Ask Newt!

Hi Internet!

Thanks for all the comments, lately. I love comments! And yet, I'm never sure what to do when people ask me questions here. I'm not great with the netiquette--do I go to your blogs and answer them there? Or do I answer them in my own comments, hoping you'll stop back and see them? Someone tell me, because I never want to ignore people.

Lacking a proper notion of how to do this, here are some questions I've gotten lately, and I wanted to reply to. Welcome to the first (and possibly only) installment of our popular new feature, "Ask Newt!"

Regarding the post about my students:

Maria asks, "What subject to you teach?"

Oh Maria, I would so love to talk to you about this. Email me (through my profile) if you really want to know, and I will tell you anything. But here on the old blog, I've been really paranoid about revealing too much identifying information about myself, precisely because I teach college. My students are out there, on the internet, wandering around unsupervised. I have nightmares sometimes that one of them has found Dear Gherkin and read all about my many embarrassing gynecological adventures, and asks a question in class about my cervical mucous. Then I wake up in a hot sweat.

I'm honestly not sure how long I can keep this blog up before my essential wussitude gets the better of me. I've often wondered if I should switch to a different blogger account after the baby is born, and keep a less scatological record of my life in some virtual space my mom can visit without embarrassment. In the meantime, I cling to the idea that my true identity is shrouded in an impenetrable fog of secrecy. It's the only thing that allows me to keep going.

Dr. Girlfriend suggests I get one of those t-shirt shooters to return papers, and asks, "What garners respect more than a sexy teacher in heels toting an air cannon?"

Dr. Girlfriend, you are a genius. Come be my teaching assistant, and we will have the most popular courses on campus!

Regarding the post about the baby's name:

Julias asks, "Do you have a middle name?"

Yes, it's Marie! Newt Marie. Oh, you mean the baby? Yeah, he has a middle name, but it's complicated. We wanted to use "John," which is a tribute to Mr. Newt's father. But "Wiley John" sounds like one of Robin Hood's Merry Men--the one who would be sent to steal the keys to Maid Marion's chastity belt off the Sheriff of Nottingham's belt.

Speaking of which (sort of) I once got a little sauced at a Renaissance Fair, and started heckling the poor guy playing the Sheriff of Nottingham while he was trying to oversee an archery contest or something. I kept yelling out, "You're the Sheriff of Poopyham!" And then laughing hysterically like this was the cleverest thing in Poopwood Forrest.

Come to think of it, I should have been yelling, "Why is the Sheriff of Nottingham at a Renaissance Festival? The Norman Conquest happened in the Middle Ages!" That would have been the cleverest thing in Poopwood Forrest.

So anyway, back to the subject at hand. We've decided to name the baby "John Wiley" instead instead of "Wiley John." I think it sounds very manly, like an American frontier hero. It reminds me of John Henry, who was a steel-driving man. But we'll be using "Wiley" as the name we call him.

And speaking of frontier heroes, the name is also a tribute to Wiley Post, the semi-famous one-eyed aviator from the 1930's. Someday, Wiley is going to come home from grade school and say he has to do a report on a great American, and I'm going to say, "Why don't you do Wiley Post, the one-eyed aviator?" And he'll say "Mom, that's lame," and write his paper about Abraham Lincoln like everybody else.

So much to look forward to.

Finally, Tracy wants to know, "Do kids nowadays even know who Wile E. Coyote is?"

This is shocking to me, but I've only recently been told modern kids don't get to watch the Roadrunner cartoons because they are so violent (the cartoons, not the kids, although one wonders if it's the kids who are the real problem here, not some innocent predatory desert wildlife locked in the eternal struggle of life and death). Anybody have any word on this? Unjust! I want to know which congressperson or television executive I should address my angry letters to.

The Roadrunner cartoons contain a lot of valuable information about life. Children need to know that if you run off a cliff, you won't fall unless you look down, but--and this is the important part--you won't be able to help looking down. This is more or less a perfect metaphor for all the rest of their lives. That's adulthood right there, kids. You think your Acme catapult is going to be your golden ticket, but it just slams a big coyote-shaped hole in the ground. Oh well. Crawl back out and start over.

We are letting our children down if we sit back and permit this impoverishment of their cultural upbringing.

So, I hope that clears everything up. You know, you'd think there would be some improvement in the clarity or coherence of my blog posts since I'm not allowed to drink anymore, but alas no. Apparently I'm just like this.

Thirty Weeks: The big reveal

Want to hear a secret, internet? We have a name for the baby. We've had a name for the baby for months now, but Mr. Newt and I have agreed not to reveal it to anybody, so people don't think we're soliciting input on it, and offer annoying opinions. Or do that kind of "Oh" thing, where you know they hate it, but they don't want to be rude.

Oh! Or worse, do that kind of "Huh, well that's unique" thing like people do when they don't like your new haircut. Awww, I hate that shit! Damn, I hate that shit.

So we agreed to keep the baby's name secret, because with the recession raging all around us, we really shouldn't waste money on the bail money Mr. Newt would have to produce when he came down the courthouse to bail me out after I got arrested for cutting a bitch. It's just a matter of fiscal prudence.

But internet, in spite of all these excellent reasons to keep it under wraps, I'm kind of dying to tell somebody the baby's name, so...OK...having the self-discipline of a sugar-high toddler, I'm going to tell it to you. On two conditions.

One, don't tell anybody I know in the real world. What's that? You don't know anybody I know in the real world? All right then, this should be very easy.

Two, don't criticize the name. I don't care if you hate it. I don't care if you are certain that my child is doomed to a lifetime of teasing and social humiliation, won't ever be able to get a job, and will live out his life in a downward spiral of isolation and depression, all stemming from the most awful first name an ignorant or sadistic set of parents ever saddled a baby with. I just don't care--I don't want to hear it. You understand? Of course you do. You're the nicest internet in the whole world. I shouldn't doubt you.

All right, you ready? Here's Yoshi's name: Wiley.

I think it's cute. It's old-fashioned and very American, but also unusual. I like how it sounds, I like how it looks, I like how it goes with our last name, and I like how it's easy to spell. It's good for a baby, but it will age well as he gets older. I like that it means "smart" and "witty"--and if it also means "sneaky," well, sometimes a person has to be a little sneaky in this world, you know?

OK, internet, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Like the coyote?" Well, technically no. The coyote is "Wile E. Coyote," so although it's a homophone of sorts, it isn't actually the same name. But if people think the baby is named after a cartoon character, that's OK with me. I mean, it's not like we're calling him "Spongebob" or something.

Besides, if the worst thing the kids at school can think of to tease him with is "Hey Wiley, where's your Acme jet pack?" I think he'll probably survive puberty intact.

*********

P.S. Thanks, Maria!

I'm really bad at memes, especially the one-word kind--suddenly the only word I can think of is "horseradish" and that doesn't answer a single question (I'm a psychoanalyst's dream). So I'm just going to say thanks a bunch, and pass this on to Mrs. Soup at Fertility Bound? Mrs. Soup is zesty.

Almost Famous

Hiya, internet. Mr. Newt has gone and driven upstate for a couple of days for a conference, which means three things:

1. I have no car right now.
2. The dishes aren't washed.
3. I miss my husband.

I am waiting for him to call, because I achieved something extraordinary today, and I know he's the only one who will really truly appreciate it. I'll try to explain it to you, internet, but I can't promise you'll understand.

I have a very mild case of prosopagnosia, or face blindness. In plain English, I suck at recognizing people. I will run into people at the grocery store, people I know perfectly well, and because I am seeing them out of context, I often can't figure out who they are. I'm not a clinical case or anything--I can successfully pick my mother out of a crowd at the baggage claim--but it's enough to cause a certain amount of embarrassment from time to time.

I'm always amazed when people in detective movies can pick their assailants out of a lineup. Often I don't know which one of the people in the lineup is the actor who played the perp in the previous scene. And don't even get me started on how people can possibly describe someone to a police sketch artist. I have no idea how they do that. I hope I never have to serve as the witness to some terrible crime, because I would be shit at this kind of thing.

So anyway, fortunately, my day-to-day life doesn't require me to remember a lot of people. But Mr. Newt and I are raging consumers of TV and film. We will watch anything, any crap you can think of, as long as it's on a screen of some kind. If you don't believe me, check out...oh, let's say for instance...the sci-fi original movie Snakehead Terror (or don't--I'm sure you can picture it). We stayed up until 2 in the morning watching that stinkbomb, and that wasn't even in the top 30 dumbest things we've ever watched. Our degradation knows few boundaries.

So anyway, in our media-saturated lives, it's rather inconvenient that I can't recognize actors very well. I'm always asking poor Mr. Newt, "Who's that?" I hate to confess it, but you know that annoying person who goes to the movies and sits in front of you and then spends the whole film asking the person next to her what just happened? That person you could kill, and then sleep soundly every night for the rest of your life? I'm that person's weird, face-blind twin.

This annoying trait is complicated by the fact that Mr. Newt and I are, for some reason, connoisseurs of the semi-famous. I mean sure, everybody knows what Brad Pitt and Matt Damon are up to, but around Chez Newt, we're much more likely to be talking about recent developments in the careers of, say, Pete Postlethwaite or Laura San Giacomo. I couldn't pick them out of a lineup, but we both have a strange and useless expertise in the career choices of actors of moderate renown. Please don't ask me why, because some things are beyond human understanding.

So all of this is a labored lead-up to explaining this running joke Mr. Newt and I have, which is that whenever I don't recognize some youngish male actor, and I start coming with the "who's that"s, Mr. Newt always tells me it's Billy Crudup. Whether or not it really is Billy Crudup. Because that's hilarious.

I don't know why it's hilarious, but it is. You're just going to have to trust me, because Mr. Newt isn't here to explain it, and I miss him, so you, internet, have to share this joke with me and just pretend like it makes sense. I say, "Billy Crudup," and you laugh until you pee your pants. That's how it works.

So anyway, I've gotten used to the idea that 99% of the time this is a delicious lie. But Mr. Newt lives for the days when he tells me someone is Billy Crudup, and I laugh like it's a joke, but it really is Billy Crudup. And, you know, eventually it's gotta be.

We'll be watching, say, Mission Impossible 3 and there's some generic-looking villain guy, and Mr. Newt says it's Billy Crudup, and I laugh because that's impossible. That guy? He's not the guy from Almost Famous. He's not Mary-Louise Parker's babydaddy. Ha ha ha. Come on, who is it really?

That's the payoff for this whole game, and I swear, I never see it coming. I mean, how would I? I'm kind of at a disadvantage here.

We replayed this scene with more vigor when we saw the trailer for the new Watchmen movie.

Who's that, playing the blue guy?
Billy Crudup.
*giggle* No, who is it really?
It's really Billy Crudup.
*snort* Fine, I'll look it up later.

I don't think I should be held responsible for recognizing anyone who's covered in blue paint, by the way. That's just really really not fair.

So anyway, here's today's accomplishment, and if you're still reading (and thank you, if you are) you're finally going to appreciate the enormity of this. A student showed me part of the movie Big Fish today, for reasons too complicated to go into, and it was a scene with a dying father and a son sitting by his bed, and I've never seen this movie before. And I was thinking, "I think that guy playing the son looks a lot like the real Billy Crudup." And I didn't ask the student, and I didn't look at the box, because that felt like cheating. I just made up my mind to look it up when I got home. So, I just looked it up, and you know what, internet?

IT WAS BILLY CRUDUP! I'm a stone-cold genius.

Mr. Newt would be so excited if he were here. He would be beaming, ecstatic, over-the-moon. And he's not here! And the dishes still aren't done!

He should totally never leave town again. I mean, you just never know what kind of important things you are going to miss, do you? I don't know how he'll ever forgive himself.

So Many People In The Neighborhood.

Thanks, internet, for your helpful teaching suggestions. You know, it's funny, but I do think 30-something pregnant ladies are a bit of an oddity in this town. The population index seems to skip us, a bit. Because this is a state, unfortunately, without a lot of recent economic development, about 60% of our recent university graduates go elsewhere to make their careers and their lives. So that leaves the town with a strange lack of in-betweeners. We got old fogies and we got young whippersnappers galore, but not much in the way of young professionals.

On our block, for instance, Mr. Newt and I live sandwiched between a house rented by what seems to be a rotating cast of identical blond undergraduates and a house owned by a marvelous old crackpot of a retired meteorology professor. The youngsters can be a little inconvenient, because they have the occasional kegger late into the night. The oldster can be a little inconvenient because his rampant individualism makes us fear for his safety.

Case in point: he seems to relish living off the grid as much as possible, so our dear neighbor heats his house with an elaborate wood stove, attached to a series of pipes that draw the smoke through different rooms to heat them. I'm sure you can imagine that this makes the whole block oddly fragrant. From now until March, my dogs will come in from the back yard smelling like they're just getting back from the arsonist's jamboree. It's quaint, and I actually love the woodsy smell. But you know, it's all fun and games until somebody burns down the neighborhood.

Oh, and he keeps active beehives in his yard. Five of them, I believe.

Our neighbor also, at an advanced age that I would estimate to be about 83, seems to have no regard for his own safety. With very poor hearing, and a kind of a gunfighter's crooked gait that I think results from a hip injury, he does all the maintenance on his house and yard himself, down to trimming his own trees with chainsaws.

This past winter, we had an ice storm that was so bad that every street in town was shut down by downed trees. The power was out for days. When the freezing rain finally stopped, everyone on our block slowly ventured out of our electricity-free houses to help clear the street. This task was complicated by the fact that the ice was still weighing down tree limbs, so periodically we would hear a terrible gunshot noise, followed by a large chunk of tree raining down perilously from the sky. It was spooky as hell.

Of course, the only person on the block with a chainsaw was our elderly neighbor. And he was outside for hours, in his rubber boots and flap-eared flannel hat, cutting up debris so we could haul it away. This scared the shit out of me, because his hearing is so bad, I wasn't sure he could hear the falling branches. But no one would dream of taking his chainsaw away. He had lived on this block longer than any of us, and he sure as hell knew what he was doing. We got the car out that night.

So anyway, compared to our marvelously eccentric but potentially combustible neighbor, dealing with the college kids is a breeze. However, they did have a few late parties this summer, and Mr. Newt and I found ourselves transformed into the nagging neighbor couple, asking the little hooligans to pipe down. Nothing will make you feel like an old coot faster than realizing you're the lady who shut down last night's kegger.

I wouldn't have minded loud music. Or even loud talking, if it were something interesting to eavesdrop on. But unfortunately, drunken undergraduates are not scintillating conversationalists. The students' back yard is right outside our bedroom window, so we could hear every burp and giggle. By about 2:30 in the morning, they were drunk or bored or tired enough that conversation had devolved to endless iterations of this:

"Where's Kristi?"
"I texted her like a thousand times."
"Oh my God, she is so lame for not being here."
"I know, right?"
"I thought she said she was coming."
"I know, right?"
"Oh my God, she is so lame."

By about three, I started to get the feeling Kristi had the right idea.

Mr. Newt and I eventually agreed he should put on his old fogie pants (I had the pregnant lady exemption card) and go over to ask them to keep it down. Not because they were so loud, but because they were so damn boring. I couldn't stand it anymore.

I stayed in bed and listened through the window as my adorable old coot-in-training ask the young people if they could maybe move the party inside (I thought he should suggest that they relocate to Kristi's house, but Mr. Newt didn't think the kids would find this funny). One guy, apparently the party spokesman, said they would take it inside, "because I like your shirt, man."

Huh?

He came back in and I saw that Mr. Newt was wearing the Aqua Teen Hunger Force T-shirt I had gotten him for Christmas. Wow, I thought. Maybe we're hip after all.

Speaking of the Walk of Shame...

I think I've mentioned that I work at a university. I don't think I've mentioned that the students I teach are a little over 80% guys. Right now I have one class with 22 guys, and three women. Things get a little testosterone-y, is what I'm saying.

I can handle it, partly because I like guy things, like vampire movies and basketball, and partly because I'm the boss and they do what I say and that's that. But in dealing with a big room full of 18-24 year-old guys, I find it's best not to overshare. We joke and I ask them about their interests and ambitions and stuff, but I don't tell them cute stories about my dogs, you know? A person can go from authority figure to doormat faster than you can say "The Notebook is my all-time favorite movie."

I basically have two rules for maintaining order in the classroom:

1. Wear heels (This isn't like a sexy thing; I'm 5'3" and hate it when they tower over me!).
2. Be tough.

When they get out of line, I sort of raise one eyebrow and give them the gimlet eye, and that's usually enough.

So anyway, I'm thinking this pregnancy thing is kind of interfering with my stern persona, and frankly also kind of freaking my students out. I get bigger every day, and I might be projecting here, but I think they live in terror of the day my water breaks all over the floor.

Some of them are getting rather gallant, and doing things like clearing the room of cords I could trip over, or offering to move the podium for me if it's in an odd place. They always save me the comfortable chair now, though it took a few weeks of me kicking one of them out of the comfortable chair before they caught on to that. Belated gallantry still counts as gallantry in my book.

But most of them, I think, are trying very hard to ignore my obscene condition, though I have to assume that's a little difficult when, for instance, I'm writing on the board, and end up with the reverse imprint of what I've just written spelled out in chalk on my belly. Somehow I can never remember to stand farther away from the chalk board. After every class I have to rush to the ladies' room, not just for that patented pregnancy emergence-pee, but also to wipe the layer of errant chalk dust off my bump. Occupational hazard.

So all this has come to a bit of a crisis now, because when returning papers, I can no longer walk between the rows of seats. It's been difficult for weeks, as I've stepped gingerly over their backpacks in the aisles and tried to squeeze my ever-widening self through some tight spaces.

But now twice this week, twice, I have ... ahem ... accidentally whacked a young person in the head with my belly trying to scoot sideways through the gap in desks. Oh shit. The guys I whacked were good sports, but holy moly, I hope they don't sue me for, like, totally nonsexual harassment.

So anyway, internet, pretty soon I'm going to have to stop trying to navigate my own classroom, which is sort of sad to me. Any other teachers out there want to help me out with advice on how to be more graceful and modest in my physical decorum? Or at least how to get their papers back to them without doing either the students or myself bodily injury?

Oy, I don't even want to know what my guys are going to have to tell their therapists some day about that time their teacher knocked them in the head with her baby bump. I can only assume that it's not going to be pretty.

Alienation.

Internet, I'm getting used to the fact that my body is changing. But my attitude about pregnancy remains a bit...let's say "ungracious." I've been thinking about why I am not able to do the glowing thing, and I've come to the conclusion that I really can't escape two persistent, and I guess kind of unusual, impressions of pregnancy:

1. That it's vaguely obscene to be growing a baby, the seeds of which were planted in my uterus by the act of sexual intercourse, and the product of which will eventually make its entry into the world by being forced out my vagina.

I mean, people know this when they look at me--I literally cannot hide it. No wonder they used to censor images of pregnant women in Hollywood movies (I love those old movies where a woman will be wearing a loose bathrobe in one scene, and come home holding a baby in the next. More awesome than twin beds).

Seriously, I can't believe I'm walking around in public like this. I feel like a guilty teenager, doing the walk of shame every single day. And, internet? My boobs might start leaking any time now.

Add to that:

2. That there's something a little Sci-Fi about the fact that this wiggling little lump, which moves around, and creates odd ripples and bumps in my abdomen, is another living creature, parasitically feeding off my body, and preparing itself for life in our atmosphere.

This little sucker has only recently shed its tail. I have been colonized by another life form, and now I'm living some kind of pornographic version of Alien. I expect Yoshimi to bust out of my chest and kill me absolutely any day now.

So, there's that.

And yet, fundamental though these things seem to me, I have noticed that I am well outside the mainstream here. The culture at large seems to be under the misconception that married 30-something pregnancy is exactly the opposite, on both points.

1. Pregnancy is treated as the most wholesome, family-values, Pat Boone and apple pie thing ever. People seem giddy and oddly proud that my husband has inseminated me real good. It gets announced in public places without embarrassment (by other people, not by me), and loved ones are buying presents around this whole vaginal event that's likely to happen sometime in early January.

People ask intimate questions about whether I will feed the thing with my breasts, utterly without embarrassment. Not only does pregnancy not seem to be recognized as the obscenity that it so clearly is, but it even seems to provide cover for other obscenities, so suddenly my plans for my own breasts are a matter of public discourse. I'm pretty sure if I had started talking publicly about my boobs at any previous time in my adult life, it would have been frowned on rather aggressively.

Theoretically, the child will even celebrate the anniversary of being pushed out through my vagina with cake every year. Can't get much more wholesome than cake, can you?

and

2. I suppose, however Sci-Fi it seems to me, who has never had to share my abdomen with another living creature before (except those four dead babies, and they never kicked me), pregnancy is technically the most natural thing in the world. I mean literally the most natural--every single person in the world got here in exactly this way. Thousands of people a day. There is nothing rare or weird about it, and it doesn't actually represent a violent intrusion on my physical sovereignty by a hostile alien species.

It just feels that way. Like, seriously feels that way. Especially when he kicks me in the bladder. No human baby would do that to his mother.

So anyway, still wrapping my head around this whole thing. I'm going to have to get a little glowier here in the next month or so, as there are now two baby showers being planned for November, and I think I'm expected not to refer to the baby as an alien spawn at either event. Baby steps, I guess.

Gourds, etc.

I think my big-head baby has been having a growth spurt. Here I am this morning at 28 weeks, 4 days.

Whoa. Hello third trimester; goodbye feet.

I shouldn't be surprised that the list of things I physically cannot do gets longer every day, and yet somehow I am. My beloved husband bust out laughing at me last night when we were sitting on the couch watching The Office, and I went to grab my drink off the coffee table and couldn't reach forward that far because my belly collides with my lap. Even when I can't reach something, I tend to keep trying to grab it, waving my arms in the air in increasingly irritable desperation, like I can somehow summon the object to myself if I wave at it vigorously enough.

I go through this comedy routine just about every day at work when I drop a pen on the floor and can't retrieve it, but now I've finally gotten used to the idea that the floor is no longer within my range of motion. This is the first time that the stinkin' coffee table is hopelessly out of reach. So, yay for that. I'm like a (huge) turtle on my back these days, flailing around in a ballet of helplessness and denial.

In other, less bloated news, I ran into a very adorable older couple last week--he's from Italy, she's from Oklahoma--whom I hadn't seen since the spring. This was the first time they have noticed my pregnancy, and Mr. Adorable said (adorably), "Hey...did you stand too close to a pumpkin or something?"

I have no idea what that means, but I like it. Is this an old Italian saying, the Mediterranean equivalent of the stork, or the idea that babies come from the cabbage patch? Or is this just funny old man talk? I love it, either way.

Anyway, internet, I guess I stood too close to a pumpkin! Or else I had wild, orgasmic sex with my hottie husband. One or the other.

Unfilled

Today, in addition to being Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance day, is also my little gherkin's unfilled due date.

This marks the last due date from my three lost pregnancies, so it's a bittersweet relief to get through it. The next EDD in line is January 5, when I hope to bring a real live baby home (knock wood, knock wood, knock a forest full of wood).

Today, my heart goes out to everyone dealing with the loss of our loved and wanted children. Thank you so much, internet community of moms and infertiles and deadbabymamas and my fellow miscarriage survivors for all the support and friendship you've given me through this devastating ordeal. My emotional wounds have begun to heal under the Neosporin of your constant support, and the pink princess bandaids of your love. (Oh puke, I'll stop with that pathetic metaphor now, but underneath the snark, I do hope you know what I mean. I am profoundly in your debt, internet. Profoundly.)

I'll be lighting my candle tonight, and thinking of my gherkin, and hoping that today is a day of healing for us all.

The Better to Think You With, My Dear.

Well, internet, we had a great ultrasound yesterday. Yoshi is now weighing in at either 2.12 pounds, or 2 pounds 12 ounces--I can't remember. I know it makes a big difference in real terms, but since we don't expect him to be going anywhere for another three months, I suppose it doesn't much matter. Whichever it is, he's in the 60th percentile for size, which is perfect.

At every one of these monthly growth ultrasounds, the specialist (whose ongoing services we have earned with our MSAFP result) reminds us that we don't want to be above the 90th percentile, or they worry about gestational diabetes. And we don't want to be below the 10th, or they worry about growth restriction. So the high side of average is, like the baby bear's bed, juuuust right.

My little kung-fu fighter was also gamely punching at the ultrasound wand throughout the scan. After about the tenth time he jiggled her hand and threw off her measurements, the tech generously noted, "He's very strong for 28 weeks." Hells yeah, my boy is strong. He's totally the Johnny Weissmuller of 28-week-old fetuses.

I also seem to have passed the 1-hour glucose test, and thank goodness for that, because my sugar cravings have continued unabated since the great spice cake incident of 2008, and poor Mr. Newt would have a weary trimester ahead of him indeed if he had to take over sole responsibility for operation hormonal bliss, wink wink, nudge nudge. But happily for all of us, I can keep my endorphins pumping the easy way, a fact we celebrated on the way home with a stop at the bakery for a lemon cupcake with sour cream icing. Ooooh baby, you know what I like.

The one concerning aspect of the scan was the fact that although his body is measuring about 29 weeks, Yoshi's head is measuring just over 30 weeks gestation. So internet, I've got me a big-head baby.

The doctor specifically said this isn't a problem--the measurements are all guesses, the result is an average, the difference is not significant, and the bottom line is that Yoshi's not going to be a big ol' lopsided Charlie Brown freak-boy in kindergarten. But that's easy for him to say. Dr. Specialist doesn't have to push that giant-headed baby out into the world through his vagina, does he?

[I've cycled through so many doctors at this point, by the way, that I've stopped giving them cute nicknames. Sorry, internet. This particular specialist would be "Dr. Cute Accent, I Think He's from the Caribbean, but I Never Asked." That's a little long for typing out. His partner, the know-it-all genetic counselor, would be "Dr. Napoleon Complex." But we never see him anymore, knock wood.

My OB is Dr. Necktie's wife, and lately she's just "Dr. You Might Want to Stop Doing That." Like, Hi doc! How long can I continue to ride my bike to school? You might want to stop doing that. How much longer can I sleep on my back? You might want to stop doing that. Very festive.

Anyway, you can see how this might get confusing, and honestly, if they're all running together now in my mind, I can't imagine how I would expect the internet to sort it all out. So unless I encounter someone really outrageously interesting, we'll just proceed with my endless litany of anonymous but competent physicians (seven, so far!), and hope I don't attract any new ones, what with my staggeringly advanced maternal age of 35, and my uterus of death. Woo.]

So where was I? Oh yeah, my big-head baby. Mr. Newt and I both have big heads (in the literal sense that we have to buy the largest-sized hats for our respective genders--I make no claims of self-knowledge about the figurative corollary). So it's not surprising that Yoshi should have inherited a biggish cranium from one of us. But still, I want to warn you, internet, so the baby pictures don't wig you out too much when he's born: that baby is going to have a freakishly large head. I just know it.

Gobble-Gobble

Aw, gosh. Thanks, Katie, for the award.



I'm a little gobsmacked that she thought of me, because it's a creativity award, and while Katie dyes yarn and knits it into cunning little shapes (see her gorgeous crafting blog here), I mostly just sleep and whine. There's an art to sleeping and whining, but it's not one you can put on Etsy.

So after she posted the nomination, I spent a couple of days looking for photos of what I decided was probably my most creative achievement to date: the great squash-turkey of Thanksgiving 2003. It was the only year I have ever hosted Thanksgiving, and while I permitted my mother to make a conventional turkey in my oven, I also had, for the first time ever, two fellow vegetarians joining us for dinner, so I went all out. Seriously, this was a thing of beauty--little lentil eyes, a roasted squash body, a celery tail, and a head lovingly carved from a raw potato.

Alas, I can't find the picture. Organization, like knitting, is not one of my special talents.

I know, I'm such a tease. Here I tell you all about the squash-turkey, and no picture. Fortunately, I'm hosting Thanksgiving again this year (though I will be the only vegetarian in attendance this year, unless you count my three-year-old niece, who only eats potatoes and buttered pasta, which I guess is technically a list that doesn't include meat, but I doubt I could get her to join me in enjoying a well-roasted squash-turkey). Anyway, I promise I will get all kreativ with some dinner-related project, and take pictures for you, internet. Katie has inspired me.

Meanwhile, I would like to pass this award on to Fiddle1 at her blog, Stork Season--who fell for her husband while hunting for a real turkey--in the hopes that she will tell us more wildlife stories, and also just be her adorable self. And she fiddles! Get more creative than that; I dare you!

Third Tri, Oh My!

Dear Yoshimi,

So it's the first day of your third trimester. Happy T-day, piggy! I didn't get you a present, but I'm glad you enjoyed those sugar cookies your cousins baked. I know you must have liked them because you've been kicking me like a little ninja all afternoon, you rotten baby. I'll have to try to remember that stuff is like baby crack. Good thing you don't have teeth yet, so you don't have to worry about cavities.

Actually, you've got it pretty good in there, huh? You are putting on adorable baby fat, you get cuter every day, and you don't have any teeth to rot. Sounds like a sweet gig to me.

Anyway, Yoshi, your job is just to keep growing. KEEP GROWING. And as long as you're in there, I hope you also have a great time during these last three precious months in utero, little guy. Because one short trimester from now, you're going to have to deal with some bumbling newbie parents, poopy diapers, naptime, and to tell you the truth, the dogs will probably be putting their wet noses in your crotch. They're very rude.

But clueless as we are, your dad and I are excited to meet you on the outside, and learn what you like. I think you're going to like soccer. Your dad thinks you're going to like peas. I'm sure it will be more complicated than that, but we think it's pretty neat-o that you're going to be a whole separate person, with your own tastes and opinions and things. And as long as you don't get all keen on, like, pulling the wings off of flies, we promise to love you for all the ways you are unique.

So anyway, we'll try to be patient for this last trimester, so you can grow pudgy and happy. I think the fat babies sleep through the night better, right? I'll keep the cookies coming.

love,
Your mother

Progress on all Fronts: A story in pictures (mostly)

Well, here's my belly at 26 weeks:

I confess I feel a little gypped that I'm not getting the monster boobs. If I'm going to have the big caboose this pregnancy, I think I at least deserve some serious porn star hooters.

And, here are my feet:

My wonderful mother-in-law got me a pedicure for my birthday. I don't think she knew about the mouse-piss incident, but let's just say it was a well-timed gift.

Here, as promised, you can see the old living/dining room wall color, "jaundiced adobe":


And here we have the new living/dining room wall color. At first I called it "light sage," but now I'm thinking it might be "celedon." The paint can says "Veil of Mist," but that's just stupid.


I promise I'll show you a better picture when we get the furniture put back, internet. The table under that dropcloth and the Yahtzee box is actually very pretty. I know, I never post pictures of completed projects, but that's because I don't have any completed projects. But as soon as I get one, you'll be the first to know.

In further news, after submitting every sectional sofa north of the Rio Grande to a rigorous battery of loafing tests, my ass has found a winner:


It's the big one. In the foreground. Do you see all those other couches in the background, internet? Those couches are posers.

I like how the manufacturer of this sofa has given up the tired pretense that people sit on a couch. In fact, they seem to have given up the pretense that a couch is anything except a bed for the living room. It's just a big, velvety, schlumpy comfort machine. Loafers of the world, rejoice!

I mean, look at my big ol' honkin' ottoman. That, my friends, is the king of ottomans. It is the Ottoman Emperor. My pedicured feet never have to touch the floor again, for as long as I live, amen.

Delivery tomorrow.

So, I don't have a photo of the ER, or the pumpkin custard, but otherwise that's a pretty full report of my week.

Oh, except for all the farting--thankfully, I can't capture that with the camera. But Mr. Newt says maybe pregnant women fart all the time to make their partners less squeamish about bodily functions. By the time we get to diapers, neither of us will have any delicate sensibilities left to offend. He's so sentimental, my Mr. Newt.

Pregnancy is a magical time.

Thiss is not Bliss

So, I had a little brown spotting yesterday. And if the last year of my life hadn't, you know, existed, I probably would hardly have even noticed. I had just walked to school and then spent an hour on my feet teaching, so I suppose it is reasonable that too much jostling and gravity had irritated my cervix. I didn't freak out. In fact, since I couldn't find a place on campus that offered enough privacy to make a phone call to talk about bodily discharge, I didn't even call my doctor until I got home at 4:30.

It was the end of their business day, so I just left a message for the on-call nurse, Angie (who knows me well, after everything we've been through together), saying, "Eh, I'm having a little brown spotting. I just thought I should report it, in case you want to move up my appointment, which isn't until the 13th. Have a good night! Bye!"

Ten minutes later, Angie called me back and told me to go to Urgent Care. Not my podunk local ER, but the OB Urgent Care center in the city. I was to be checked for any sign of PPROM, and tested for infections. She was sending my records over now. Really? Better safe than sorry. OK.

So I fed the dogs, checked Yoshi's heartbeat (148), and called Mr. Newt. I loaded up my handbag with the three good-luck charms I take to all appointments: the uterus Katie knit for me, the little wooden mermaid Dr. Girlfriend sent, and my St. Gerard medal. Mr. Newt came home from work, and we headed up to the city.

The nurses checked us in, gave me a gown and a cup to pee in, took my temperature (98.5) and blood pressure (112/74), and strapped on some belly monitors. Yoshi's heartbeat was fine. My uterus was not contracting or showing any signs of irritability.

The doctor came in and seemed confused by my lack of symptoms. Hey, lady, I didn't just show up here for giggles, I was ordered to come. OK, well, let's check for infections.

By some stroke of bad luck, she asked me what I do for a living at the same moment she pulled up my gown and started probing my ladybits with swabs of various kinds. I told her that I teach at the university, and one of the nurses had a sudden flash of recognition. She had been in my class back in 2003! She thought I looked familiar!

I enjoy running into old students, but seriously, not with my panties around my ankles. I don't want anybody to tell me I look familiar at the very moment my undercarriage is being exposed to the room at large. Suddenly this otherwise very nice and thoughtful nurse wants to reminisce about the good old days, but ugh...it's hard for me to be all wise and teacherly and dignified when the doctor is showing me a cotton swab and saying, "See, no blood on here!" I smiled weakly and said, "Oh well."

So anyway, false alarm. My cervix is certified high, long, and closed, and tests show no infection. That's all great news, and I'm glad to be able to cross that spotting episode off my list of things to worry about.

Mr. Newt and I got some pumpkin frozen custard on the way home (I had originally intended to get some combination of chocolate and peanut butter, but when I saw that it was pumpkin season, there was great rejoicing in the custard emporium). I fell asleep watching Jon Stewart at 10:15.

So the evening wasn't a total waste. But I could have done without it, you know?