Everybody knows that pregnant women pee a lot, but nobody truly understands what serious business urinating is when you’re carrying a water balloon filled with human inside you.  It goes far beyond a bladder the size of an ipod shuffle (although that does contribute).

I typically have no patience for people who are constantly running to the bathroom or interrupting road trips every 30 min.  Never having been cursed with bladder control problems myself (until recently), I just assumed they were inconveniencing the rest of us with their lack of planning and self control.  Ha!  These days I make a mental note of where all the bathrooms are in a ten mile radius of me at all times.   I plan grocery trips based on the cleanliness of the restrooms (regardless of the price of the food) and I’ve become an expert at juggling Jamie in a tiny stall, keeping him from touching and licking everything or crawling under the stalls to say hi to our neighbors.    If only it were just a matter of holding it, I would be fine, but not only is it sometimes impossible to hold, but waiting too long results in some serious problems.   Pain and suffering I can deal with, but that’s just half the story.  Nobody tells you that when you’re pregnant, if you don’t pee often enough you get braxton hicks.  To complicate matters further, you also get bh’s if you don’t drink enough water.   It’s a vicious cycle.   Braxton hicks are uncomfortable and painful (at least they are with this baby) so I drink lots of water to make the braxton hicks go away and then I have to pee every five minutes or they come back with a vengeance.  

Yesterday I went to the Wild Animal Park with our intern and his wife.   I had to go when we left the park, but I was sick and tired of being a slave to my darn bladder so I decided to throw caution to the wind and just hold it.   Forty five min later I was sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on the 15 and starting to sweat a little bit from the effort of holding it.   I stubbornly cranked up the air and turned on the music and ignored my horrendously full bladder.  I passed my cousins house and I even though I knew where the hidden key was to let myself in and use the bathroom, I didn’t stop.  It had become a matter of honor.  I will. not. give. in.   I will make it home.   More time goes by, and I’m still in traffic, slowly inching forward.   In an attempt to distract myself, I figured out that at my current speed of 6 feet per minute I ought to make it home sometime next week.   I calmly wondered which was worse… the sensation of my bladder exploding inside of me or facing Jim when I told him I peed in the drivers seat.   Thirty minutes later I was still crawling along, and my water bottle was beginning to look like a pretty decent option.   If only I were a guy with the ability to pee in a container like that (of course if I were a guy, I wouldn’t be dealing with this in the first place).   I finally made it off my exit and onto our road.   I flew through the valley with all the power my 270 hp engine could give me, clutching the steering wheel with a death grip and groaning in pain.  Everything hurt.  The braxton hicks were so strong my stomach hurt, my muscles hurt and the sprite baby was so irritated he was pushing and kicking against all the contractions.  I pulled into the driveway, yanked up the e-brake, ran inside as fast as my legs would carry me, tore into the bathroom, sat down and… nothing.   I wanted to cry tears of frustration.  My bladder was about to explode and everything had ceased to work. Gone on strike?  Given up?  I sat there for ten minutes waiting for my bladder to empty one freaking drop at a time.  

And that is why you should never “hold it” when you’re pregnant.

Here are a few pictures from the day.  I’m ashamed to confess these pictures completely bore me. Everyone thinks I must love taking pictures because I’m a photographer, and I do love taking pictures:  Of People.  Everything else like animals, scenery, abstract art etc bore me to tears (that’s a bit of an exaggeration).   I don’t feel the need to document every iota of life around me on my stack of 4 gig memory cards.   Maybe this is odd, but when someone books me for a photoshoot, I immediately start dreaming up the look and feeling and energy that I imagine fits them.  When I show up the day of the shoot/wedding, I already have a good idea of the look I want.  I watch and wait with my finger hovering over the shutter until I see the perfect moment and then I snap it.  Of course that’s ideal and I’m not even close to ideal yet, but that’s the general idea.   Photographing people is pretty much the only subject that gives me thrills down to my toes, everything else is monotonous in comparison:  Oh look, there’s a lion, I guess I should take a picture. Meter subject, adjust settings. compose. snap snap. done.

I guess I have a rather narrow use and love for photography, although I’ll keep doing the boring stuff too. It’s good practice and I do have fun when Jim’s around with his D70 to compete with.

Another week with no Jim, and oddly enough no Jamie either. 

Jim asked if he could take Jamie with him for the week and after I picked my jaw up off the floor, I insisted there was no way Jamie was leaving me.   The gall.  He’s my kid after all.   Of course he’s Jim’s son too. goshdernit.  For all the frustration Jamie causes occasionally, we both love him dearly and I suppose it’s not fair that I get him all week and Jim only sees him on the weekends.    In my loneliness I sometimes forget that Jim misses us as much as we miss him.  I only wish I could have joined my boys, but of course work and life have to demand otherwise.  This single parenting, dual custody thing sucks like some vaguely sinister reflection of the real deal.   Makes me grateful this is only temporary.

I console myself with eating weird foods and reading fluffy books.  Proof point, I read the The Undomestic goddess last night, re read Blue Castle, read No Country For Old Men this afternoon and I’m a good way into Mansfield Park.  I may be an unusually fast reader (although there seems to be lots of them these days), but unfortunately in my case it doesn’t come with any extra measure of intelligence.  I’ve got all the characters confused and  instead of staying in my head, I swear they’re running rampant through my house.   Every door I open has got Anton Chigurh (the psychopathic killer from NCFOM) waiting in deadly calm for me, but he looks less like a svelte killer and more like the gardener Nat from TUDG.

   I would think I’m truly losing my mind, but I’m convinced everyone is this way (no one is without eccentricities right?) and some are just less apt to admit it.   While I’m in the confessing mood, I also have the unwatched finale of my dearly beloved Project Runway on Tivo, and it’s not for lack of time that I haven’t watched it.  I love project runway, but I don’t want to know who wins yet.  This season flew by far too fast and I’m still enjoying the anticipation of wondering who won and I don’t want to spoil it by finding out who actually won.

I did another photoshoot on Friday.  This one was a family shoot, 3 brothers, the super cool wife of the eldest and their two year old daughter.   We met at Balboa park and had a great time.  Or at least the two year old and I had a great time.  I’m not sure the guys were too keen on having their picture taken. Good looking family, the camera didn’t do them justice.   

I actually managed to make a little more than minimum wage on this shoot (not because I charged more, but because I sorted and edited faster) .  At this rate I should be able to quit my day job in another five years.

I think I’m 51% extrovert and 49% introvert, and right now the introvert in me is clamoring for a break.  This week has had all the excitement I need.  Unfortunately it’s only going to get busier.  

I did a photoshoot yesterday the same way Eric Liddell trained in chariots of fire… with weights on.   Except mine weren’t the kind you strap around your ankles, instead my variety was about 34 inches tall and 22 lbs.   I don’t know what possessed me to do an engagement shoot one hour before sunset, with the tide coming and a two year old in tow.   Thankfully it was with Jeff and Gab and since they’re family (and it was their crazy idea to begin with) they didn’t mind my frequent trips to chase after my wandering son.   It was slightly stressful at times trying to compose, shoot, change lens…and make sure Jamie didn’t plunge head first off the rocks into the churning ocean below, but I figure if I can do all that with ease, then weddings should get easier and easier.  Right? 

I was so scared to look at the pictures for fear they didn’t turn out, that I couldn’t even work up the nerve to open the folder till this evening.  I don’t know what I was so worried about.  Jeff and Gabrielle are beyond adorable, and they could be dressed in sackcloth and ashes, I could be using my camera phone and they would still look amazing.  We all had tons of fun (the weather was from eden) and we probably could have stayed at the beach all evening, but Jamie got tired, hungry and started wailing, so we packed everything up and headed to a local sushi bar where Jamie ate enough sushi to feed my 19 year old brother.    He also tried valiantly to use chopsticks, but it takes a little more coordination than his toddler fingers could master, so he satisfied himself by using them as drumsticks instead.   He hogged all the pickled ginger and stole all the salmon rolls, so now his farts smell faintly of fish and ginger.  yum.    I’m not used to changing smelly diapers… Jim always takes care of them.

Speaking of…two more days till Jim is home (for a little while).   I can’t sleep at night without him.

I’ll put the rest of the photoshoot on my flickr tomorrow, but these captured my attention with their emotion and expression.

People keep asking me how I’m feeling, and truthfully I feel so normal I forget I’m pregnant half the time.   Granted I’m rather distracted with surviving the week as I wait for the blessed day at the end when Jim arrives home, maybe I don’t notice the pregnancy woes because I’m too busy being lonely and depressed.   It’s paradise when he comes home and heartbreaking when he leaves again three days later.   I always seem to forget in my anticipation of his arrival that he has to leave again so soon.  

However at the moment I feel very pregnant, so here I sit doing the pregnant thing which for me is munching on cauliflower and pickles while I surf the internet reading illicit birth stories (unlawful because they depress me and I know I should stop…but I can’t).  My own personal pregnancy crack is birth stories…particularly ones that involve preemies.  Jim has done all he can to ban me from watching the discovery health channel, but I’m a hopeless addict.   Since he is gone and Jamie is in bed asleep, no one can stop me from sitting here wallowing in my misery with a box of tissues, and red swollen eyes from crying.  This story in particular is heart wrenching, and I just melt every time I look at that dad holding his tiny baby daughter (warning…it’s very very graphic with lots of unattractive medical nudity).   Such a teeny tiny human being.   My own little sprite baby is almost that size and so I find it positively amazing and disconcerting to think that right now there’s a real live human country clubbing in my pelvis. 

Despite my current depression at Jim’s absence, we had a perfect weekend together.   Spring here is like the proverbial flawless summer day except there are no flies yet and everything is green.   We took advantage of the glorious weather and went for a walk every day.  Jamie couldn’t have been more thrilled.   When he wasn’t chasing lizards he was running as fast as his short little legs would carry him.   We climbed rocks, watched airplanes, picked flowers and talked to the echoes.  Jamie would stand on a rock and preach mightily to the winds and then stand and giggle as they came tinkling back to him from across the valley.   I’m going to take walks with him more often, I didn’t realize he had outgrown the stroller stage and his quickly developing little body now has enough stamina to keep up with my rapidly deteriorating pregnant one.    Bedtime is easier too because he’s so worn out he practically falls asleep while I brush his teeth.   He has the funniest looking pajamas right now.  I know I must be the most penny pinching mom in the county, but I cut out all the feet in Jamie’s pj’s (instead of buying him new ones).    He has a whole drawer full of perfectly serviceable sleepers that he loves, but couldn’t wear because he can’t sleep with his feet covered up.  We tried in vain over and over again to put him to bed in them, but Jamie always sleeps with his bare feet sticking out…no matter what the weather is, and consequently with his feet inescapably ensconced in the pj’s, he’d wake up in the middle of the night crying and clawing at his feet, trying to wriggle out of his pajamas.   We came home friday night from a date, and found the babysitter had put him in a tabooed sleeper, so instead of waking him up and changing him, I just took a pair of scissors and hacked the feet off the pajamas while he slept.   It worked brilliantly and Jamie slept soundly the whole night.  I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner,  I guess I didn’t want to ruin a bunch of perfectly good pajamas, but they were worthless to me anyway, so I don’t know why it mattered.  It’s not like they fetch a great resale price on Ebay.   Now he just looks like one of the flinstones or huckleberry finn running around in the morning.

Talking to the echoes.

Hanging with Dad

Running to mommy for hugs.
  

Waiting rooms these days are filled with supportive husbands and boyfriends, dutifully being the proper father and attending all the prenatal appointments.   Gone are the days of cigar filled waiting rooms where a dads involvement started and ended with them anxiously awaiting the arrival of their child.   Call me old fashioned, but I almost prefer the latter.   I mean I like having Jim around, but prenatal appointments are boring enough without making someone else endure the boredom too.  Consequently, around here Jim only comes to the really interesting appointments, and even then he paces the around the room like a caged animal, examining equipment, and fiddling with anything that can be taken apart and played with. 

Today I had my first appt with the Perinatologist (high risk specialist).  It was just precautionary since my pregnancy thus far has been about as text book as it comes, although as my doctor pointed out…so was the last one up until this point.   But I’m not worried, there is an excellent chance this one will be fine, and overall it hasn’t stressed me out or kept me up at night, but after nearly losing Jamie we’re not about to take any chances with this one.   Jamie was measuring six to seven weeks behind which as our specialist said today “typically ensures fetal death or severe mental disabilities”.   It’s been a long time since I’ve dwelt on how incredibly gracious God was in that situation, but it makes weeks like this (when he’s an unbearable dervish) seem absolutely miraculous.    It was nobody’s fault that we didn’t catch it sooner,  my OB sent me in for further testing the moment my fundal measurement started lagging,  however it wasn’t soon enough (although we were incredibly fortunate to have a happy ending) and so we obviously have to monitor my pregnancy more closely this time, since fundal measurements aren’t exactly helpful indications in my situation. 

The big news for the day is Jim’s manly sperm, which apparently is only capable of producing boys. *grin*   I always pictured myself with all boys, and I’m pretty sure if we had ten kids they’d all be boys (not that we’re planning on testing the theory).   Less exciting but equally important is that the baby looks healthy, has all his fingers and toes, all his organs are working properly.  He’s measuring 8 days behind which is not a big deal at this point.  The placenta has attached in a very healthy place, I have a proper amount of amniotic fluid, my cervix is nice and long, and the umbilical chord is the last word in umbilical chords.   However since Jamie and his placenta looked equally stellar at this same stage, we’re only cautiously optimistic.   Since most IUGR is caused by drug/alcohol abuse, infections or fetal abnormalities (none of which apply to us), they’re testing me for blood disorders or enzymes in my blood that are so insignificant they wouldn’t affect me, but they could possibly affect the placenta.  That’s the easiest problem to fix because a simple blood thinner or medication would solve the situation.  Assuming everything stays normal, I will continue to have high level ultrasounds and be monitored by the perinatologist until I reach 32 weeks when we will add non stress tests to the mix.   If the baby starts to lag behind they will put me on bedrest and monitor me very closely, waiting as long as possibly to allow the baby’s lungs to mature, but not so long that he would suffer brain damage before they take him out.

That’s the game plan.  I’m very relieved to be in good hands, and now all there is to worry about is a name for this tiny person.

Here are a few pictures…

Ultrasound techs are of a different breed.  They said this was an “adorable picture of the baby’s face”.  Jim and I think it looks like some sort of mutant spawn.

This picture by comparison almost looks relatively normal.

I do not make a very good single parent.  Jamie has been incredibly difficult today, and I’m missing the man I love who also happens to be the man partly responsible for this child.   Jamie was up all night with a stuffy nose.  Since he never gets sick I don’t exactly stock my cupboards with medicine, especially after a few frequent run ins with poison control (baby locks and child proof bottles mean nothing).   After getting up with him half a dozen times before midnight, I stuck him in bed with me where neither of us slept any better, when he wasn’t tossing and turning he was snoring like a lumber jack.  On several occasions he woke me up and pointed to his nose and said “nose, mama, uh oh”.  I quite agreed. At 5:45 am we both gave up any pretenses of sleep, so we played with blocks and read books until it got too late and I ran around getting ready before dashing off to work at seven.

As I yawned my way through a morning full of patients I figured Jamie was probably somewhere curled up in a corner about to konk out for a morning nap, but no, he made it bright eyed and bushy tailed all the way through lunch (thai food with my sisters) and I successfully kept him awake in his carseat by playing Led Zeppelin at unearthly volumes with the windows rolled down to make sure he didn’t crash before we got home.    With the speed and efficiency of a nascar pit team I raced into the driveway, had him out of his carseat and in bed with a clean diaper, and beloved stuffed duck before he even realized the car had stopped.  Mission accomplished.  I settled down for a much needed nap myself, but Jamie never went to sleep.  He talked to his duck, he pretended to sleep (and then tried to convince me he had already napped), he pretended the wall was a drumset, he snuck out of bed anytime he thought I wasn’t watching and when he finally erupted into a fit of giggles that ended with him falling head first out of bed in a somersault I decided the kid wasn’t going to take a nap.  Unbelievable.  My very tired (and spoiled) pregnant body was rather annoyed it got cheated out of a nap, but such is life.  It’s times like these when I can’t believe I’m a parent.

I’m not always the brightest crayon in the box, so I couldn’t figure out what in the world had gotten into Jamie.  He’s been fairly well behaved lately, but this afternoon it was one thing after another.  He tried to flush his hot wheel cars down the toilet, then he stacked all his tricycles on top of each other and tried to ride them off the bed.  When that didn’t work he conquered new territory by climbing onto the kitchen counter while hauling a kid sized chair to stand on so he could empty out the top cupboard of the pantry, emptying several varieties of cold cereal all over the floor (apparently it wasn’t enough that I washed the floor three times yesterday thanks to him).  And he did this all at lightening speed (I never thought to put cupboard locks on the high ones).   The only way to keep him out of trouble was to actively hang onto him and make him stay with me.  It was like trying to hang onto a chimpanzee.  He climbed all over me, sitting on my head, trying to stand on my knees and do back flips over my shoulders, and wrapping himself around me like a boa constrictor.  It took a good four hours of pure insanity before it suddenly dawned on me what had happened.   Jamie was on a serious caffeine high.  He’d been begging for a sip of Hannah’s thai iced tea for lunch, so we gave him a little thinking he’d not want anymore (the stuff tastes like dirt), but to my chagrin he managed to down a hefty amount before we pried the straw out of his mouth amidst tears and protests.   Since I never drink it, the thought of its caffeine content never occurred to me. …until it was too late.  That stuff is loaded with enough caffeine to keep a sleep deprived, med student awake.

So I deserved every bit of this afternoon.  He crashed hard at 7 pm and I hardly had enough time to brush his teeth and say his prayers before he fell asleep.   This probably means he’ll be up at the crack of dawn again.  <sigh>.   Surely I’m not grown up enough to do this. 

On a more optimistic note, here are a few more pictures from Seattle. A mixture of the first part with Brandon and Vicki, and then more fun with Lily and TJ.
 

They tell me braxton hicks are practice contractions for the real deal, but since I have no inclination at this point to have a natural birth (we’re going with a repeat c-section unless my Dr. can talk me into a vbac), it seems like a very unfunny joke that I’m already having them.  

I had them this early with Jamie too, so I was annoyed but not surprised when they showed up like clock work at week 16.  Last pregnancy they freaked me out since my my library of experts concurred with google and said they weren’t supposed to start till the end of the second trimester.  However my doctor assured me it was perfectly normal to have BH this early, just make sure they don’t start getting close together or stronger…blah blah blah.  Honestly I hadn’t even been paying much attention to them this time, so I didn’t give it a moments thought when I woke up with them last Sat and got ready to catch my flight to Seattle.  Oddly enough they were painful (which they’re usually not), but I chalked it up stretching ligaments and just ignored it.  I had bigger things to worry about like getting onto a flight (I was flying standby) and getting through security (I got tagged for extra screening).  Consequently it wasn’t until i was seated safely on the plane that I realized they were getting somewhat stronger and closer together.   Of course by this time I was in a metal, coffin like cylinder, hurtling through the air, encapsulated in the atmosphere from all my usual support.  No phone, no husband, no doctor, no internet… nothing.   I didn’t even have a watch to time the contractions and see how far apart they were, so I had to twist my head to the side and read the face of the watch belonging to the guy across the aisle from me.   Looking back at it, I probably made him extremely uncomfortable by staring at his wrist so unabashedly for almost an entire flight, but I was too engrossed in my problems to care.  

My worst fears were confirmed.  During the course of a three and a half hour flight, my contractions went from 10 min apart and 1 min in duration, to 4 min apart and 2 min duration.  They hurt enough to make me slightly catch my breath every time one started, and they started on top (if I didn’t know better, I would have sworn my stomach was breaking apart).
I was so kerflummaxed.  On one hand I was absolutely convinced it was just a combination of ligament stretching braxton hicks, but on the other hand when you’re talking about the life of your child it’s hard to be objective.  Where is the line between freaking out needlessly and freaking out too late?   Since there was absolutely nothing I could do about it while on the plane, I drank lots of fluids, pee’d frequently and relaxed.   I tried to imagine what I would tell my 22 yr old cousin Brandon when he picked me up from the airport “Hi…I think i need to go the hospital”.   I decided that I was imagining everything and that the whole thing was ridiculous, and then I’d immediately imagine myself having to rush to the hospital only to be told that it was too late to stop the labor and that had I come in sooner they could have saved the baby.   The indecision was killing me.  I wish I could have known what the right thing to do was.    I finally decided that it was probably just stress, and that I would give the contractions one hour to stop after arriving in Seattle before I called my OB and had Brandon take me to the nearest hospital.   With my mind made up, I relaxed a little more, and the braxton hicks/contractions marched on.

I landed in Seattle, was safely stowed in the FJ cruiser and taken to the condo where I relaxed for a little while.  They lasted for 45 min total before petering out and disappearing.  I was so incredibly relieved.   It obviously wasn’t labor, because real labor does not disappear on its own. so I have no clue what to make of the whole situation.  Sharon says that braxton hicks were more painful for her in subsequent pregnancies, and since I’m already prone to frequent BH, my current theory is that they were caused by stress, and thus they went away as soon as I landed etc.  I don’t know.  I’ve had similar ones since then, but none that were too close together or lasted as long. 

I’ll mention it to my doctor at my next appt, but at this point I’m just inclined to laugh at my hyper active imagination.

I couldn’t find my tripod mount so I had to take these in the mirror. 

Week 19

We find out if it’s a boy or a girl this Friday!

I attempted to drown out my loneliness and depression (now that I only see Jim on the weekends) by flying up to Seattle last week for a much needed break.  I split the trip up into night and day experiences.  For two days I pretended I was 21 and in college again, hanging out with my cousin Brandon and living the Seattle high life with plenty of bagels and coffee, raw fish being tossed around and Thai food on every corner.   I thought San Diego had the corner on eclectic behavior, but in Seattle being hip and green is practically their re ligion.  People eschew high heels and runway fashion for designer REI clothing.  Instead of giant bcbg bags, they push peg perego strollers containing babies decked out in eco friendly clothing, chewing on all natural toys. Their dogs look better fed than some people and are worshiped like ancient Egyptian cats.  

After that I spent two days with Sharon and an afternoon with a bunch of online friends.  I was told by someone today that it is foolish to cultivate online relationships because they are always fake and shallow.  However, I am happy to report that Sharon (who I only knew in cyberspace) is just as real as I supposed her to be (so was everyone else).  Her children were just as precocious as I was expecting, her husband was cool, her cooking was delicious, and I got to sleep in an awesome little garret with narrow, twisty stairs that all looked like it belonged in a book.  As always, I regret not taking more pictures.   I wish I had made a conscious effort to take more than snapshots of the kids and everything.  I didn’t get one proper picture of Elena, but  here are a few of  Lily and TJ.

 
Spiderwick has nothing on these kids.  Their whole backyard is full of invisible (to me) and mysterious creatures that they valiantly banished and killed for my safety and happiness, my only job was to kill the more visible (and less mysterious) spiders that were so unfortunate as to cross our path. 

I like to think that Jim and I are fairly athletic people.  We may not be very good at it, but we enjoy our fair share of outdoor fun, whether it’s hiking, surfing, basketball, football etc.   However, we do not like to be cold, wet and miserable.  You will not find us relishing a cold night in a tent or enjoying a miserable hike in the rain.   I will do anything once just for the pure thrill of it, but one mosquito infested camping trip provides all the necessary tales needed for embellished retellings.  

Therefore I can’t help but groan at the seemingly insane behavior of my two year old.   I hope for our sakes that this is just a stage, but the kid comes from a long line of senseless tenacity (although it skipped Jim).   Why Jamie enjoys running around in the freezing rain in nothing but his diaper is beyond my comprehension.  I let him do it once because I thought it would cure him of asking, figuring he would immediately come running back inside, shivering like a drowned rat, but instead he loved it, so I sat there watching him play until my heavily coated body became uncomfortably cold.   I picked up my muddy, wet  (and surely hypothermic) kid and toted his screaming, squirreling body back into the warm dry house.  Oh well for that lesson.

There was still snow on the ground when we went up to the mountains this week.  I loved playing in the snow as a kid, so I couldn’t wait to introduce Jamie to the thrills of sledding and snow ball fights.   When I was a kid, we played until our toes were wet and numb, and our jackets had more snow inside them than out.   We’d troop into the house, peel our snow suits off and fight over the prime spot in front of the wood burning stove while mom brewed hot chocolate (out of honey, unsweetened cocoa and non homogenized milk of course).   Jamie was duly impressed with the snow and was predictably begging everyone (even the dog) to take him outside, so we bundled him up in pink gloves and snow gear that was too big for him and out we went.  He loved it.  After the rest of us were cold and tired and ready to go in for hot chocolate (Nestles instant cocoa…oh how the times have changed), he still loved it.   It was 29 degrees outside, his nose was bright red and he was absolutely soaked to the bone and yet he played on.  We all finally went inside, but he was no where near ready to go in so he played by himself on the porch for another half hour.   Is he incapable of feeling cold?    He repeated the same routine every single day we were up there.   I asked Jim how it felt already being shown up by his son. (he has a two year old that is already tougher than he is), but Jim maintains it’s not toughness…it’s foolish obliviousness.

… but I just had to say.   I’ve been worried because I haven’t felt the baby kick yet.  I know it’s still early, but by this time with Jamie I could feel him quite distinctly and they always say you can feel your second one sooner.

I keep hoping that this second child’o'mine will be an angelic child because the thought of another Jamie in my life nearly causes a panic attack.   I just don’t think I can do that again.

However, the little sprite baby is already revealing his personality.  I’ve tried poking him and prodding him, laying on my back, drinking caffeine, and talking to him but nothing under the sun would induce the child to show off his acrobatic abilities… until today.    I went to pick up Lydia from a fife and drum corp performance (two instruments I find absolutely obnoxious) and as soon as the ear piercing music started, the baby started flipping around like it was the freaking Shamu show.   Unbelievable.   I’m holding out that my unborn child has superb music tastes and that it’s not an indication of any preference.

I’m calling the baby a “he” child because I am convinced I’m having a boy although Jim thinks it’s a girl.  I have my first appt with the specialist in two weeks  and at that point we will  know for sure.

sorry no pictures… have no way of getting them from my camera to my laptop at the moment.