bright light! bright light!

Baby, the other day your papa came home with one of the most thoughtful gifts I have ever received....a nightlight. See I have to keep getting up in the middle of the night to pee, and on any given night our bedroom floor is a virtual minefield just waiting to take me out. To get from my side of the bed to our bathroom I have to maneuver around piles of clothes (clean and dirty), random shoes, usually a suitcase or two leftover from your dad’s travels, and, AND a small black dog that considers it his duty to patrol this whole big mess. So your dad was just a teeny bit worried that I was going to take a tumble in the dark, hence the nightlight. Awwwwwwwww. What a good papa you have.

Of course the nightlight only lasted about two nights before we decided it was just way too bright and unplugged it. Guess I should start upping my carrot intake or something baby. I wonder how much night vision goggles cost?

gizmo

Baby, today we went to the Doctor’s office to meet with the Nurse Practitioner to learn all about your do’s and don’ts. Much like a Mogwai you had a list of things we must never do to you. Apparently you are not to be fed too much fish, soft cheese, caffeine, or deli meats. Also, you are never, ever to be given any alcohol of any kind. Seems to me baby, you are missing out on some of the best things in life already. Caffeine...good, cheese...good, alcohol...good. I certainly don’t want you turning into a Gremlin though, so I will oblige. Although I have never gone 9 months without drinking since I first started drinking so don’t think this is easy baby. Just want to make sure you understand just how big a sacrifice this is.

The Nurse also asked us all about health and family histories. Your Dad took this opportunity to let her know that I may be allergic to Brazil nuts. I am pretty sure that at no point in this pregnancy will I be injected with Essence of Brazil Nut, but I appreciate his on-the-ball-ness. We were also charged with the task of picking you a pediatrician sooner rather than later. That seems like a very grown up thing to have to do. I promise to do my best and NOT simply close my eyes and point to any old Doctor on the list of recommendations we were given.

All in all it was a good visit, and started to make you feel all the more real. The next time we go back there we will get to see you on live TV and we can’t wait!

same, same

Baby, since we found out about you outwardly everything is the same, but somehow, everything in our world is different. I brush my teeth and think “we’re having a baby”, I walk the dog and think “I am pregnant”, and I keep doing this all day every day throughout everything I do. The other day I went to Walgreens to buy dental floss and I found myself grinning at the clerk from ear to ear. It was the same clerk that checked me out a few weeks earlier when I bought nearly every pregnancy test in the store. I felt like hugging her and shouting “we did it! It all worked out!”, but I got the distinct sense she would not have been amused.

When I was in the doctor’s office for blood work I noticed that the receptionist and I were the only ones not sporting big ole’ bellies. I liked being there surrounded by all that roundness. It reminded me of being in Thailand and seeing the happy Buddha’s all over with their big round bellies. I mean, what could ever be better than a room full of happy, fat pregnant women?

what the what?!

Baby, today we discovered you. You were just quietly hiding out, and we were just going about our normal lives. Then I started to get just a little bit suspicious. Something felt a little different. So we went looking for you and low and behold there you were. We were positively shocked and thrilled to find you. In all fairness you did clue us in a little to your presence....

1. I developed what I like to call “dog nose.” All of a sudden I could smell everything. While this does have its benefits, like allowing you to seek out all baked goods within a 3 mile radius, mostly it is not so great. Especially when you work where I work. On Thursday morning I walked into work, caught a whiff of maple syrup on someone’s Eggo and nearly tossed my cookies. But baby, I have always been a bit of a gagger and the smell of syrup has never done much for me, so I didn’t think too much of it.
2. That same day I noticed that I had to pee a lot. In fact I couldn’t stop. The trip from my office to the sorry excuse of a women’s bathroom is loooooong and baby, I nearly wore a path in the already threadbare carpeting from trekking back and forth. But still, I have always been a water drinker and small bladders seem to run in the family (cough, Moochie, cough), so I just chalked it up to an annoyance and continued trudging back and forth.
3. Then late in the day someone emailed a video to me of dogs greeting their owners who had been in Iraq for months, even years, serving our country. I clicked on the videos one by one and then I slowly lost it. I sniffed as two Burmese Mountain dogs jumped all over their owner, and I had to put my head down on my desk after two beagles howled with delight at the sight of their owner, and I full on ugly cried as a Golden Retriever actually jumped into his owner’s arms. Now I have a soft spot for dogs (your dog, Baxter, has a Chinese Herbalist for God’s sake) but this was a bit much even for me.

That night, on the way home from work, after thinking about all your oh so subtle clues, I decided maybe I should go home and take a test. But I was pretty positive it would come up negative (sorry about my apparent lack of mother’s intuition there babe), so I didn’t even tell your Dad. I came home, threw down my bag, tried to deftly dodge the dog who was jumping all over me, and headed to the bathroom....because, you know, I had to pee...... AGAIN.

And then there I was staring down at the test thinking about what a waste it was to even be doing this when a line appeared. Two lines actually. Two big pink lines. What the what?! I came streaming out of the bathroom and ran right into your Dad and oh so eloquently announced “I’m pregnant.” Your Dad and I just stood there and stared at each other for a couple of minutes with stupid grins on our faces. Then we started jumping up and down, which got the dog all excited, so we ended up locking ourselves in the bathroom for a few minutes to continue our staring, smiling, and jumping.

And there you have it baby, the story of how we discovered you. I don’t think Columbus was any happier when he discovered America than we were the day we found you. Of course, Columbus was really looking for a shorter route to the West Indies and was lost as hell so he probably wasn’t all that happy when he discovered America but I digress.

p.s. I swear I didn’t know you were there or else I wouldn’t have had all that booze on NYE, New Year’s Day, my birthday........