34 Weeks and Counting

Here I am, 34 weeks pregnant. My belly has expanded to such a ginormousity that I’ve occasionally caught the guys at work alarmingly eye me as if I’m about to crouch down and  birth a baby right in front of their eyes. Relax, dudes...sudden labor and delivery usually only happens in the movies.

For the most part, I’ve been feeling OK. There’s always the typical pesky pregnancy side effects: permanent shooting pain down my lower back, 6+ visits to the toilet in the middle of the night, the insomnia, and the feeling that I’ve been impersonating Fudgy the Whale for the past few months. Overall though, I think I’ve enjoyed this pregnancy far more than my first one. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I now tangibly can see how 10 months of discomfort will result in another wonderful little thing like EB. Or it could be that we did not have the easiest time getting pregnant this time around, so I realize now how much of a gift it is to get this far along without a hitch.

Nevertheless, I’m getting bored and am anxious to enjoy a few of my favorite indulgences again. Like going for a long run on the weekends - although with the weather that we’ve had this summer, it would not have been possible anyway. Or that great glass of red wine with dinner and happy hours after work, the martini at work event at Sonny William’s. Or the sublime sushi platter paired with crisp, cool beer. The list goes on and on.

So I eagerly await Baby Stephen’s arrival. And while I don’t plan on creating a birth plan (I didn’t have one for EB, and I figured I’d just continue to go with the flow this time around), I do have a solid post-birth dining plan: a congratulatory toast with a glass of bold Rioja, a dinner of exotic rolls and sushi from Sushi Café and a breakfast of runny eggs on toast.

K, take note.

Bugs and Clichés

I grew up eating everything just about everything that was placed in front of me—liver, fish with eyes still intact, frog’s legs--you name it. I am determined to raise a child that semi-follows in my footstep. I don't expect her to eat the same stuff I did when I was a kid, since you have to work pretty hard to find fish with head/eyes intact in the States. But I do expect her to try everything that K and I eat, so we have a motto in our household: try everything just once, and remember the starving children out there.

On the latter point, I find myself constantly telling EB that she’s lucky to have such abundance of food available to her--there are starving children in Africa and Asia that would give anything to have what she has (clichéd, I know). “Sometimes, these starving kids have to eat bugs to get enough nutrition,” I would tell her. To which, her eyes would always widen, and she would take the obligatory bite of the food that she was protesting earlier on. She definitely took this to heart, as you’ll see in the dialogue that we had last night.

EB: “Why do kids have to go to school?”

Me: “So you can learn lots of things.”

EB: “Why do we need to learn lots of things?”

Me: “So you can become smart and get a job. You know what happens if you don’t get a job?”

EB: “You can’t make any money.”

Me: “That’s right. And what happens if you can’t make any money?”

EB: “Then that means you can’t buy food. And it means that you have to eat bugs, LOTS OF BUGS, ALL NIGHT LONG.”



This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but at least now I know that my lectures to her isn’t in one ear and out the other.

A Musician in the House

A few months ago, we bought EB a mini-guitar so that she can strum along with me while I was practicing my own guitar playing. Alas, my busy schedule and (literally) growing responsibilities put my guitar ambitions on a temporary hiatus. However EB continues to show interest, picking up the instrument on a near-daily basis and even making up songs of her own. Here's a video of her recent performance. I've transcribed her slightly surreal lyrics below -- a song about space exploration in Mars, sang with a Bluegrass twang.

I know-I know you want to go

That's how I talk, go...

You have to listen-listen to my charge

You're in charge so I'm Mars

Have to go-go-go-go-go

go-go-go-go-go-go-go

go-ooo

Rock on, Little Girl!

The Invention

Our dirty dish situation is out of control. Every day, we load piles upon piles of dirty dishes, glasses, travel mugs and Gladware in the sink.

The biggest contributing factor to this smelly mess is our frugality: Since all three of us bring our lunches to work/school, it generates a lot of dirty food containers. Each of our lunches usually consists of an medium-sized entree container and a small fruit container. In addition, I usually pack myself oatmeal for breakfast, which creates yet one more dirty container. When you multiply this by three people, it really adds up.

Here's a more conservative example of our daily dish mountain:

So, K and I were talking about this situation when I had a bright idea --  what if we were to invent edible container? "This could be a million dollar idea," I told K. "Just think about all of these families, having to wash loads of dishes every day. Imagine a container that you can eat...kind of like a bread bowl, except it would be in a form of a container."

K was skeptical, but he played along: "How would you design it so that liquid doesn't spill out?"

Me: "Well...I'm not sure about liquid, but we could design ones that hold dry stuff. Like meat and veggies."

K: "Hey, I have a perfect name for this invention!"

Me (getting excited): "Really? What?!"

K: "We can call it a hamburger. Or a sandwich. Oh, wait...I think those names have already been taken."

Ass.