captcha

Any guesses on what the second word was?

QOTW:
Man A: In the eyes of the law, you are the more guilty of the two, for the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction.
Man B: If that's what the law supposes, sir, then the law is a ass! If that be the eyes of the law, sir, then the law is a bachelor!

working mommy wednesday!

I stopped doing WMW for a few weeks (or a month or so) because I had started thinking I may never get a job again. But, I have one now! It's a temp job in customer service at a computer (hardware) company. Just two months for now. We'll see if it turns into something longer term.






Prompt #2- Make us laugh- one of your funniest memories to date.

This isn't one of my funniest memories, actually. So maybe I'm not following the prompt right. It's just that most of my funniest memories are dumb when they're typed out. But this is something that made me laugh recently.

Rodgers and I both have our own laptops. He sits in the big chair with his, and I lounge on the loveseat with mine. Sometimes we sit together, but we don't have a full sized sofa, so there's not really enough elbow room for us to both type if we're sitting next to each other.

The other day, Rodgers suddenly looked up from his laptop and asked me, "When are you due? Septemberish?"

I pretended to cry, "You don't know when I'm due! It's like you don't even know me!"

He said, "Hey. I'm not the one who's pregnant! I make people pregnant!"

I was laughing too hard to ask him who these people are.

[I was pleased, though, to hear that he finally agrees with me that I'm the one who's pregnant, not both of us. I think what made him change his mind was witnessing Nate's delivery.]

QOTW: I really can't think of anything tonight besides: I make people pregnant! It might be my new catch phrase.

newborn amnesia

In the moments, I was sure that I would never forget Nate's early months. People always told me that I would, though. Of course, I wrote down his milestones and important things like that on his first year calendar and in his baby book.

The other day, Rodgers and I were talking about taking Nate to the zoo. Down here, we're having lots of warm weather and lots of fun afternoons in the park. He loves watching cats, dogs, and squirrels, so we think he'd enjoy the zoo now.

But then, I had a sudden brief memory of sitting at the zoo, eating lunch, with Nate in stroller. I had another flash of carrying him around the primate area, trying to get him to look at the monkeys because, as we know, he loves monkeys. But that was it.

When was this? Was he in the infant carrier in the stroller or just in the stroller itself? Why don't I take pictures of these things? (Well, I know the answer to that one. Either I forget my camera or I get too caught up in the moment to bring it out and take pictures.) Did I eat a corndog or a chicken sandwich? Was it a dream? Or did we really take Nate to the zoo as an infant?

I asked Rodgers. His response: I dunno. Maybe.

What else have I forgotten? Or, what else have I made up in my mind that didn't really happen?

QOTW: This is the famous Dead Sea Tupperware. Listen. [pfft!] Ah, still good!

my not-so-stylish son

Nate doesn't like to wear shoes, which I think is completely normal for babies and toddlers who haven't yet worn them. He has 2 pairs of house-shoe style slippers (one pair with monkey heads on them, the others are what I call "old man slippers"). They are soft and warm, and he doesn't mind them, but he does like taking them off. I put them on him when we go out on cold days.

Then we started going to the park on warm days. He loves being outside, but we live in an apartment, and there's really nowhere for him to play outside here. There's a tiny patch of dirt at the foot of our stairs where he plays, but that's it. On nice days, we will take him out to one of two places: a park with a nice long walking trail where we can push him in his stroller or a park with swing sets for kids in the shade. He loves climbing on things, but just isn't steady enough to do it on his own. His favorite activities are the swing and the slide, especially if it's a slide for smaller children because he can go down it on his own and not fall over.

His second favorite activity is playing in the mulch under the swing set. The first day, we just didn't let him get down on the ground. He was in socks only that day. The next time, I put the old man slippers on him. They were better than nothing, but kind of ridiculous for playing outside. Plus, being fuzzy, I think they still have tiny pieces of mulch stuck to them.

Nate has a really cute pair of Converse All-Star style shoes, which would be more appropriate, but he doesn't like them yet. They are kind of stiff on the bottom, and he isn't used to wearing shoes yet. They're still a bit big, so I figure I have time to get him used to wearing shoes before he outgrows them.

Every time we go to the mall, we cruise the shoe stores. I try shoes on him, he screams, I take them off, and we go home. I started thinking he may only tolerate crib shoes (the ones with very soft flexible soles), which rarely come in a size 5, but then one day, we found sandals.

He didn't make a fuss at all when I put them on his feet. He even walked around the store in them for a while. He seemed to not mind them at all. They were on sale for $10, so we absolutely bought them! They are now his "playing outside shoes."

I'm afraid to try them on him without socks. At the store, he was wearing socks. In my mind, if I put them on him without socks, the straps will bother his feet, and he will suddenly begin hating them. He is stubborn enough to remember how he hates them even if I try to put them on him with socks the next time. Then, we will be right back where we started, playing in the park in socks or old man slippers, and I will never again get shoes on those feet. Maybe that's a little irrational, but I'm still not ready to break the magic of the socks with sandals.

Let's go play outside!

QOTW: You know what? When the doors close, just say "go." Better.

12 weeks

I had my 12 week prenatal appointment this morning. I met my new OB for the first time. My former OB moved to the Middle East. I was sad, but the new one seems like a good fit for me, too.

She could not find the baby's heartbeat with the doppler, which was scary, but she brought in the ultrasound, and everything is fine. The baby was sort of squished over to one side and doing acrobatics. Even with the ultrasound, she couldn't get a good "lock" on the heartbeat because the kid would not be still. Finally, s/he settled down, and the heart rate was 170. That's in the "girl" range according to old wives' tales, but then, even a boy would have a higher heart rate after that kind of work out.

Due date: September 21.

And here's a creepy picture of the baby's face, from my bonus ultrasound this morning:

Face is in the center. The oval to the right is the tummy.

Ack! I forgot QOTW:
I see you're drinking 1%. Is that 'cause you think you're fat? 'Cause you're not. You could be drinking whole if you wanted to.

oh, then there's this other thing...

but with more of a "yahoo" and less of an "aw, crap" [source]

cross-cultural marriage: heart language

There have been times (especially when we were dating) that Rodgers didn't know how to say something in English, but he did know how to say it in Swahili and Giryama. Unfortunately, the Swahili or Giryama version has been of no use to me. Usually he would show or describe it to me, and I could tell him what it was in English. Now more often, he knows how to say something in English but we have to look up the words in Swahili. (Also, an aside, he speaks much more Texan English, as opposed to Kenyan British English, now than he did when we started dating. Woohoo!)

One particular time Rodgers was trying to tell me that his foot was tingling. He said, "It's like this:" [wiggling fingers, then whispering] "chikachikachikachika." I knew what he was talking about right away.

Usually we get by with explanations like that, but I always feel that it would benefit us if I spoke his language at least a fraction as well as he speaks mine, and for more than just practical reasons.

The first time Rodgers told me he loves me, he said it in Swahili. I knew what "nakupenda" means, but hearing it didn't really affect me. He thought I didn't understand, so he repeated it in English. I stopped breathing. The language of my heart is English. (It also happens to be the only language I speak fluently.)

I can't speak the language of Rodgers' heart. Rodgers would say that what's meaningful is knowing that I love him or that I'm proud of him or that I believe in him, not hearing the words. But I know that words spoken to Rodgers affect him deeply, as one of his main love languages is words of affirmation. I believe it would be meaningful to him if I could speak affirmation to him in his heart language.

QOTW:
"After all, quite a lot of people are going to think we are a shocking pair."

favorite dinner

Nate's too big to cram into the Bumbo anymore. He hates restaurant high chairs. He's not that fond of his high chair anymore, plus we have a very small apartment and not really much room for a high chair. We should have gone the space saver route, but went the "whatever we can find for $20 on craigslist" route. It's a nice high chair. But, we're over it. He needs a portable booster chair.

Since Nate's going to be staying with his grandparents next weekend, (WAHOO!!) I thought now would be a great time to go ahead and get the booster, and he can take it with him to their house. It came in the mail today. It's not fancy at all, but I chose it for the price and because it folds up so tiny. As I was strapping it into our dining room chair, Nate was very interested. He inspected the straps and giggled in anticipation of whatever this new game was. He was thrilled to sit in a real chair at the table with me while we ate dinner!

We had one of Nate's favorite meals, too: black beans, brown rice, and green peas (which were still on the stove when the picture was taken). And he ate really well, too, which always makes me happy.

The past few days, he has been more interested in sleep than food. Actually yesterday, he fell asleep for his nap before lunch. Rodgers was holding him while he was drinking some milk, and the next thing we knew, he was out. That hasn't happened in...I don't remember the last time he drank himself to sleep. Today, Nate's still sleeping well, but eating better. I'm thinking maybe a little growth spurt? Who knows?

QOTW (quote of the whatever):
explanation: QOTW is a random quote from a movie, TV show, book, song, or sometimes even real life which happens to be in my head at the time I'm blogging. I used to do it on my very first blog, and I've had some votes to bring it back. I want to bring it back, too, so I am! I will not post the source at first so that readers who want to show off their knowledge of quotes can do so by posting the source. Hopefully I'll remember to post the source later, though, so that we're not left wondering where the quote came from. Now that that's settled, here we go!
"You're going the right way for a smacked bottom."