Baby Gifts and Such

A few people have asked if Jon and I are registered at any baby gift places. The answer is yes: The Changing Table (http://www.thechangingtable.net/B3_registry.html) and Babies R Us. The Changing Table is the cloth diapering service we will be using once Evelyn is born. Yes, we are going to use cloth diapers. It is an experiment, but one we both feel strongly about trying. If it doesn't work out, such is life, but we want to try. Saving the earth and stuff like that. So we signed up with a service to have clean diapers delivered every week and dirty ones whisked away to be washed. I'm excited.

This pregnancy is rapidly coming to its climax. I am in the 29th week of pregnancy, only a few short days away from the 30th week, which puts me in the "decades" of weeks in which I'll reach full term. Although a pregnancy is generally measured to 40 weeks, I think you technically are considered full term at 38 weeks, safe to deliver if the baby decides its coming. That really, really, isn't very far away. I'm kind of amazed at the soonness of it all when I think about it for very long. I'll have a child. Everything will be the same, and yet there will be a baby. And that baby will change everything. Amazing.

Also I want to send much love to Alisa, who is currently in labor with her third baby! How very very exciting. I hope all is going well!

My name is Wakefield

Three times in the past couple months I have heard about new baby girls given the name Poppy. I love it. I don't know if it is a super trendy name right now, or if I just happen to come across a pocket of Poppys, but it is a delightful name. So happy and fun. Lest anyone worry that we will be naming our child Poppy Lew, fear not. We are set on Evelyn Mary. Of course, maybe that name is causing a big cringe for some, but tough frijoles. Little Evie is on her way!

I am happy to report the dog situation is getting much better. Still the crazy barking at the door when our dogs hear the upstairs dog go outside, but that is about it. Sophie can go out and play with him for a while and it is OK. Tucker still can't go out or he barks at the other dog nonstop, but that is fine. Tucker doesn't need to go out very often. But all three dogs seem to have come to an understanding that the others exist and that it is acceptable. Thank goodness for that, because mama needs her sleep!

I am contemplating some prenatal massage in the next few weeks. This is funny because I've only had one massage in my life, and I hated it. It hurt! It was weird! There was all this culty new age music playing and low lighting. Bleh. But...I'm achey all over. Mostly my hips, which hurt with the pain of a thousand daggers all night long. I toss and turn from one side to the other all night, hugging my body pillow between my knees and against my stomach, and still it hurts. I try to lay on my back to relieve the hip pain, but I can only do that for a few minutes before the baby is pressing on my aorta or something and I start to feel unwell. Jon goes to this therapeutic massage place from time to time and they do prenatal massage as well. They have a bunch of new age, hippy dippy hype useful information on their website about the benefits of prenatal massage. Like reducing swelling in the legs (which I don't have too bad yet, but I'm sure it's coming), reducing aching joints (yeah, check on that one), reducing sinus stuffiness (check), easing insomnia (double check). Maybe they are full of themselves, or maybe it really is helpful. I don't know. I DO know that I won't be taking the advice they offer on their site that "prenatal massage is most beneficial once a week in the second trimester, and twice or more per week in the third trimester." Yeah, at $40-$50 a pop, it's beneficial for your profits! Sheesh.

I'm heading to Utah this weekend for a quick trip to see the family. Sadly, I don't think there will be time to see anyone else, which is sad because there are quite a few people I'd like to have lunch with. My friend who is bound to give birth any day now! My friend who has the cutest twin toddlers I've ever seen. My friend who I haven't seen since before I was married. Alas, 2 and two half days is not enough time.

Weekends should be for sleeping

This week is not a good one for dog ownership. Our landlord, who lives above us, is dogsitting her mother's brittany spaniel. Having another dog in their territory, a dog they can't see or play with but can smell and hear, is making our dogs CRAZY. Found out yesterday the intruding dog also is not neutered, which just adds to the craziness. His doggie pheremones are coursing through our ventilation system and neither Sophie nor Tucker is keen to just sit around and accept it. No, they are interested in....barking through the vents, barking at the windows, scratching at the door, running around outside to see if the other dog is out there, playing with the other dog if he is outside (Sophie) or barking at the intact interloper until the entire neighborhood is fed up (Tucker). (Tucker barking is the worst, because he has the loud bark of a much bigger dog. He usually doesn't bark much, so hearing it so much now is really grating.) The worst is when our landlord lets her dog into the backyard. Our dogs can hear it, know he's out there, and all hell breaks loose until they can get outside. Whether or not they get to go out and run around with the other dog, it takes them about an HOUR to settle down afterwards. An hour. An hour of sniffing and whining and scratching and barking, with multiple trips upstairs to go outside and make sure the other dog isn't back, until they are calm. It is making life very difficult. The lack of sleep the first two nights this other dog was in the house were just horrible. If our dogs hadn't finally settled down last night and let me get a solid night sleep I really think I might have cracked. Let's hope the next few nights go as well.

The rest of this weekend was pretty calm. It was hot and sunny so I didn't do much. Sunday Jon and I saw "Get Smart" -- it was kind of silly and moderately funny and a good summer movie. We also had a long discussion about what types of prosthetics Jon would like if he had to have his feet amputated (wheels or treads), his legs amputated below the knee (bouncy things, like paralympic runners use), or his legs amputated above the knee (goat legs). Of course, if only one leg has to be amputated, he would like a peg leg. Yes, this is all very likely to happen so I'm glad we got the important stuff out in the open. I'll be sure to include all this in the living will...

I'm 28 weeks pregnant this week. My baby is 14.5 inches long, and 2.5 pounds. Whoopee!

CSA

This summer Jon and I are experimenting with Community Supported Agriculture. We bought a "share" in a local, organic farm, and each week we have a box full of produce delivered to a local pick-up point. This week will be our first box, a "small family share" suitable for 2-3 people. Each week we'll get what was harvested in the past few days, so we'll be eating only what is in season. This week we are expecting a bunch of different lettuces, cilantro (ew), parsley, spinach, radishes, something called garlic scapes, and an organice vidalia onion and some celery from a sister-farm. Also a dozen eggs from pastured chickens. The eggs are supposed to have more nutrients and omega-3s because the chickens roam around eating bugs and dirt and stuff, instead of just chicken feed. I'm very excited. In the middle of summer we'll be getting a bountiful box of tomatoes, squash, lettuce, carrots, greens, onions, herbs, etc. There may be some plums, cherries, apples and pears thrown into the mix from time to time. The boxes will come until December, but it will mostly be winter squash and potatoes at the end. Regardless, fresh, organic, pesticide-free, local, in-season produce is bound to be a winner and I can't wait to start eating! And with the price of food going up up up, as the price to ship it in from around the world goes up up up, we've locked in our produce prices for the rest of the year! Nice.

Work continues to be hectic, with my ability to focus increasingly limited. I have a fog brain. I worked until 8:30pm on Monday night (from home after about 5pm) because I just couldn't focus during the day. The most annoying man sits in a cube near mine and he is ALWAYS on the phone doing something not work related. Changing his homeowners insurance, talking to his wife, complaining about his wife, looking into buying a new car, looking into selling an existing car, calling people on Craig's List to buy who-knows-what, setting up an appointment to fix a crack in his windshield, talking about the weather, finding a HVAC guy to come to his house. It is endless. And I can't NOT listen to him, which is about as annoying as his talking in the first place. I've enlisted the help of earphones from time-to-time, but it only works so well. Instead I learn way more about him than I care to know, get distracted from the task at hand, and complain about it to Jon. :)

Now, work!

More baby names...now with graphics!

Has everybody seen The Baby Name Wizard website? It is the funnest website out there, especially if you are having a baby. As mentioned in my earlier post on our list of baby names, Jon and I have been giving our daughter the option of kicking when we say a particular name. The first time we did it--nothing. Last night, there were two little swirls with Maeve and one with Lucy. But nothing big. Not like...NAME ME LUCY! or anything like that. Really, we're just being silly. But...it's fun.

I really like Lucy. I like alliteration with first and last names (when it works) and the name Lucy in general is very pretty. We see from the Baby Name Wizard, that it has fallen in popularity over the years, but has seen an uptick since the 1990s.

Anyway...but Lucy Lew? Will people think we named our kid after Lucy Liu (who I was confusing with Lisa Ling until two days ago)? She's not exactly someone I would name a kid after. She's a sub-par actress. Charlie's Angels? Ugh.

Sigh. So complicated.

I'm pretty sure we're going to land on Evelyn. It is pretty and works well with Lew. And Evie is a cute nickname.

My name is NOT Nevaeh

The baby name search continues. I go through phases, where I really like the list we've come up with, and times when I hate all the names on the list. Right now I'm in-between. I don't hate the names, but I'm not inspired by them.

The standards on the rotating list include:

Evelyn
Katherine
Margaret
Amelia (although it's kind of falling off the list)

New additions to the list include Avery and Maeve. Why? I don't know. Cuz we saw them and liked them. Would a girl named Avery be teased with Ovary? I don't know. Would Maeve Lew be an ethnically complicated combination? Very Irish and very Chinese...which I guess is what our kid is going to be. Well, very Anglican/European and about a quarter Chinese. I generally am not a big fan of the gaelic names trend, but Jon and I both like Maeve.

Name that Jon likes but I don't: Priscilla.
Name that I like and Jon doesn't: Fiona.
Name I like that just doesn't work with Lew: Lucy

I don't think we're going to have a decision by the birth. Last night Jon was talking to the baby, giving her the list of names to see if she kicked at one. No luck, but we might keep doing that. Or just see what she looks like when she's born.

Home vs. Heart

I'm reading an article about the gap between the amount of housework and childcare a wife does vs. her husband in a household where both individuals work outside the home. The size of the gap isn't what caught my eye and caused me to write about it--we all know men do less than women in these studies, since that's the point of the study. What caught my eye was the following:

In couples in which both husband and wife have full-time paying jobs, the wife does 28 hours of housework per week and the husband, 16. In these same couples, the mom does 11 hours per week of childcare while the dad does three hours.

That means in two-parent, two-income households, women are spending twice as much time on housework vs. "childcare". Men are spending three times more on housework than childcare. There seems something very wrong with that. The ratios are off. If you are both working outside the home, wouldn't spending time with your child when you are home be more important than vacuuming or weed pulling?

I don't know how these statistics are gathered, but it seems a bit off. I don't know any men with little ones who spend only three hours a week caring for their children. And thank god for that.

So this is what a parasite feels like...

I'm getting bigger. Seriously, every day I look at myself and think, "Wow, I look even bigger than yesterday!" The baby is growing and so am I. Soon I'll be frightening people with my girth as well, Alisa.

The biggest annoyance lately has been heart flutters and breathing problems, mostly at the office. I don't know why the office makes it worse. Is it just that I have these problems from early morning to early afternoon, and I happen to be at the office during those hours? Is it that I drink caffeinated sodas in the morning? Or is it that I have horrible posture at my desk and that causes everything to squish up into my lungs? Maybe it is something else. I've been coming into work every day for the past two weeks because I've got a million things on my plate from now until July 3 and I just won't finish it all if I work from home. Anyway...the heart flutters and shortness of breath are annoying, but according to my midwife totally normal. By the early afternoon, though, I am over it. I can't work much past 2:30 or 3:00 because I just can't breathe.

Maybe I'll put myself on some self-imposed bed rest this weekend. :)

Pediatricians and wedding bells

Apparently I'm supposed to find a pediatrician for little Evie/Kitty/Mitzy/Margot here soon. We have our hospital tour and paperwork completion appointment July 1 (a little early, I think, but they were filling up for the summer!) and we're supposed to have our pediatrician's name by then. I'm also supposed to interview pediatricians and find one that fits with our philosophy and blah blah blah. Thing is, Jon and I don't have a strong pediatrician philosophy. Will they treat my child? Great. Done. OK, so maybe I have a few more things I care about, like do they support breastfeeding (I think it would be very odd if they said no), do they prescribe antibiotics for every little thing (again, weird if they said yes), do they think alternative medicines are ever appropriate (I'm not sure how I feel about this myself, but I'd be curious about their answer), etc. My two biggest criteria are insurance coverage (being in-network) and I think I'd prefer a woman since we'er having a girl. That's it. So the process begins, I'm looking for a pediatrician. Anyone have any advice?

Yesterday Jon and I attended the wedding of my friend Jedediah, the last of the high school friends to tie the knot. It was a nice wedding, sweet and simple. It got Jon and I talking about our own wedding and the 10 months since. We're both happy we got married and we're both happy with the way we've weathered the ups and downs of married life. We talked about the advice we'd give single friends if they were headed toward the altar and what we think has changed since saying "I do." It was nice to kind of touch base on things we don't talk about very often. I hope Jedediah and Samantha are very happy and can have an equally upbeat conversation 10 months into their marriage. And I hope we can all have these same kinds of coversations 10, 20 or 50 years from now.

Baby Baby

Me and my baby dog. And baby baby. I don't have enough lap for both of them!

For my mother

Here is a picture of me 24 weeks pregnant. I look horrible. But I look pregnant, too, which is the reason for the picture. So, Mom, here is how I look right now.

























I had a check-up with the midwife today and everything is right on schedule and normal. I'm gaining weight finally (and obviously), but that is good. I have a third and hopefully final ultrasound scheduled in six weeks to check that my placenta has moved up higher. My next regular check-up is in four weeks, and then I move to an every-two-week visit schedule. Jon and I are all signed up for a birthing class and a hospital tour in the next couple months.

Replace the tomikin knobs

This weekend we had a baby preview for the dogs. We invited a few friends over for a BBQ, including one couple with a nine-month old baby, Lillith. This baby is very used to animals, living in a house with two dogs and two cats, so her parents agreed to let us use her as a guinea pig for our dogs. I'm happy to report that it went well. Tucker was uninterested, as expected, and Sophie got used to her after a while. There was a lot of interest in licking Lillith's feet, face and hands, and smelling her head. There was a little barking at first, kind of "hey, what are you" kind of little barks, a lot of nervous sniffing, and then the licking. Sophie never became uninterested in Lillith, always wanted to see what she was doing, but she wasn't afraid of her or aggressive toward her or anything unpleasant. Lillith was equally interested in Sophie. All in all, a dog-meets-baby success. I know it will take our dogs some time to adjust to having a baby around, but knowing they don't get all freaked out at the sight of one in their own territory was nice.

This morning Sophie took a little nap under the baby crib in the guest room. Too cute.

Sometimes I wish I was a mechanic, or was related to a mechanic, or knew any mechanics, because I always feel like I'm getting taken for a ride when I take my car into the shop. Jon's car was running warm and leaking some sort of fluid. We took it in today and we're told the car has a hole in the radiator. To replace the radiator, the best course of action we are told, they have to drain the radiator fluid, drain the air conditioning fluid, replace all the hoses, and recharge the a/c. This will cost a very pretty penny. Now, the garage we use is very reputable and has always done good work, but I would have no idea if what they tell us is real. They could just have easily have said they need to replace the radiator, remove and drain the tomikin knobs, open up the air supporter and decompress the waring evador. Despite the facts that I know "air conditioning fluid," "radiator," hoses," and what not are actual car repair terms, I don't know the difference. Nor do I know how much any repairs should cost. Alas, we are stuck.

I don't feel so hot today. I haven't been sleeping well the past few nights and it has caught up with me. I am exhausted. My stomach hurts a little and I'm just blah. I took a nap already today and I may take another one.