his father's child?

I think Nathaniel can hear in there now. There are different schools of thought on when a baby can hear in the womb, some say as early as 16 weeks, some say not till 26 weeks.

Nathaniel sure kicks a lot when Bob Marley is playing, though. He does not, however, kick much when The Killers are playing. So it could just be coincidence. But, perhaps he is showing a preference. Perhaps, like his father, he just prefers reggae.

Blog Tag

I just got tagged in a game of blog tag by my e-friend, Momfetti. Here's the deal - the rules:

1. Link back to the person who tagged you.
2. List six little things that make you happy.
3. Tag six bloggers and let them know they’re “it”.

My six:

1. Fortune cookie fortunes. I love the ones that are slightly nonsensical. I got one once, which I keep on the refrigerator, that says, "Alas! The onion you are eating is someone else's water lily." I can imagine what it means, but it just sounds silly to me, so it makes me laugh. Also, it's fun to add little phrases to the end of the fortune. The most popular of which is "in bed," but I prefer, "and then you'll die." I suppose it appeals to my dark sense of humor, plus there is an element of truth in it. The fortunes Rodgers and I got this weekend work well with either one. He got, "People are naturally attracted to you." I got, "You will always be surrounded by friends when you need them." I'm giggling right now. I love them.
2. Text messages, as long as they aren't the free messages from AT&T advertising something, or the ones that you have to pay for because some solicitor got a hold of your cell phone number, is sending you messages, and to get them to stop, you have to send them one. I hate that kind. But texts from my actual family and friends are great.
3. Food - just about any kind. I have an insatiable appetite these days. I know Nathaniel doesn't need many calories per day right now. He's so small, he only needs for me to eat one extra snack every day. But, honestly, I could eat every hour, and I do sometimes...
4. Nathaniel's kicks and punches. They're so tiny and cute right now. Sometimes, if they're directed the right way, I can feel them through my tummy with my hand. Rodgers hasn't felt them yet because as soon as I feel one with my hand and want to call him over to feel it, Nate seems to adjust his position so that he can punch my internal organs. That's not so cute.
5. Rodgers, for obvious reasons.
6. Puppies - the squirmier and slobberier, the better. I mean, who (aside from those with hearts of stone) can attempt to hold a squirmy, slobbering puppy without at least smiling, if not laughing aloud?
   

It's a BOY!

We had our big ultrasound this past Tuesday. It was a most wonderful experience.

We got to see major organs and watch the baby squirm, kick, and punch. The Dr. showed us the face, straight on. We could see the eyes, and the little mouth kept opening and closing. He printed us a picture of the open mouth. We saw arms, legs, hands, and feet. We actually got a pretty good picture of a foot with toes!

Then, at the end, the Dr. found us a clear shot to tell the sex, and had me guess what I thought it looked like. I'd been doing my research by looking at ultrasound pictures online, and I was pretty sure it looked like a boy. I was right!

All the ultrasound pictures are in my pregnancy photo album. Here's our little Nathaniel:

The classic profile shot. I think he's cute, even if his head is still too big for his body.

:: chomp chomp chomp ::

babymoon

Last year, when my brother and sister-in-law were expecting, we were introduced to the concept of a babymoon. I really liked the idea: one last chance to go on vacation as a couple before the baby arrives.

Even though we just went on our honeymoon a few months ago, I wanted us to have another child-free (and child care-free) trip together. Rodgers had classes all summer, but has most of the month of August free before the fall semester starts on the 24th. These 3 weeks were really the only opportunity we'd have for more than a weekend trip together.

Before Rodgers convinced me to stay in Brenham/Somerville for our honeymoon, I had been looking at Corpus. It's a fun place: sights to see, beaches, dolphin encounters, seafood, Tex-Mex food, aquarium, the Columbus ship replicas (which set sail from Spain in 1992, 500 years after Columbus did), the USS Lexington. Since we skipped out on all that fun in March, we decided to go for it on the babymoon.

Our babymoon daily schedule was thus: get up moderately early (i.e. around 7:30ish), have some breakfast in the room or go out for breakfast around 8, do something fun (most stuff opens at 9), have lunch, do something else fun for an hour or so, back to the hotel for naptime, dinner, a movie or tv until bedtime.

We had a great time. Saw the USS Lex, the Texas State Aquarium, went to the beach, saw the Pinta and the Santa Maria in drydock at the museum (but the Nina is on the water downtown, so we didn't really see it), and ate some good food. The only thing I kind of wanted to do that we didn't get to do was a dolphin encounter. I've gone on one before. They take you out in a little boat to where the pods of dolphins play, and the dolphins follow the boat around for a while. The sun is hot out there on the water, though, and I wasn't enjoying that hot sun on land, so we skipped that.

Some pictures here.

I won! I won! I won!

I entered a contest online. I didn't expect to win, of course, but the only task for entering was to write a very brief description of a favorite childhood memory. So, I entered.

I forgot about the contest, but then got an email (which seemed fishy at first) saying that I was one of the winners! There were 600 winners, so maybe that's nothing to brag about, but it did come with a prize. All I had to do to collect my prize was to take a chance that the email was real and reply to it with my mailing address. I went for it, and about a week later, look what arrived:

Noah's ark themed sleeper, 2 onesies, pants, little hat, bib, and a surprise teddy bear. It's yellow, so it will be appropriate for a boy or a girl baby (speaking of boy or girl: 4 days till the ultrasound!).