The Month of the Eggplant

I have oodles of pictures from Easter and a little daytrip we took to a famous garden park last weekend, but they require some sorting / editing / clever commentary and I haven't gotten it all together quite yet. Easter was only two weeks ago, though, right? I'll get to it soon...

In the meantime, I've been missing my Pregnancy Week By Week book lately. I groove on knowing what's happening with me and how the baby is developing and growing through pregnancy. Not in an obsessive, worried sort of way - I just like to know. It does make me feel normal and reassured, but mostly involved and fascinated and in awe of the whole process. I like that.

Anyway, without the book, I've been looking around for stuff to tell me about what's going on in this little womb of mine. My favorite find so far is the comparison of baby's size to various fruits and vegetables. It starts out, of course, with a seed and has some weekly progressions to larger and larger fruits. Now me and bebe are just putting on pounds, so it's by the month. Weeks 25 through 28? She's an eggplant. She's 13.6 to 14.8 inches from head to toe and weighs 1.5 to 2.2 pounds.

I've only gained a net three pounds (inadvertently lost 2 in the last couple weeks)since the beginning, so maybe she is being a nice little girl and taking some of my weight with her? I can always hope. Each pregnancy before, I gained a net total of twenty pounds, gave birth to babies who all neared 10 pounds, but still ended up packing an added twenty pounds when everything was back to "normal." I don't get that math at all.

Anyway...

There are three more days for you to vote for Jane or Elizabeth in my sidebar. Of course, we are not necessarily naming her based on what the poll says to name her, we just wanted some feedback or people's impressions of either name. I have thought of using one as a first and one as a middle, but love them both too much to relegate one to middle name status. Plus, we've tried to use a family name for each of our kids, so we're still thinking on that. But anyway, vote on the poll.

I had my blood panel taken this last week. Iron and thyroid and blood sugar levels all functioning normally. When I repeatedly expressed how tired I am, even with sufficient rest, the doctor was very understanding but eventually just said, "I can't see any physioligical reasons for fatigue. But you do have three other children."

Oh. Could that make me feel extra tired?

We've started the State Department paperworking for having a baby at an overseas post and now have a flat in London reserved and my first appointment with a doctor there and know where I'll be delivering. Our medevac / temporary relocation is coming up soon! And there's only a little over three months before we'll have our new addition.

I've started getting a little crazy about the state of our stuff and planning / organizing for a new person in the family. I sorted through the boys' drawers and our winter closets to make a list of shopping to do for back to school and winter while we are in London. Real shopping! I'm not a shopper and usually really appreciate my online options, but the idea of touching and browsing in a familiar store is soooo loverly. I can't wait.

I did already buy a couple teeny tiny girl things online. My friend gave me some super soft little lady bug slippers, and I happened to find a hecka deal at Gymboree for two little outfits to go with the shoes. That's how girls do it, right? Get super cute shoes, then find an outfit to go with them? The outfits came in the mail this week and I can't wait to see the little eggplant in them. They make me giddy - I especially like the black and white stripes. (Click on the picture to see them bigger.)



And I also think it's fun to have a onesie with this embroidered on it:



Finally, on a funny / slightly crude side note: The doctor at the clinic gives me a cup at the end of each visit for me to bring back a urine sample the next visit. It cracks me up, because I could totally substitute any ol' yellow liquid just to make their lab reports interesting. If I wanted to. If my mind thought that way.

But anyway...I try to be pretty inconspicuous at home on the mornings that I have to fill the cup and slip it in my bag to take to the clinic. But Henry happened to be standing around when I came out with it this week. He exclaimed, "How do you do that, Mom?!"

I didn't really answer because I didn't really know what he was talking about, but he continued in his trademark monologue voice, "I mean, I can pee in a cup easy, because I'm a boy. But how does a girl do it? And how does a big girl even sit on a little cup like that?!"

No, I don't think I will be answering any of those questions. They were rhetorical anyway, right?