Preparation

I haven't updated in a while because I feel like I haven't been doing much of anything that might interest anyone.  Mostly I have been hanging out with Billy and trying to enjoy the peace, quiet, and slower pace of these last few weeks before our time alone together with Oscar becomes "the old days."  In case you're curious what we've been up to, though, here goes.

The baby and I are doing well.  We had another OB visit this week, which confirmed that she continues to grow healthily.  The nurse thinks the baby is head down already, which corroborates my sense about her position based on the movements I feel constantly.  I really enjoy feeling her move, and it is fun to feel pressure on the inside and be able to tell it is probably her foot by feeling my belly with my hand.  She weighs about 5 pounds now and it certainly feels like I'm carrying a 5 pound child around inside my body.  I'm getting fairly uncomfortable, and the frequency of her movements makes it even harder to get comfortable.  I try to remind myself that she's probably pretty uncomfortable in there too, so we're in this together, except that at least I know what's going on.

We enjoyed a nice labor day weekend.  With it came the first Navy football game of the year versus Delaware, which the Mids won 40-17.  The day was beautiful but hot.  I was glad when the game began and took my mind off of my discomfort, and I was glad again when some cloud cover appeared during the second half to cool me down.  There are two more games I should be able to attend, and I think Vickie might even be able to join us for one of them, so I'm hoping the weather will be a bit cooler next time.  We have our south end zone seats again this year, where plenty of touchdowns were scored, so it was another exciting game.  The team has had a dominant quarterback for the past two seasons, but he graduated, so it was fun to see that his replacement is likely to do well.  Here he is rushing for a touchdown.

After a few weeks of not working, I guess I am settling into my "maternity leave."  I am glad most of my maternity leave will be spent with a baby because I am bored.  I don't miss working, but I miss being on campus and being in the mix of everything.  It was hard to see all my friends go back to school and realize this is the first time since I was 4 that I did not participate in the ritual.  Thankfully, I have been able to stay a little bit involved.  The one credit theory colloquium class I attend every semester is open to everyone, registered or not, and there are three sessions scheduled before the baby's due date, so I have long planned on continuing to attend those.  There are normally about 10 or 15 people in attendance, so when around 40 people showed up for the first session, I was quite shocked.  Then I began getting nervous because I am due to present a paper on Katherine Anne Porter at the next session on September 23.  Everyone will read the paper and a few complementary articles beforehand, and then I'll spend about an hour answering questions about the paper and the project.  It's a great opportunity to get feedback on your work, and I have been looking forward to it since I made the arrangements with my professor in the spring.  But even if only half as many people show up for my session, that means a lot of really smart people who spend most of their time reading really smart things will have read my paper, but I am trying to avoid developing too much anxiety about it.

I miss my dad.  I missed him when I got the email about this year's "Staff Development Day," which reminded me that my required attendance at this event last year ruined the trip home to Oregon I'd planned. As it turns out, that trip would have been the last time I got to spend time with him while he was "healthy."  I missed him when there were no text messages on my phone after the Navy football game.  I missed him when I thought about his friends gathering with our family in Lompoc with for the LHS alumni golf tournament.  I miss him when notable events like that one remind me just how many people are missing him and how much less laughter there must be in the world now that he is gone.  I missed him when the Oregon Ducks started the season in a highly anticipated, nationally televised game and I realized he had been alive for their last one.  I missed him when I realized that the first few days of a Grand Slam are still difficult for me to watch because they remind me of how excited I was about the Australian Open but how quickly the plans for that trip went from all of us going, to me and Billy going, to none of us going, to watching it in Dad's house on his TV while we packed up his stuff.  I miss hearing what he thinks about Federer's performance so far in the tournament, and if Fed ends up winning it, as I think he has a decent chance of doing, I will miss hearing Dad say you should never count out a champion with a killer instinct.  When people share their excitement about the baby with me, I know my dad would have shared it, but I miss experiencing in real life the ways I know in my head and heart that he would have acted.  I miss hearing how glad he would have been to have Nate back in Bend and how much he would have enjoyed meeting Ashley. I miss how proud he would have been of the work Vickie is doing and how much he would have been looking forward to her upcoming trip to Portland.  I miss him in moments when I expect to miss him and in moments when it catches me completely off guard.

Otherwise, I've been keeping busy by watching the US Open, trying to get some reading done, going to the gym, and continuing to get the baby's room ready.

It was fun to see Andy Roddick turn in several strong performances this tournament, especially since he has been plagued by injuries this summer.  He even beat #5 ranked David Ferrer, to whom we watched him lose while we were in Austin.  I thought he had a chance to make it competitive against Nadal yesterday, but he looked absolutely spent from the time the first ball dropped... and Nadal looked like Nadal.  After watching the way the matches have gone as a result of weather delays, I have a new appreciation for what a best of 5 set match does to the body.

As for reading, I've finally finished Katherine Anne Porter's 500 page novel, Ship of Fools, which means I've read all the fiction she published.  It also means I can join the ranks of everyone who thinks she was at her best when writing short fiction.  I've now moved onto Bonnie Kime Scott's The Gender of Modernism anthology.  The experience of reading this is equal parts "wow, this is fascinating!" and "dang it, I thought I was going to make that point in my dissertation, and someone else said it 20 years ago."

I still try to get to the gym about four days a week, and I've had to cut out a few of my lifting exercises as my body changes.  I spend about the same amount of time there, though, because I have to give myself more time between sets to prevent my heart rate from getting too high.  At some point I may need to stop the weights altogether and stick with walking, but I'm not there yet, and I'm getting so strong!  It used to be a little hard to lift a gallon of milk, but now I feel like I could throw one across the room, overhand.  My discomfort may be increasing, but overall I feel very fortunate that once I got help with the nausea, I've had a pretty healthy pregnancy. I think that is at least partly a result of being in good shape when I conceived and trying to stay active throughout.

And the baby's room is almost done.  Now that we have all of her things, we have a better idea of how much storage we're going to need, so we decided to use the money we've been gifted to get a new dresser and bookshelf for the room.  We are picking up the glider chair from Jay and Allen next weekend, and Mom is working on sewing us a window valance and a crib skirt with the fabric we picked out.  Once we get those pieces in place, the room will finally be ready, so we are looking forward to shooting a quick video of how it looks for those of you who won't be able to see it in person.  For now, though, here are a couple photos of the newest additions, carefully assembled by yours truly.  (I may be the only person in the world who enjoys assembling furniture.)

Oh, and we've survived all the bad weather relatively unscathed.  Since Sunday, Billy's weather station has registered 8.93 inches of rain, which is about twice what we normally get for the whole month of September.  Since all of this arrived after the ground was well saturated from Hurricane Irene, the low lying areas near us are having a really tough time with flooding.  Billy found the picture below, which shows that the restaurant where we held our wedding reception is under water.  We feel fortunate that the worst effect we've suffered is a few hours of lost power.

That's it from here, I think.  If you've made it this far without getting bored to death by my ramblings, you deserve a reward, so please check out how adorable and funny Krista's girls are.  If our little girl is born on time, her arrival is under 40 days away.  I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

(Preparation is a short story from a Robert Olen Butler collection I love, titled A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain.  If you like short fiction, I recommend all of his collection, and his novels are pretty good, too.  Some of the short story collections have really fascinating themes, like the one he wrote based on the inscriptions on vintage postcards he collects (Had a Good Time) and the one based the stories on real tabloid headlines (Tabloid Dreams).