29 Weeks+

She still doesn't have a name, but hey -- at least she's looking like a real baby. We had the ultrasound yesterday and got to see her moving around, kicking and yawning, and generally hanging out with her foot beside her head.

Now that we're kind of settled and de-mothballed and all, this whole "we're having a baby" thing is starting to seem real. If only because we're heading into the home stretch, and I am realizing I have less and less time to do things like uh...oh, I dunno...furnish her room? Yeah, well. Oops.

Basically at this point the baby has a handful of pretty dresses, a Beatles t-shirt, a Stanford onesie, and a Broncos warm-up suit. Oh, and cute socks and a lot of books.

Nothing to sleep on or in. No blankets or burping cloths. And, right, no name. La la la...

Physically, aside from continued fatigue, general aches and pains, and a bizarrely sore butt (the muscles right around the tailbone, so weird), I feel fine. I don't look especially pregnant -- I mean, I know I have a baby belly, but strangers don't seem to be 100% sure I'm not just super plump.

Oh! Although the grandmother working the check-out at Whole Foods asked when I was due. That was nice.

Versus the time I ventured into our town's new Wal-Mart back when I was in my early twenties, and ran into a guy I'd gone to grade school with working as a clerk there. He kept calling to me from across the store, which I ignored at first because he was calling me Tracy. Then, when I did realize he meant me, and I looked at him, he shouted, "You pregnant!?!?"

Let me tell you right now, there is no way to kindly, demure, off-handed way to reply -- from across a Wal-Mart -- that no, you aren't pregnant, you've just gained weight since middle school, but thanks for asking.

Anyway. Here I am, ten years later. Pregnant and not gaining weight. Hallelujah.

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I have no idea what I've been doing with my time. I guess I've been puttering around a lot. I have spent the last four years wishing I didn't have a full-time job getting in the way of my writing/blogging, and now that I don't -- the idea of a blank page and empty hours scares the bejeezus out of me.

Use this time! Use this time! Now, before the baby comes and you never have a moment's peace again! Now! Hurry! It's slipping away...slipping...

So I start a blog draft or two or twenty-three. And then I hate what I've written and start something else and then THAT sucks so I close the computer and make a list of things I need to do "at some point" before the baby. And then I decide to organize my photos, which is a task I've put off for -- and I'm not kidding -- a good 20 years. So far, this has meant shuffling through the various boxes of photos and thinking about them, and then feeling so overwhelmed by where to begin that I wander downstairs and eat a lemonade popsicle.

Somehow I still believe that this process will lead to my writing a novel, but I haven't quite figured out how yet.

Also, I have an inexplicable desire to create decoupage wall art. I don't really know what I'm doing (shocking!) but some of the things I've seen are really quite artistic and amazing. And I have a lot of barren walls that need some new artwork (not that my Marilyn Monroe poster from college isn't still really pretty). I think if you're a fancy art person, you call such decoupage-y things "mixed media." I mostly call it "gluing shit I'm not talented enough to paint onto canvas. In my head."

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I leave you with this. I assume by now you have all seen the Susan Boyle video, but if you haven't, please PLEASE do. I cry every time I watch, it's maybe the most inspiring thing I've seen online. In a "Humanity DOESN'T suck!" kind of way.

Click the image to go to the YouTube video.
YouTube has suspended embedding.

Here's a great article on her for reference.