Separation

Joe took Marija for an hour tonight while I went to Communion service at the Lutheran church in town. He thought it might be good for us to practice being apart. We figured it would be harder on me than on her.

But I came home and he said she had missed me. It was about bedtime, and she couldn't get to sleep. There were spurts of crying, he said, though he had managed to calm her somewhat with her favorite xylophone toy. "Oh, and she stained my shirt with her tears," he said.

My baby! I think next time we will not practice being apart when it is close to bedtime.

Grocery shopping before a blizzard

Thanks to the woman who let me cut ahead just a little in the 40-minute-long line at the grocery store after my baby started to scream from weariness.

Thanks also to her and the cashier and other folks nearby for making small talk while efficiently handling groceries. They helped distract us both and reminded me that the world wasn't ending. I thought I was really calm despite her crying, but after a number of minutes of it, I think I was starting to lose it a bit, and I guess it showed on my face.

I was so happy to get to the front of the line, I took just a second after loading my groceries to hand another woman a coupon for the sour cream she had. She saved $1.10, and I saved just a little of my sanity. I was so happy to get out of the store, I didn't even check the receipt to make sure I got my free tortillas.

Thanks to my poor little baby, who found the line at the grocery store more distressing than the shot she got at the pediatrician today. Now she is napping, and it is doing us both good.

(I was going to take a picture, but the camera woke her, so here is one from last month instead.)

Sister, sister, he's just a plaything...

Our home's soundtrack lately:

Having fun

With no money

Little smile

On his face

Don't you love

The little baby?

Don't you want to make it

Stay up late?

"Stay Up Late," by the Talking Heads

We actually don't want the baby to stay up late... at all... but it is fun to dance around to the song. If you want to hear it, it's here with some random unrelated video clips.

Grins

I was going to write about my life, but then I found out that my friend Heather, my heretofore partner in pregnancy, has just today given birth to a beautiful baby girl!

Nothing else seems nearly as important.

And I am now a bit more impatient to meet this baby in me!

Good thing I got some fabric in the mail today. Sewing and planting my spinach bed will at least keep me busy for now.

While we wait

Look! Look! I made that bassinet skirt and liner!

A kind woman from freecycle came over to teach me how.

It used to be two thift-store sheets and some thread and lace, and now it's pretty!

Bedroom ready for baby

Things are changing.

It's been a week since I rearranged my dresser to make room for baby clothes and things, but I keep opening this drawer expecting to find my socks and being surprised to see diapers instead.

Baby stuff... slowly taking over

Getting ready

There are baby clothes in our laundry closet, little pajamas with their feet hanging down and tiny socks laid out to dry.

There is a rocking chair in the bedroom! Joe brought it home just yesterday.

There is teddy bear with a bear with a diaper on it sitting by the stairs.

There is a lot left undone. But things are beginning to take shape in a new way already.

It is still very quiet in this home, though. No crying at all...

I wish I'd brought my camera

Joe's in San Diego again, and it's funny how quickly I can fall back into the patterns I had before we were married: going to church alone, wandering a park afterwards, sleeping and waking at strange times. For a little while it's almost like being unmarried again -- and then he calls me or I start planning the next few days, and so many of our thoughts and plans circle around each other. And then there's this baby in my belly... it's kicking like crazy this afternoon.

I'll have to bring Joe back to the park sometime soon. I'm actually not sure I was supposed to go there... a locked gate meant I had to park my car on the road, so I looked for signs saying the park was closed, but there weren't any. I got around the gate by a footpath.

I don't know if anyone goes there... the dirt road toward the lake was lined with wild blackberry bushes, with plenty of ripe ones for me. The road had beautiful butterflies, the grass had humble little wildflowers, and the lake was surrounded by pine trees and birds. I saw a bluebird!

Parenting II

We had ... (counting on my fingers) ... 17 people over at our house on Sunday for one of Joe's family potlucks. Everyone brought too much good food and the house was full of conversation. Nieces and nephews ran around our yard and played in a raucous game of Go Fish! in the living room. Just about every dish in our house was dirty by the end of the night, in addition to a small stack of paper plates, and the compost bin was full of corn cobs and watermelon rinds. It was good. 

After we waved our goodbyes and finished up the first phase of cleanup in the kitchen, though, Joe said he's getting a better idea of what it will be like to have our own children. 

A pint-sized greasy handprint left on the wall

I guess it seems different when it's our own carpet that the toddlers toss their food on, when it's our yard where they're sitting down onto my catsup-covered plate and tracking Play-Doh into the grass (even though that's a pretty good place to track the Play-Doh, in the general scheme of things). Joe gave the older kids oil pastels to color with, and now we can't seem to get all the pastel off our tablecloth. This is okay, Joe said, since we can just make that table our coloring spot. And we love the kids so much. But we do have the sense that once our home is inhabited by little ones, it will be a very different kind of home. And I imagine that might take some adjusting.

Haha

Oh, this made me laugh.

But if I was his mom and knew about half those things, I'd about die of fright.

How am I ever going to stand having kids?

I myself have survived many a ride around the block in the back of a pickup truck. But unlike my sisters, I was a bit scared all the time. I'm such a wimp.

Parenting I

Joe and I were at my parents' house on Saturday, taking care of the dog and my grandmother while everyone else was gone. Joe played his guitar while my grandmother listened and I played my kokle, and Vecmamma even played a little herself, just picking at the strings.

In the evening, we went to  Mass near there, like we used to. A tiny little baby was being baptized, and after it received the holy water and the holy oil and the priest was talking about how wonderful it all was, the baby broke out into the most radiant little grin! Those nearby let out little squeals of laughter.

But I think I paid more attention to the  young couple in front of us. Both their toddlers were pretty squirmy, and they kept handing them board books and snacks to try to keep them calm and quiet. The little girl piped up when everyone else was singing, but her "la la la!"s were not nearly on tune as the liturgy, and she kept going even after everyone else was quiet. The father's attempts to shush her were in vain. The mother told their boy to be "quiet as a mouse!" but he didn't really listen, either. Then the boy threw up in the pew and the parents made a hasty cleanup and exit. 

(Note to self: when we go to church with kids, we should bring along something to absorb bodily fluids so we don't have to catch them with our hands.)

I don't really remember the sermon. But I really had a lot to ponder about parenthood, and the baby was kicking besides.

Joe made me stand up with the other mothers to receive a special blessing for Mother's Day coming up. On the way out we got little flowers -- marigolds! Mine is so pretty. I already planted it in a pot outside.

Maybe late, or maybe not

The Lord has indeed risen, Alleluia! Glory and kingship be His forever. 

It seems like everyone else has so many good things to say about Christ's resurrection this time of year, but I feel oddly incapable of joining in. Joe and I went to church Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and then for the Easter service Sunday morning, and even as I sang from the pews or the chairs in the Friendship Room, I was probably soaking up more than I was bursting forth.

Big in my thoughts lately has been the ways we are blessed beyond measure, even though my human pettiness sometimes seems bigger when I have colds and hard moments. But there is still this great sense of gifts undeserved, especially the one tapping me from time to time from inside my belly. 

And to have the goodness of this loving Lord reigning alive always, not only over this growing child, but over sinful me? Offering to wash us clean? To guide us in bright paths? To be with us beyond the end of the world and this life and everything? 

It was all so concrete back those centuries ago -- the Son who was whipped and mocked and lifted up to die, the folded burial cloths left once he rose to life again, the message of the Savior to his confused and frightened friends. And the bigness of what it all means becomes concrete here, too, though the scenes are not as dramatic. If only I knew how to see and share it better.

In the meantime, there is so much goodness to rest in. 

With child

For April Fool's Day I tried to convince Joe I made him a Veggie Meat Experiment for dinner, but he didn't fall too hard for it before he saw his soup and turkey melt (like a tuna melt). I had just the soup, yum.

Then we were talking about times I've been fooled before, including the time Steffie had us all on LiveJournal thinking she was pregnant -- classic. Joe said I could tell people that we're having twins, which would have been genius had I actually remembered to do it before the day was up. 

Anyway, yesterday probably wasn't the best day to tell people that I'm pregnant since I actually am. (Wahoo!) And I know some people know already, but some don't, so! The baby is due August 29th or so, which is the day before our first wedding anniversary. That means I'm at the beginning of the fifth month of pregnancy, which means the baby is almost the size of a large mango and I'm getting nice and round in the belly. 

Joe and I are really excited. Sometimes it feels like the whole world is excited, especially people at church! When we told the people who go to daily mass at the monastery with us, they cheered, and they told us, "Your baby's going to have 150 godmothers and godfathers!" On our way out today, they told me to enjoy my dill pickles and my strawberries. Mmm... both sound good to me, but maybe not together. 

I have been sick at times, but I'm more often really hungry... much of the time I'd like to spend posting on here has instead gone into endless rounds of making snacks and eating them. And since I know someone will ask: yep, I've craved some things, mostly salty snacks like french fries and potato chips in the beginning, and also Indian food. I have now memorized the location of every McDonald's in the area, though I didn't visit any of them. There are no Indian restaurants nearby, alas.

I might have felt the baby move yesterday, but I'm not sure. And I should get to see it again today, since we're having our second sonogram! I'm hoping it goes well. We're planning to keep the gender a surprise, though I've had a bit of a premonition. I'll let you know if I was right! And Joe will probably let you know if I was wrong. :~)

I'm guessing I got most of any questions you have, but if you have any others, ask away!

Here is a picture from sonogram number one, taken a month and a half ago. You can see the head on the right, the belly to the left, and the teeny, tiny hands.

The baby