Oh Henry

Belly Shots

Turn, Turn, Turn

To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;  
A time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; 
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; 
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 
A time to gain, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away; 
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time of war, and a time of peace.  (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)

The Weeks After Thirty

A few weeks ago, I woke up one Thursday morning & realized I was 30 weeks pregnant.  When your pregnancy rolls over into the 30 week range, it dawns on you that soon, you're going to have an actual baby.  Ironically, while it may seem like an ideal time to hoard sleep, sleep becomes elusive as your belly swells, your back aches, & every night in bed you think of one more item to add to the list of things to do before you hit that magic number, 37 weeks, at which point you're officially carrying a full term baby & the show might begin at any moment.  Don't let a due date fool you!  Don't assume you have another week to buy a few more Christmas presents, as I did when Reagan, who was due December 28, arrived on December 13.    

Pronouns

To begin the year, a brief discussion of pronouns.  That's right, pronouns.

In the text I use in my English classes, there's an entire chapter dedicated to pronouns.  A pronoun, of course, is a word that takes the place of a noun or another pronoun.  Initially, students are usually perplexed that we're going to spend several class periods discussing pronouns.  Pronouns are easy, they say.  As we delve into pronoun case, a lecture that ends with the forever problematic who/whom & whoever/whomever issue, they begin to rethink their original assessment of pronouns.  Who & whoever, by the way, are subjective, while whom & whomever are objective.  Here's a hint: always think of Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls.  It's not For Who the Bell Tolls, because whom is the object of the preposition for, hence = objective case.  This isn't always helpful to my students since most of them have never heard of For Whom the Bell Tolls.  *Eye roll*

A pronoun must always agree with its antecedent.  If the antecedent is singular, so too is the pronoun that takes its place; if the antecedent is masculine, so too is the pronoun that takes its place.  My text refers to pronouns as feminine, masculine, & neuter, or gender neutral (such as it), & this always gets a laugh from several students.  

If you're still reading, I'm reaching my point, I promise.  Earlier this week, I received a call from my doctor's office.  They were rearranging Dr. Sheppard's always hectic schedule & wanted to know if I could see her this week instead of next, as originally scheduled.  Given that I currently have no schedule as I've not resumed teaching, I gladly said that was fine.  They moved my doctor's appointment up a week & also offered to go ahead with the eighteen week ultrasound that was scheduled for January 10th.  Thus, it is with joy & a bit of surprise that has yet to subside as of the time I write this that I announce that Reagan's younger sibling can now officially be referenced as he.

During the early months of both my pregnancies, it was bothersome to me when people referred to the baby as it, because a baby is definitely not neuter, or gender neutral, & these instances always made me think of my pronoun lecture.  Yeah, you don't want to know what goes on inside my head.  Perhaps a word or two later about the detrimental push for gender neutrality in our culture.

Here he is:

He's sucking his thumb in this one:

I know you can't tell he's a boy in any of these, but out of respect for my unborn child, I'm not going to post those pics online.  He's a he, I promise.  I knew it the moment the technician placed the wand on my belly.    

 We're told all looks well.  I am measuring a little larger than 17 weeks; I always measured a little ahead with Reagan as well.  He appears to have long limbs, like his sister, who is currently seeing eye to eye with a few four-year-olds we know.  I'm happy the appointment was moved up a week, because now I can spend my last week of Winter Break figuring out what to do with the mounds of girl clothing we've accumulated in the last two years.  My first thoughts upon realizing he is a he were these:

-Oh, I have so many girl clothes

-Now I can buy tiny argyle sweater vests

-I have a son

-It's not true that you're sicker when carrying a girl

-Only one wedding to pay for

I've got to go.  Since moving in our house a year ago, we haven't done much with the front bedroom, though the closet is full of tubs of Reagan's clothes.  The plan is to pull out all the gender neutral stuff (which is basically a few white onesies), & I guess haul the rest to the attic.  I need an empty closet to work with considering that my mom left the doctor's office after the ultrasound & headed to Spoiled Rotten to buy boys Christmas clothes on sale, size: 6 months.  Oh boy.  

  

AZ 

Laboring

I'm warning you, you may want to slice yourself some cheese before reading any further, because this post is heavy on the whine.

I think it's unfortunate that most people assume labor refers to the hours during which a pregnant woman, having carried her child to term, attempts to coax her baby out of her body.  Let me tell you, I am laboring now.  I enjoy good health; I've never broken a bone or had a kidney stone (both experiences I've been told are more painful than childbirth), so I don't have much to look to for comparison, but I can say with certainty that this past week has been one of the most physically challenging weeks of my life.

Pumpkins, Pregnancy, & Political Pandering

The Older Sister

Your Story

Before another year slips away & while I can still remember the details, here, Reagan, is the story of your entrance into the world.

Table For One

This week, Reagan and I both add a '1' to our digits.  Tomorrow she will be 10 months old, and on Saturday, I will be 31.

The Name Game

As soon as I learned I was pregnant, I started thinking of baby names.  As a teacher, I have learned that it is imperative to give your children good, solid, phonetically sensical names; it is a blessing that will follow them through life.  Being me, I opened a new folder on my desktop where I kept a word document that was full of lists of names I liked; I added to it & rearranged it almost daily.  Once I knew I was having a girl & was free to replace 'it' with feminine pronouns, I got down to business & was able to eliminate several names I'd wrestled with for a few months.  When I knew I'd be finishing sentences that began with My daughter, ____________, there were a few names I just couldn't see in that blank.

May 13

Reagan is 5 months old today so I wanted to say a few things before heading to bed.

Last year on May 13 I saw (& heard!) her for the first time:

(May 13, 2010)

May 4

What a difference a year makes.  Last year May 4 fell on a Tuesday.  I made a lasagna that day & I distinctly remember gagging repeatedly as I stood at the stove browning the meat, for I was just a little bit pregnant.  I put the lasagna together, put it in the fridge to be cooked later, & then Sophie & I went to the drive thru at Smoothie King.  Early in pregnancy I drank a lot of smoothies; this later morphed into a brief flirtation with snow cones & then a full on obsession with icees that lasted until sometime in September.

As I was sitting in line at the Smoothie King drive thru, I got a text from my mom that said "Mamaw's gone."  The news was not unexpected, so I put my phone down, paid for my smoothie, & Sophie & I drove around a bit while I drank it.  Well, I drove while Sophie lounged in my lap, occasionally sniffing at the styrofoam cup holding the smoothie.  I drove around looking at houses, as is my habit, & likely rubbed my stomach a few times & commented to Reagan (whose gender & name were still TBA at that time) that mama wasn't going to be getting a house anytime soon because mama & daddy had been given an expensive surprise.  I never ate a bite of the lasagna & it was the last thing I cooked for a very long time.