Billy and I celebrate four years of marriage today, but he has been watering this plant for over seven years, or just about 25% of this plant's life.  I believe so wholeheartedly in Billy's ability to give me what I need, especially after he has guided me through my dad's death and its aftermath, that I believe that even if he passes out, or throws up directly on me while I give birth, that will somehow be exactly what I need for him to do at that moment.

Billy is a planner, too.  And year 4 of our marriage did not go according to our plans.  I don't believe in much, but I do believe that so long as I keep planning on loving him, like my dad told me to, everything will be all right.

Happy Anniversary, Billy.  I love you, and marrying you was the smartest thing I've ever done. I hope that life will continue to give us opportunities to trade off as gardener and flower as we navigate our future together, and I can't wait until we have the chance to work together as gardeners for our little girl.

(Of Mice and Men is John Steinbeck's classic novel about George, Lenny, and what happens to their plans.  It draws its title from Robert Burns's line from "To a Mouse," which translates to "the best laid schemes of mice and men go often askew."  Fortunately for me, my plans have never gone quite as far askew as George's or the mouse's.  Neither of them seem to have had a Billy.)

Lifting Belly

Life is speeding along quickly in our house, which it always does when we are busy... and since we're always busy, life always seems to speed along quickly.  Between working two days a week at my old office job on campus, getting ready for the baby's arrival, taking care of neglected projects around the house, watching tennis, and catching up with friends, the few weeks since I returned from California have slipped by without me feeling like I have anything to report.  So rather than rehashing my daily activities, which seem rather unremarkable, I thought I'd spend some time discussing the question I find myself being asked with increasing frequency:
Do you enjoy being pregnant?

This is my stock short answer for this question: I sure enjoy it now more than I did a few months ago!  I am trying to enjoy this middle stage after the nausea is mostly behind me and before I get so big that I'm uncomfortable.

The long answer is more involved.  I am beginning to suspect that the people who "enjoy" being pregnant most are ones who enjoy being the center of attention, who otherwise feel neglected or in need of more attention in their everyday lives, and/or who enjoy having an excuse to eat excessively.  I am not any of these women.  I do not like having people dote on me or pay me special attention, my husband is good to me all the time (not just because I am pregnant), and pregnancy has actually made it harder, rather than easier, for me to eat. 

There are certainly some things I enjoy about being pregnant.  Most of all, I enjoy that it means there is a baby at the end, and though preparing for her arrival feels like a never-ending checklist of things to accomplish, I like that every passing day brings us closer to her arrival.  I love to see how excited Billy is about the baby and how interested he is in her development.  I also appreciate that he is encouraging and supportive about the changes my body is undergoing, especially since I struggle to recognize myself in the mirror these days.  I like getting a chance to see how excited everyone else is for Baby D's arrival, too, so even though I feel overwhelmed by all the attention I am paid as the "pregnant person" when I arrive somewhere, I try to think of it as attention people are paying to her rather than to me.  I like being told that I am going to be a good mother and/or that Billy is going to be a good father.  I don't know how people come up with these assessments, since how well a person knows us seems to have no correlation to whether they say this or not.  But whenever someone says we will be good parents, it feels like an acknowledgment that we do our best to be good people who do good in the world, and can thus be trusted to teach another little person to do the same, and that's not an acknowledgment you get to hear others make very often.

It is tempting to dwell on the things I miss about not being pregnant.  They're easy to rank right off the top of my head, even though I am well past the miserable nausea that plagued my first trimester.
1) Sleeping through the night, on my stomach
2) Running
3) Sandwiches with deli meat
4) Coffee
5) My regular clothes
6) Alcoholic beverages
I try not to get too hung up on these things, though.  It's worth giving them all up to have a healthy baby come October.  None of them are things I can't have back after our little girl arrives.  Most of them are even things I can work around.  I can eat an occasional tuna sandwich.  I allow myself a frappuccinno once in a while because they only have about half my daily allowance of caffeine.  I like my maternity clothes, too, even though there are some days in which I must try them all on before I can settle on something that looks or feels good enough to wear out of the house.

The best workaround of all, though, has been lifting weights instead of running.  I have gone through periods of weightlifing in my life before, but I can never remember actively enjoying it like I do now.  My new routine consists of 25 minutes of light cardio on the elliptical machine, about 20 minutes of arm lifts, and about 20 minutes of leg lifts.  I try to get to the gym 4 days a week, though when it's nice I sometimes walk the trail instead. 

I have decided that I want to have the baby naturally, without an epidural or other pain medications, and one of the worst things about pregnancy is knowing that this is what I want to do without feeling absolutely sure that I will be able to do it.  So I think the main reason I enjoy lifting these days is because I have convinced myself that it is good preparation for childbirth.    When I lift weights, I do three sets of every exercise with a short break between sets.  Each set gets increasingly difficult, and sometimes the last few lifts are quite painful... but then you get to take a break to recover and mentally prepare for the next set.  I like to think labor will be a lot like this, since the heightened pain of the contractions is broken up by less painful intervals in which you can try to let your body relax.  Women I know who have succeeded at delivering naturally tell me the key is to tell yourself, each time, that you can make it through one more contraction.  I think that's a lot like weight training, where it's always easier to get through the exercise if you focus on finishing one set at a time.  The main difference, obviously, is that you can choose to slow down as the reps get harder, and you get to decide how much time to take off between sets, and neither of those is the case in labor.  This type of exercise is certainly more similar to labor than distance running, though, for which I have had to teach myself to endure a long period of increasingly difficult but never unmanageable discomfort.  To be perfectly honest, the reason I am still an exceptionally slow distance runner is because I have never succeeded at forcing myself to enjoy or even endure interval training. 

Whether lifting is really good mental and physical preparation for labor, however, is not really the point.  The important thing is that I have convinced myself it is.  I've written before about how my distance running helps me in my academics because it gives me the chance to exercise my determination.  I equate these things with one another because both require persistence and keeping the end goal in sight while focusing on achieving the markers of progress along the way.  Both give me that same deep feeling of satisfaction that I can only get from accomplishing something that's really difficult.  So each time I lift, I continue to build up the parallels between lifting and labor in my head, because I know it will help me mentally even if stronger legs and arms don't actually make labor any easier.  The parallels continue, really.  When I get done running, I'm tired, but my body rarely physically hurts the way it does when I finish lifting.  Sometimes my body hurts for days afterwards, which I certainly expect to be the case after giving birth.  But it's that good hurt-- that "I just accomplished something difficult and good for me" hurt-- which gives me the satisfaction necessary to convince me to get back to the gym.  Plus, there is one thing I know for sure: now that I've graduated from 5 lb curls to 7.5 lb curls to 10 lb curls, I'm much more prepared for lugging around a baby and all of her stuff!

So perhaps a better answer to the question, "Do you enjoy being pregnant?" would be: I enjoy my regular life so much that I do not automatically find pregnancy to be additionally enjoyable.  But I am so excited about having the baby that I am working on learning how to enjoy pregnancy, to appreciate the changes it has brought into my life, to recognize what new things it can teach me about myself and those I love, and to be thankful for the ways it is preparing me to be a mother and to handle the changes that are ahead of me.

P.S. My belly is quickly obscuring my view of my Asics.  And I've only made it through 30 of the 688 pages of Digital SLR Photography All-In-One for Dummies, so I don't know if it would have been possible to get my belly and my feet in focus in the same shot.  Hopefully I can figure this camera out before I have to share blurry baby photos, too.

("Lifting Belly" is an erotic lesbian poem by Gertrude Stein.  As such, its content has very little in common with a blog a post about a heteronormative pregnant woman lifting weights during her pregnancy.  But I have to be careful, when I lift, to avoid doing anything that could strain my belly or my changing abdominal muscles, so the title of this poem frequently pops into my head and makes me smile at the irony when I'm lifting.  And then the brain starts going, and it thinks things like "Maybe it's not so different.  The poem and what I'm doing are both about one female demonstrating her love for another in a very bodily way.  I have to lift, rather than run, because my daughter is literally physically attached to me and dependent on me in ways Stein describes being joined with her lover.  So the only real difference is the erotics..." and further down the rabbit hole.  But these are thoughts only a handful of academically-minded people who've read Stein's poem might care about, and I haven't really begun to sort them out... so I'll save that line of thought for a conference presentation someday or something.)