magical birthday

If the Lemmondrop were born today, we might have to rethink his name and christen him after the famous boy wizard who was born on July 31: Harry Potter!

Given our last name, however, I don't think Harry would make a very good first name. :)

laughter

Yesterday, at a matinee showing of Clerks II, I laughed harder than I've laughed at a movie in a long time. It's quite possibly the most politically incorrect movie I've ever seen, with the number of taboos it takes on — I alternately giggled and "uggggh"-ed throughout the movie. But in one scene, I was belly-laughing so uncontrollably that I could be heard throughout the theater. Other people started laughing (whether because of me or the scene, I don't know), and pretty soon Steve caught the bug, and we sat there leaning against each other shaking with laughter, and tears rolled down my face. It's that scene where the geeky 19-year-old co-worker explains to Randall why he hasn't had sex with his girlfriend yet. I cannot possibly reconstruct the scene here in writing (except to say that his girlfriend was taught by her parents that she has a troll living in her nether regions), but if you ever see the movie, you'll know exactly what I mean. I hope. I'm still laughing about it today!

Friday night, we saw the new Woody Allen movie Scoop, which also made us both giggle. I like Woody's new London phase — this and Match Paint — and Scarlett Johansen (who has been in both of them) was surprisingly fun to watch in a comedy role. I've been a Woody Allen fan for a long time, but some of his more recent movies (before the London ones) haven't been very good. This is a nice comeback!

That's what we've been doing to keep cool this weekend. That and staying in our air-conditioned house and taking lots of naps. Tonight I got a burst of energy and made tomato soup and a berry pie, which turned out too watery, but that hasn't stopped me from eating two pieces.

Summer is slow and lazy, and I feel even more so, now that our baby countdown is edging up on two weeks to go. My belly itches all the time, and simple things like getting out of bed are huge productions. I'm huge and heavy and slow, and I'm frankly glad that (after one last deadline day on Tuesday) I'm not going to work anymore. I'm ready to meet this baby!

Is he ready to meet us? I don't know yet. The doctor Friday, after my weekly exam, told us he can feel his head now through my cervix, so he's dropped a little bit in the past week, but he's definitely not fully engaged. (He's at about minus 2 centimeters, for anyone who knows what that means.) My cervix is thinned out at about 50 percent, and I haven't dilated yet. Hopefully he's on track for an Aug. 14 delivery or earlier!

gatsby at the guthrie

Let's see. What can I say about the new Guthrie Theater, built among old industrial sites and grain elevators on the banks of the Mississippi River? It's remarkable and in some ways breathtaking, yet disorienting. I initially felt out of my element there, mixed up, lacking an intuitive sense of how to get around; but by the end of the evening, as the pieces fell into place, I found it inspiring. The dark blue color that blends into the night sky. The ghostly images of actors from yesteryear gazing out of mirrored walls. The picturesque views of Minneapolis out of windows that were designed to provide postcard-like frames. The outdoor balcony that hangs over the river like a bridge to nowhere. It's modern and innovative and different. Yet the thrust stage is almost exactly like the one in the old Guthrie, which is a good thing.

There is an escalator that takes you straight from the first floor lobby to the fourth floor, where two of the main stages are, and if you suffer from the least bit of vertigo, you will notice it kick in here. The bathrooms (which do have dozens of stalls apiece) have faucets that turn on automatically, but they are hidden under a trough-like slab of metal that runs all the down a long wall, and there is no marker showing you where they are ... so you must run your hands along the underside of the metal until you find one. Who came up with that plan? Furthermore, there are bars placed in such a way that people standing in line for drinks are completely blocking the path of people walking from their seats to points beyond, such as the restrooms. That doesn't seem smart, either.

But the desserts ... aahhh. They serve them until midnight in the big restaurant on the balcony level, so after The Great Gatsby was over, Steve and I stuck around and had a slice of flourless chocolate cake that was to die for.

And what can I say about Gatsby? I was disappointed with it. I love this book and have read it several times, and this interpretation was just ... all wrong. Daisy was dreadful ... not at all alluring. In that poignant scene when she sees Gatsby's shirts, and she lifts them up to her face and breathes in deeply and realizes how much she has missed in those years without Gatsby, she is not supposed to begin shrieking like a drunken sorority girl and flailing the shirts over her head. Please. And even Nick Carroway's soliloquies, which are meant to fill in some of the narrative of the novel, didn't flow the way I imagined them to flow in the book. They fell victim to what I consider a weakness of drama: Over-emoting, near-yelling in an attempt to express what I feel sure F. Scott Fitzgerald meant to be conveyed as quiet passion. I don't think he meant Nick to be practically in tears when he uttered these final lines: Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. ... And one fine morning — So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. Those lines are haunting, not hysterical; mystical and timeless, not meant to be one man's catharsis on a stage.

And what is it with playwrights' (and screenwriters') tendancy to convert a character's inner thoughts into dialogue? In the book, Nick simply thinks this line: "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together…” In the play, he scathingly shouts it to them as an accusation as they walk away from him. That's wrong. That's not in his character.

Oh dear. I sound rather negative, I know. I did think the play had its good moments, and it improved in the second half. Nick was very good, and so was the actor who played Tom Buchanan. He was the perfect rich alpha-male. And Jordan Baker, the golf star, was pretty much as I imagined her in the book, too.

Maybe that's it. I read books with my imagination. My imagination. To see someone else's vision of it is to set myself up for a potential clash of imaginations. Sometimes I am pleasantly surprised. The Harry Potter movies have not disappointed me, for instance. But most of the time, I probably should just love the book and leave the rewrite.

(Photo by Jim Gallop from Guthrie photo gallery)

why i am home from work today

What do you get when you cross an eight-month-pregnant woman with a clogged-up toilet that won't clear, even when your husband plunges it dozens and dozens of times? — A cranky, dehydrated, pregnant woman who wants to drink more water but doesn't want to see the toilet spill over the top four times in the middle of the night. By 4 a.m. that woman is so thirsty that she says "f*&% it all" and glugs down a couple of cups of tap water from the bathroom sink. Miraculously, the toilet holds. The baby kicks with happy, vigorous thanks for the drink. But the pregnant lady's face is sweaty and red and hot and sore-throaty, and she hopes she is not coming down with something.

Then, what do you get when your husband leaves for work and comes back in the house five minutes later to report that his car is trapped in the garage because the garage door has broken? — A second reason to stay home from work (the first being the aforementioned feeling of illness coming on) when you offer him your car.

The plumber was here by 11 a.m., thanks to Steve's diligence on Angie's List. How fortuitous that I happened to be home. He fixed the toilet, and I gave him a check for $95. How easily money can fly out the window when something goes wrong in the house. But I think it was a fair exchange.

And the garage door repairman will be here tomorrow morning.

the news that made my day

I know you don't all know Carrie, but go over and take a look at today's entries on her blog. After three years of trying to get pregnant — the multitude of medical tests, injections, negative pregnancy tests, dashed hopes, incredible emotional ups and down, and most recently in vitro fertilization with donated eggs from a woman who has become her soul sister — Carrie got that faint pink line on a pregnancy test today — for the first time in her life. She is pregnant!!!

Carrie, if you're reading, congratulations 100 times over! I know you and Chris must be feeling a mixture of giddyness and disbelief tonight. I remember when it happened to us. The pink line was so faint that we barely believed it was there. We tilted the stick back and forth under a lamp to make sure our eyes weren't playing tricks on us. Even when I tested again the next morning and the line was a little darker, I still couldn't bring myself to believe in the line. Not until the next day, when I went for the blood test, and the nurse called me back and gave me the numbers (68 HCG, 14 progesterone) and told me I was pregnant.

So Carrie, I know you must be holding back the full fountain of joy I know is welling up inside you, even as you begin to allow that this might be actually happening. But believe it! And know that I am so incredibly excited for you! I pray that your little baby — or babies! — stick and stay healthy for the next nine months. What a miraculous moment!

Addendum: Steve just got home, and I showed him the picture of the positive test, and then I showed him this post about seeing a ray of light after a thunderstorm on the North Shore this weekend. Carrie wrote: "Could this be our light cutting through the darkness of 3 years of infertility? Steve stood there shaking his head and said, "That's amazing. Just incredible. Just amazing." Suffice to say he joins me in our good wishes, Carrie.

the end is in sight ...

The end of the pregnancy, that is. Not the ends of my toes ... because I can't see them anymore when I look down. On Saturday, I sat on the toilet seat while Steve sat on the edge of the tub; he took each foot on his lap and clipped and filed my toenails, which had not been touched since I had a pedicure at the end of May.

Here's my 37-week e-mail update from BabyCenter.com:

Only three weeks to go! Your pregnancy is now considered full-term and your baby probably weighs a little over 6 pounds and is a tad over 19 inches long. You may notice end-of-pregnancy changes soon — like an increase in vaginal discharge or more frequent and intense Braxton Hicks contractions (preludes to the real thing). Worried your water will break in public? This statistic may ease your fears: Spontaneous rupture of membranes before labor happens in only 15 percent of pregnancies.

As always, you can see the gallery of past belly shots here (four weeks ago), here, here, here and here. At 33 weeks, I found it hard to believe I could get any bigger, but bigger I am. Truly.

I haven't felt too many Braxton Hicks contractions yet. But I do feel a lot of discomfort when I'm on my feet for too long. It's like an ache in my lower belly, as if all the downward pull is stretching me even more — combined with pressure on my bladder and some aching in my lower back. Tonight, Steve took me to Café Latté for a slice of chocolate-almond cake and some coffee. (Our power was out from an intense afternoon storm, and we didn't want to sit around the house in the dark, so we decided to venture out.) Just the block-and-a-half walk to the car and back was enough to cause me to hold onto the bottom of my belly with both hands and cradle it as if my arms were a sling. I walk very, very slowly now.

If being on my feet is challenging, sitting for long periods doesn't help either. Lying on my side with a pillow between my knees is good, but by morning, my hips and lower back ache. So really, all I can do is keep changing positions and do what comes to me. Lately, what comes to me is that it feels good to lean over a bed or a table or a desk and swing my hips back and forth. It loosens them up. It's a great position for labor ... and sex. It feels like one big, blatant mating call. So I refrain from doing it at work. ;-)

yay ... we're back on track!

Sweet relief! The Lemmondrop is poised in a head-down position, ready to dive! The lumpy spot my doctor thought might have been the head is most likely his butt. The umbilical cord is nowhere near his neck (so one less thing to worry about). And he is still most definitely a boy ... the parts were hangin' out quite immodestly.

We were so happy after the ultrasound that we decided to go have lunch at Cossetta's, the Italian restaurant and grocery just up the street from United Hospital. And there we ran into our friend Eddy, Kerry's husband, so we got to spend a pleasant lunch catching up with him. That was fun!

Meanwhile, my white T-shirt now has a big splotch of orangey red sauce from my mostaccioli on the front. Eating is tricky that way. Since I can't lean too far forward when I lift the fork to my mouth, I drop a lot of food on myself — and my tummy makes the perfect shelf to catch it. It's horribly messy!

a hitch (maybe)

Well, the doctor thinks our baby may be lying on his side (top drawing), instead of head down (lower drawing) like he probably should be by now. They call this transverse lie. This would not be an ideal situation. In fact, it increases the chances that I might have to have a cesarian birth. I am having an ultrasound early next week to get a more definite idea.

If the ultrasound shows that the Lemmondrop is lying sideways, we have two options:

1. Have what's called an external version. This is where I would go to the labor and delivery department, probably in the next week or so, and they would give me a drug to relax my uterus, then try to maneuver my belly to turn the baby into the right position. (Apparently, this is very uncomfortable!) This works more than half the time. They do it a lot with breech babies, where the baby is head-up, butt-down. However, sometimes the baby turns back again later. And there is a risk that the umbilical cord could get flattened or wrapped around the baby's neck, in which case he would go into distress and they would stop the procedure. If stopping the procedure doesn't bring the baby out of distress, they would have to do an emergency c-section right there. (The upside of this is that the baby will be 37 weeks — considered full term — as of Monday, so he could easily survive outside the womb.)

2. Wait it out and see if the baby turns on his own. There are things I can do on my own, like lie at a 45-degree angle upside down a few times a day, to see if I can get him to turn, but none of them have been medically proven to work. If the baby turns in the next three weeks, great. If not, I would have to get a c-section. Most babies, apparently, find their positions by about 36 weeks, but some wait longer. Who knows what this little guy might do?

It's funny — ironic, even — because all this came up at the end of a doctor's appointment that otherwise had been going very well. We'd showed him our birth plan and talked about our hopes for a birth with as few interventions as possible. And he seemed really on board with that, which made me feel good. He even said he thought we were good candidates for the all-in-one labor, delivery and recovery rooms (which are prime real estate at United Hospital, there being only seven of them).

I was feeling pretty dejected when we left the doctor's office. But this really drives home that the most important thing, more than the "ideal" birth, is that our baby remain healthy. In our birth plan, we wrote that we know anything can happen in this journey, and we will be flexible about whatever direction it takes, as long as we feel informed and kept in the loop. So that's the attitude I want to take. I guess I'd better start reading the chapters in my birthing books about external versions and c-sections, just in case!

rooms

The nursery has turned into a sort of holding space for all the Lemmondrop's stuff. He has received a number of beautiful quilts and blankets, some of which were homemade by loving hands. They are hanging over his crib, the rocking chair, anywhere we can find space. Some would look nice hanging on the walls, but we haven't begun to think about wall art yet. Also note the dresser, which Steve had when he was a child. If we were handy around the house, we'd probably refinish it to remove the orange floral pattern on the drawers, but on the other hand, I think I'd kind of miss it. It used to be in our bedroom, and I've grown accustomed to its face. :) (I'm sorry if these are blurry. I exported them from iPhoto at lower-than-usual resolutions because I've been having trouble uploading larger files onto Blogger. Or, maybe it's something else. I'll try to fiddle with them more if I get some time this weekend.)


This is the changing table, stocked with an assortment of cloth diapers from Peapods, a sack full of disposables for the first week home, plus accessories. Who knew a baby needed so much stuff for his toiletry care? I sure didn't, until we started down this road!


Here's his stack of books, many of which were gifts from the baby shower my coworkers threw for me. We still need to find a home for them; for now, they're on a table which probably won't stay in this room.


But here, ladies and gentlemen, is where the Lemmondrop will spend his nights for the first few months of his life. He'll be sleeping next to our bed in this Pack & Play bassinet (a generous gift from Leigh, Jo and Elizabeth). That way, he'll be closer to us, and we can pick him up easily to nurse in the middle of the night.


Thank you for stopping by our slightly messy back rooms this morning!

be safe, my son

Maybe this is a normal part of the end of pregnancy, or maybe it's just my neurotic side rearing its head again, but all of a sudden this week, I have been having moments of anxiety about the baby. Nothing is wrong with him. He is kicking as much as ever. His heart is beating within the normal range. And aside from a wierd pain in my lower left side that hit me in the car for a few minutes Tuesday, nothing is wrong with me. Nonetheless, I am having panicky "what if" feelings that I hesitate to even put in writing. Thoughts like, what if he dies?

Maybe this is coming on the heels of other people's horribly sad news. First my friend Charles mentioned on the phone Monday that a woman we knew in high school — (this weekend was our 20-year reunion, but I wasn't able to fly to Portland for it) — had lost her baby recently at eight months of pregnancy. And then I learned that Katy, a woman I know from my infertility discussion board, lost one of her twin girls this week, just days before they were to be delivered by c-section. The other little girl survived, but there is a very real loss, too. I can't imagine what that must be like for her and her husband, coming home to two cribs, two sets of everything, but without both of their babies. Hearing things like this fills me with anxiety as much as sadness. I can't help it. I can't help putting myself in those shoes and wondering — perhaps too vividly — what it would be like.

The thing is, I know I would be devastated if we lost this baby. But what rips me apart inside even more is thinking about how it would affect Steve. He is so, so giddy with joy and excitement at the coming of this baby that I can't even imagine how helpless and torn apart he would feel if we lost him. I imagine him sobbing, breaking down, and I can't bear it. I don't want my husband to have to bear so much pain. He has already had to bear it in his life, losing his sister and his mother. Please, not his child, too.

God damn it. We are NOT going to lose him. He is a healthy baby, and he has a healthy mama. Why do I get so wrapped up in the sadness of something that has not happened and is not likely to happen? Other people have actually faced real pain, the kind I have never had to endure, but can I just be happy? No. I have to conjure up imaginary pain.

Last night, it hit me that praying about this might help. I think I'm pretty attentive to my spiritual life, but I am not the kind of person whose first impulse in the face of stressful situations is to pray, at least not in the traditional sense. "Let go and let God" does not come naturally to me. Pure faith is not one of my gifts or graces. I'm always struggling and questioning. But last night, I knew that I needed desperately to get loose of this grip that's been holding me, and I knew that I had to give it up to God — somehow. Steve and I were lying on our bed, reading, getting ready to go to sleep, and I told him this. So we did what we do when we pray together out loud, which was to start the "please and thank you" prayer. When we say this prayer, things tend to come spilling out.

God, please keep our baby safe.
Thank you for this baby, this miracle.
Please give me peace of mind.
Please let the next four weeks go smoothly.
Please be with Katy and Steve in their grief.
Please be with Julia, too, and everyone who has lost a baby or a loved one.
Thank you for keeping this baby healthy for the past eight months.
Thank you for our love and our happy marriage.
Please bring Emilie peace in the face of her anxiety.
Please help me to be less neurotic.
Thank you for all the good things we have ...
Please help it to be less hot tomorrow.
Thank you for our friends.
Please give strength to those who are suffering.
Please be with Carrie as she waits to see if her donor egg transfers will stick.
Thank you for Steve and how hard he works.
Thank you for Emilie and how loving she is.
Please help me to be a good mother.
Please help me to be a good father.

The pleases and thank-yous drifted into silence, and after a while, I opened my eyes and looked over at Steve. He was still lying there, his hands on my belly, his eyes closed. My heart lurched again. He is so full of love, it is unbelievable.

thirty-six weeks!

My weekly e-mail update from BabyCenter.com:

At the end of this week, you're going to reach an important pregnancy milestone: Your baby will be considered full term! That means you could give birth very soon. Put any unnecessary travel plans on hold now in case you go into labor early. Many airlines won't let pregnant women fly close to their due dates for this reason. It's also time to start wrapping up projects at work, get an infant car seat if you haven't already done so (you won't be allowed to leave the hospital without one), and put finishing touches on the nursery. Your baby — who now weighs about 6 pounds and is almost 19 inches long — will continue to gain about an ounce a day until he makes his debut.

Aaahh!!

Here's what our to-do list looks like:

Pack the bag for the hospital.

Go to baptism class tonight at the Basilica.

Go see The Great Gatsby at the new Guthrie on July 26 — probably our last "night out" for a while.

Get the car seats checked Monday at the Mendota Heights Police Department.

Try to find some sheets for the Pack & Play mattress.

Appointments at the OB every Friday afternoon.

Finish my last day of work July 27 (or maybe the 31st).

Attend a wedding on Aug. 5. I'm hoping all the dancing we do at the reception puts me into labor! His due date is in the Aug. 13-15 range, but a week early would be fine with me ...

friday five :: pet peeves

Reverendmother over at the RevGals' blog posted this highly entertaining Friday Five, and I encourage everyone to go over there to read the great responses that have amassed so far.

The topic: "I'm wondering about your pet peeves. Here's your chance to vent, gripe, and grumble to your heart's content. Go ahead, it's therapeutic."

1. Grammatical pet peeve
Where do I begin? I have many, but I think the worst is when I see reputable news agencies (I'm thinking especially of TV news stations) butcher pronoun-antecedent agreement (I hope that's the correct term). For example: "Company X has announced that they are going to lay off 150 people." Come on, people! Company X is singular, and you already acknowledged you know that by following it with "has" instead of "have." So why, then, do you refer to that company as "they" later in the sentence, followed by "are," instead of "it is"?

2. Household pet peeve
That would be when dishes get put away in the wrong spot so that when I later go to find, say, the clean butter dish, I cannot find it and am left with a slippery block of butter in my hand, rummaging through cupboards and drawers until I find the object that should have been within easy reach in the first place. I know ... I shouldn't have unwrapped the butter until I'd located the butter dish, but one gets in a hurry.

3. Arts & Entertainment pet peeve (movie theaters, restaurants, concerts)
The newfangled ads-disguised-as-entertainment programming before movies really grates on my nerves. I'd rather sit in silence and chat with my movie date, or even answer the cute quiz questions they have at the Highland and Grandview theaters, than be subjected to this loud, MTV-style drivel.

4. Liturgical pet peeve
When the organ in the back of the church cannot stay synchronized with the choral voices in the front of the church, my hair stands on end.

5. Wild card — pet peeve that doesn't fit any of the above categories
It bugs me when cars turning into a two-lane street turn into the far lane immediately, rather than into the near lane, where they then should signal and shift into the other lane like any other vehicle would do. What if someone is turning from the opposite direction onto that very street, going that very same direction? Why then, the two cars could potentially collide, and it would be the fault of the driver who failed to turn into the near lane in the first place.

Bonus: Because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God: What do YOU do that others might consider a pet peeve?
I confess that I burp and release other gaseous bodily creations (made even more abundant by pregnancy) perhaps more than my husband would prefer me to do in front of him. *Blush.*

transformation

I couldn't stand it anymore. Whether it was hormones, the heat or just the end of my rope, I was sick of our front yard garden plot. "It's so ugly!" I told Steve in a fit of frustration, even after we had worked to deadhead a wilting flower we had planted in a pot. The pot was sitting on top of where our tulips had bloomed earlier this spring. The tulips were long gone, their stems and leaves yellowed and wilted and finally chopped away (and overgrown with weeds), but we haven't had the nerve to plant anything over them — what if we destroy the bulbs? We could have covered everything with potted flowers, I suppose, but that only goes so far ...

So on Sunday, we decided to bite the bullet and plant some perennials. A burst of color in April is nice, but is it worth a summer of ugly? We figured we could salvage some of the bulbs, replant a few, dry the rest and maybe pot them. So we went to Linders and bought whatever caught our eye (and preferably was on sale in early July): elegant daylilies, delicate phlox, vivid pink coneflowers, colorful red and orange geraniums.

Here's the bed before we started planting:


Steve did the heavy digging, including removing the weedy hostas that snuck around the corner from the side of the plot ...


... and unearthed dozens and dozens of tulip bulbs. After we put the flowers in, we stuck a few of the bigger, hardier-looking bulbs back into the soil in unplanted areas. Maybe they'll provide some April color again after all.


And here's what it looks like now, on one side of the front steps, at least. The other side is smaller and has one lily and the phlox. You'll have to trust me when I tell you that it looks 100 percent better than it did before. Even better, it makes me happy to look at it.


Now, does anyone want some tulip bulbs?

dream :: the baby is born, but i don't remember

My dream last night:

I have had the baby, but I have gone home early, and Steve and my mom are bringing the baby home from the hospital. The house I am in is more like my parents' house than Steve's and mine, though. I hear them coming through the door, and I hurry out to see the baby. I have no recollection of giving birth to him or even being in the hospital — and I can't believe I haven't stayed in the hospital to be cared for during my recovery.

The baby is lying on a blanket on the floor, and we unwrap his swaddle, and he is just adorable — he looks just like Steve, but more like a 1- or 2-year old, not a newborn. I pick him up and hold him, and I want to start breastfeeding him, but I don't know where to start. I don't have a pillow or anything to position myself, so I ask Steve to run to Peapods and buy a My Brest Friend pillow (which I saw there in real life yesterday).

I have so many questions, and as things begin to unfold, I realize how much I have been unable to remember. Did he get a bottle in the hospital? "Don't ask," my mom says, knowing I had wanted to start breastfeeding right away. How much does he weigh? 15 pounds, Steve says, even though he was more than a month early. His birthday is July 13. How long did I labor? Only three hours. (Only three hours ... for a 15-pound baby?!) Well, then, what time did I go into labor last night? What time was he born? 11:00. If I left so early, did I get a chance to fill out all the paperwork the hospital gives us? "It's right here in this box," Steve says. I haven't gotten to the point of asking how much I was drugged, but I assume it must have been a lot, or I would have remembered the birth.

I go to the bathroom, and yes, I am wearing the big pad they must have given me in the hospital, and there is a lot of blood and some crampiness — physical evidence that I did have this baby, even if my memory of it is gone.

So strange: This is the second time I've dreamed I've had the baby but don't remember anything about the childbirth. My mom has been in both dreams, too, even though she won't be there for the real thing. I wonder what it's all about.

how i cook

So here's what transpired Saturday night:

Steve: What should we do for dinner?

Me: We have some chicken we need to use up.

Steve: I can dice it up for you. Should we stir-fry it with some of those [frozen organic] vegetables?

Me: Sure. [Checks cupboard.] Shoot, I was in the mood to use coconut milk, but we're out. Hey, we do have this jar of Alfredo sauce. Could we do some sort of chicken Alfredo?

Steve: What about the vegetables?

Me: Well, maybe we could still sauté the veggies with the chicken and mix in the Alfredo sauce and have a really chunky sauce and have it with fettucini noodles. We still have half a box of those.

Steve: Uh ... OK.

[We start to work on it. Steve empties the jar of Alfredo sauce into the pan with the chicken and vegetables.]

Me: I don't think this is enough sauce. I wonder if we have any more. [Checks cupboard again.] Hey, check this out. It's a jar of sun-dried tomato pesto. It's been here for ages. I think it might have been a wedding shower gift?! Should I dump it in?

Steve: Uh ... I guess you could.

Me: [Sniffing] Do you think it's still good? It's probably three years old, at least.

Steve: [Sniffs] I don't smell anything wierd. It's probably OK.

[I dump in the jar, and Steve stirs it all in. The sauce is now a very light orange.]

Me: Maybe this could use some oregano. [Shakes some in] And here's a jar of Italian herbs ...

Steve: This smells pretty good!

[The noodles finish cooking, so we drain them, fill up our plates and sit down to eat.]

The verdict: Fantastico! We could not have come up with a better summer pasta dish (in my humble opinion!) if I'd scoured a dozen cookbooks.

More often than not, this is how meals often come together in our kitchen — especially on those days when I'm too tired to go shopping with a long, complicated grocery list. (I should mention that Steve, while perfectly willing to help out, is not a big cook.) Occasionally, I'll flip open my copy of How to Cook Everything to brush up on something basic, like the best way to sauté pork chops. Then I'll figure out what's in the cupboard, what's in the refrigerator, and what might go together decently. The results are hit or miss, but more often than not, they're pretty good. Sometimes surprisingly so! In those cases, I try to jot down what I did so I can duplicate it someday.

That's what I plan to do with this one. I just wonder if it has an actual name — if I could order it in a restaurant or something. And where does a person find a good jar of sun-dried tomato pesto? I suppose I could make it myself ... but knowing me, I'm a lot more likely to use it if I find it sitting unopened in the cupboard some lazy Saturday afternoon.

the calm before the storm

We met with our doula the other night and talked about birth plans, practiced breathing and massage techniques and learned a few exercises on the birth ball she gave us. And she took some pictures of us — something she also will be doing in the hospital. I am still so happy we chose her. She makes me feel so comfortable ... and considering she is going to be seeing me in some of my most vulnerable, immodest moments (i.e. naked, panting, grunting and groaning), that is a very good thing.

I am loving the birth ball, too! I'm sitting on it as I write, using it in place of a chair in front of the computer desk. It's basically an exercise ball like you'd see at the gym. Sitting on top of it, rolling back and forth on it, is actually pretty comfortable, and it positions my pelvis in a way that's good for baby. Supposedly, it gives him more room to slide into a good position those last few weeks so his head is facing down (as opposed to his butt, which would make him breech) and his spine curves along the outside of my belly so he's facing my back (not vice versa — "sunny-side up", which would give me a lot of back labor). The better his position when I go into labor, the easier my labor will be. But of course, no matter what I do now, I can't really control how he turns. I can only improve my chances.

Toward the end of her visit, the doula told us we seem a lot different from how we did when we first met two months ago. "You seem calmer," she said. "Before, you seemed like you thought you might be having a baby. Now, you seem like you're ready to have a baby."

Steve and I were kind of surprised by her observation, but when we pondered it later, I realized it's true. We've been to six weeks of classes, I've been plowing through books, and Steve has been reading quite a bit, too. Obviously, books can only do so much. I can't say I'm any closer to knowing what the real-life experience of childbirth will be like, but I can say that I feel less anxious, more confident, more prepared ... and even more excited. I feel like Steve must feel when he trains for a marathon. He knows it's going to be grueling, and he might want to quit when he hits mile 19, but he'll keep going because there's nothing like that feeling of accomplishment when he crosses the finish line.

putting lay to lie

Monday night, Steve and I watched the documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, which follows the rise and fall of Enron, especially focusing on its top guns, Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling and Andy Fastow. The movie was fascinating, and it really helped me understand what had been happening inside the company that led to one of the biggest economic fiascos of the century ... so many people losing their retirement savings (including former employees of Portland General Electric, which Enron took over) and the link between Enron and the California blackouts (something I hadn't known before). It's really an incredible story.

So it was wierdly coincidental, not two days later, to see the news that Ken Lay had died. Everything in the movie was still so fresh in my mind that it felt rather ... unbelievable. When it first came across on the news sites, a cause of death hadn't been announced yet, and I wondered if it was suicide. It wouldn't have been the first for Enron, and Ken Lay was probably going to spend the rest of his life in prison. (Turns out it was a heart attack — but was it? The snarky bloggers and conspiracy theorists are already at work, with conjectures like this one: "How about this? Knowing that his assets would be inheritable if he died, the Lay family suggested to their financial genius paterfamilias that he take a pill that would mimic a massive heart attack. Kind of like Frankie Pentangeli in The Godfather Part II. At least that would have shown a generosity of spirit.")

As for my take on Ken Lay and his death, I'm somewhere in the boring middle. He was a convicted criminal, a victim of greed, arrogance, poor judgment or all of the above. He caused great devastation to many people, and I would never defend him. Yet a man has died, and his family is mourning. No matter who he was in life, he's in someone else's hands now, and I don't feel like dancing on his grave. (I would love to be a fly on the wall at his funeral, though.)

for anyone who has dealt with infertility

This includes me, and it includes many women I know, thanks to the strong communities that build up when you share that common bond. If you're reading, I want to tell you about this new blog by a couple who went through it, too. Now they have kids, and they're writing a book about infertility — for friends and family of those who go through it. They're pretty much using the blog as a way to gather material. As they explain it:

We are parents who have made it to the other side of the infertility chasm and we are currently writing a book to help friends and family who have not gone through infertility to understand the emotions and needs of those within the [infertility] community.

The blog is geared toward people who have struggled with infertility — in any way, shape or form. It's an invitation for them to tell their stories. And if you're lucky enough to have no problems in the fertility department, it's also a great place for anyone who ever wanted to walk a mile in those shoes.

Want to know how to tell your infertile friends your happy pregnancy news? ("The best way for me to receive this kind of news is over email and/or the phone, so I can hide my reaction just a little bit. That way I can make it sound happy and enthusiastic while I'm crying.") Want to know why sometimes they decline to attend your baby showers? ("It would just be too embarassing to breakdown crying in the middle of a huge crowd. People don't realize that the crying is not a sign of self pity, but of pain.")

The stories people are telling, in both the posts and the comments, are incredibly moving and real. Every time I visit this site, I find 10 different paragraphs I want to send to 10 different friends. At this rate, I think the book is going to be amazing.

I've listed it on my blog list on the left side of this page. It's called Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters. Don't miss it!

lazy weekend

I love these lazy, uneventful weekends we've been having lately because it means we get to watch some World Cup Soccer games. Steve, who used to play soccer, is passionate about the game — to the point where Sunday morning, when I was still in bed, I heard him bring the newspapers inside, and moments later, his yell: "Oh my God!!" I waited for the horrible news: Another terrorist attack? Bird flu strikes Minnesota? No. It was the news that France had beaten Brazil. Definitely an upset! I really watching enjoy soccer, too, compared to, say, football. (And the players are so good-looking.) When England lost to Portugal in penalty kicks Saturday (after losing David Beckham and Wayne Rooney midway through the game), I confess, I cried along with the Brits.

We went to see the new wing of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts Sunday. I was impressed, if only because the extra space allows the museum to showcase more of its collection — and the MIA has quite a good collection, considering that it's in Minneapolis and not New York, London, Chicago, etc. The new wing especially gives the modern and Impressionist collections room to breathe. I look forward to going back (with baby in tow!) when I don't have to sit down to rest every five minutes and pee every 15. With the recent remodel at the Walker Art Center and the new Guthrie Theater opening on the river, it's an exciting time for the Minneapolis arts world.

Movies watched: The Devil Wears Prada (fun! I just love Meryl Streep), St. Ralph (cute, family-friendly movie about a 14-year-old boy who decides to run the Boston Marathon), and Happily Ever After (interesting French film with writer-director-actor Yvan Attal and Charlotte Gainsbourgh, who also are a couple in real life, as a married couple exploring the question of whether love and fidelity can last in marriage.) Movies on deck for tonight and tomorrow: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (on DVD) and An Inconvenient Truth (the global warming one with Al Gore). Yes, we saved the documentaries for last.

Oh, and meet the newest member of our household, the Kenmore 16032 dishwasher. Our old one (which looked ancient) gave out on us, and since it's old and was cleaning our dishes quite crappily, we decided to bite the bullet and get a new one. I hope it won't have any problems, as we declined to pay Sears the additional $140 for the service plan, although they gave us the hard sell.