The World Moves

My belly is big enough now that when I’m sleeping, gravity pulls it down towards the mattress. The baby also gets pulled down. So, if I’m lying on my left side, my stomach and its occupant get shifted off to the left as well.

The other thing is that I have to sleep on my side now, and I have to switch sides periodically to stay comfortable. This is par for the course when you have the extra weight pressing on you from the inside. Anyways, I wake up every few hours with a numb hip, and roll over. When you’re pregnant, you can’t just roll over in your sleep, because it’s too much of a process.

When I roll and shift, the baby gets shifted along with me, and I get a lot of squirming. I imagine that it all seems very sudden to the kid, to have the whole world shift that way. I bet it feels something like an amusement park ride, but without your consent. In any case, it seems to take a lot of wiggling around to get comfortable again, for both me and the baby.

Spam, Spam, Spam

We have been getting lots and lots of spam in our blog. What this means is that we get a bunch of comments (sometimes many hundreds of them) from sites that we’re not interested in. Some of the highlights include online poker and gaming sites, information about re-growing hair, and some links to adult material. It has gotten to the point where it is appearing daily, and so it has become quite the nuisance to clean it out.

To reduce or eliminate this stuff, Jon has limited commenting. You can only comment within the first 3 days of a post. Hopefully, this is a reasonable compromise. Although, I will point out, very few of you comment anyway. I know that you’re reading, because I get feedback from you in other ways. So, I don’t expect any major uproar from the masses.

Keeping Warm

Our new furnace is being installed today. When I talked with Jon a couple of hours ago, things seemed to be progressing on schedule. They should be finishing up now, in fact, if everything went according to plan. I understand that the new furnace is much smaller than the old one, and generally much more efficient.

So, our baby will be warm enough, which is a good thing. My books tell me that he or she is 7 1/2 inches long crown-to-rump, or 10 1/2 inches long head-to-toe. The kiddo is getting big, too, weighing in at just under a pound. The baby is putting on fat deposits, and can pick up sounds with his or her ears. I guess it’s time to start having more intelligent conversations.

In the Way

My belly is getting big enough now to be officially in the way. While I can still do pretty much everything, I am finding some everyday tasks increasingly difficult. For example, I can’t bend over so well anymore. It’s also a bit of process to get up when I’m sitting or lying down. And, I bump into things, because I’m unaccustomed to this large bulge in my physique.

The other unfortunate thing about the expanding frontal area, is that it is a total magnet for food. Whatever I’m eating ends up somewhere on the front of my shirt. The good thing about this is that I always have a snack at the ready, but the bad news is that I look sort of unkempt. So, I make an extra effort to inspect myself in a mirror, where I can see the whole affected area clearly.

Luckily, people think this aspect of pregnancy is cute. For pregnant women, the inability to perform basic tasks, and the food crumbs everywhere are sort of inconvenient. But, at least we’re bringing joy into the world with our suffering.

The Christmas Season

Here is a handy chart I’ve made, to help you determine when Christmas starts. It will vary by location, so be aware that there is no hard-and fast answer.

Costco – Aug. 1
Card stores – Aug. 15
Department stores – Oct. 15
Grocery stores – Nov. 1
Shopping malls – Nov. 15
Miscellaneous retail – Nov. 15
Novelty slipper stand – Dec. 1
Christmas tree stands – Dec. 1
Eastern Orthodox – Dec. 26

Also, has anybody noticed that Boxing Day seems to be longer every year? They seem to have ‘Boxing Month’ now. I don’t really know where they can go from that, though. 60 Days of Boxing Madness? Boxing Season? I shudder to speculate.

Baby Gear

Last night, Jon and I took a trip to Ikea to check out baby gear. I sort of expected that shopping for baby stuff would be the fun part of the pregnancy, but it’s really not. Maybe some people enjoy it, but I just find it confusing and overwhelming.

Take a trip into any baby store, and you will find lots and lots of choices. You will find 4 strollers from a single manufacturer that all look very similar, but range in price from $240 to $440. You will find all sorts of ‘must-haves’, like baby swings, mobiles, and fancy toys that apparently ’save your life’, at $100 or more a pop. You will also find baby carriers, diaper bags, diaper pails, baby monitors, change tables, changing pads, baby bathtubs, dressers, cribs, cradles, bassinets, clothes, blankets, baby bedding sets, baby nail clippers, baby thermometers, baby hairbrushes, and a bunch of stuff that you can’t even identify.

The problem, I think, is that it’s very hard to know what my baby will be like. While it’s worth $100 dollars to me for the swing that will give me 30 minutes a day to shower and use the bathroom, my kid may or may not like that. While the baby carrier at $150 dollars is a great investment if it keeps the baby happy and calm on walks, some kids prefer the stroller. So, my choices are:

1. Buy everything, so that I will be prepared for anything, even if I don’t use it all.
2. Buy only the most basic items that I absolutely need, and hope that I don’t sacrifice my sanity for lack of the ‘miracle’ baby item.
3. Guess, based on some sort of intuition, whether or not my kid will be soothed by a bouncy chair, or freaked out by a bouncy chair.

I really don’t know what’s the best way to go. I think that there is no right answer, and that’s the problem. So, I agonize over the whole process, and worry about my parental adequacy. But then I find a very cute stuffed animal, and it all goes away. The saving grace is that baby stuff is very cute.

My books tell me that the baby is now 7 inches long from crown-to-rump, and somewhere between 10 and 10 1/2 inches long head to toe. The baby weighs about 13 ounces, and is still very active, especially at night.

Home Ownership

It has been a hectic 24 hours in the Strocel house. Last night, the pilot light burned out on our hot water heater. Carefully following the instructions I re-lit it, but the water failed to heat. Although the pilot light was fine, the flame that the heater put out was less than impressive, and it failed to accomplish anything substantial.

So, last night wasn’t so hot (ha ha). Then I woke up this morning at 6:30, to find the power was out. It was completely unrelated to the hot water heater, it was some kind of BC Hydro failure that affected 6400 customers in Port Moody and Coquitlam. I lit some candles and ate breakfast, discovering along the way that candlelight freaks Dorothy out something fierce. All the moving shadows are very spooky indeed, according to our cat.

Anyways, I decided to cut my losses and shower at work. Of course, with the power off, and my lack of basic home-owner skills, I couldn’t get my car out of the garage. So, I stole Jon’s, and braved the horrendous traffic caused by all the traffic lights being out. Quite the morning.

Jon had the guys come in and look, and they’re replacing our hot water heater now. We will also be getting a new furnace in the next couple of days, because it’s cheaper to do it that way, and because both appliances needed to be replaced anyway. We have some vague hope that all the money we save on our gas bill will somehow pay for the unexpected expense (yeah, right). We also know that with a baby on the way, it makes sense to do this now, while we still have some hope of paying for it all. The joys of home ownership are plentiful, you see.

What?

A month or so ago, driving over the Pitt River bridge, Jon and I saw something pretty weird. We saw a white sedan, probably from the mid-eighties, beside us. It had the usual wear and tear that you would expect, but seemed generally OK. So far, nothing out of the ordinary, right?

On closer inspection, though, both of the side mirrors on this car were covered in plastic grocery bags. The rearview mirror was turned completely backwards, as well, so the driver had no visibility to the rear at all. In addition, the male driver, who was the long occupant of the vehicle, was wearing a gas mask.

What? Why? We’ll never know. If you have any ideas, we’d love to hear them.

Hyper Kid

I feel the baby moving a lot. I get 3 or 4 periods of heavy activity, lasting 30 or more minutes each, every day. Aside from that, I get a number of periods of lighter activity, nearly all day long. The movements are getting stronger, too, and I can feel them from the outside if I’m resting my hand on my belly. From my reading this isn’t a reason for concern, but it is probably a little above average. The ultrasound showed that the baby is average size, so it’s not like my kid is just bigger and that’s why I’m feeling so much.

I have this mental picture in my head. It’s well past the 2-year-old’s bedtime, especially considering that nap-time was a bust. Jon and I are sitting on the couch, exhuasted, looking at each other with accusing eyes. The kid, wearing a pajama top, diaper, and one sock, is running in circles and screaming, “MOMMY! DADDY! MOMMY! DADDY! MOMMY! DADDY! MOMMY! DADDY! MOMMY! DADDY! MOMMY! DADDY! MOMMY! DADDY! MOMMY! DADDY!”

Getting Big

I’ve posted the latest shot of my belly, taken today at 20 weeks. You can really see the difference now. Take a look here.