Catch Up

Sorry, we've been remiss on the blog lately, partially because we were visiting several of our readers in Atlanta! We miss y'all already....anyway, to make up for it, I'm posting two weeks of photos, plus one alternate view...

April 13

April 30

Also, a scene from our baby shower at the historic Strand Theater in Marietta, hosted by our wonderful friends Earl and Terri Reece, and Colleen and Peter (also wonderful friends, but of course so much more).

I, of course, am used to being world famous, but this was a real treat for Cati, who has shunned the limelight all her life.

The baby is up to all kinds of gymnastics in Cati's belly, and the newest move involves using the entire body at once. Cati's been getting pokes and kicks up until now, but last night s/he stretched full out and kicked on one side of Cati while ramming either his/her head or elbow into the other side. I am amazed how Cati greets each new beating with a beatific smile, especially as this one occurred during sleep time, which is usually a very dangerous time to disturb her. Nonetheless, I enjoy the somersaults immensely. I think it's pretty clear that all our dreams of a recessive gene showing up and creating a quiet, demure child are evaporating now. This kid wants to move!

Cati's been doing well, though the third trimester has brought it's host of discomforts and fatigue. She's bearing up so well, that I feel pretty embarrassed now if I complain about a hangnail or something. I imagine that will get even sharper after I watch her give birth. I still can't believe I get to say that sentence: "After I watch her give birth." wow, I'm a lucky man.

My Own Two Eyes

Ok y'all, I have some news for you...Cati's pregnant! Damn, look at that belly.

And as we've discovered in the last couple days, if you look at that belly long enough, a big rolling wave will cross it. Or a brief poke. Or a little jiggle. For the first time last night I saw that little bugger moving around under the skin. Cati said, "Isn't that cool?" And to be honest, I kinda paused..."Um, yes..." But I was also a little unnerved for the first time. Feeling it kick was cool and electric, hearing the hearbeat was amazing, seeing the ultrasound was sweet. But seeing her belly move around? That was cool, but also...freaky. I think each stage of baby contact brings you a little closer to a creature emerging this you but also not you. At first it's a touching little picture from which you can imagine who this person will be. But at this point, that belly is moving around on its own, there's no contained "in there" happening anymore. S/He is reaching outside of the container, moving the air around out here.

And, of course, there's always the extra power of the visual. Feeling, hearing, all cool. But seeing something has a different zing to it, as most filmmakers know. You can write the best well-researched 700-page-book ever on tree eradication in the Amazon without making a ripple, but one shot of a tree falling and animals running and people get mad. Also, you can easily rationalize or convince yourself of something until you see the opposite with your own eyes. That's why that expression, I guess, "See it with my own two eyes." Despite the fact that our eyes lie to us all the time, especially in league with our memories. They like to play tricks together, apparently. So I can sit and imagine that baby all I want, but the moment I saw it kicking around under her skin, the truth of his/her otherness was concrete.

Which, of course, is wonderful. But also a little terrifying. That's a new life in there, wriggling around, trying out limbs that weren't even there a month or two ago!

I know, because I've seen him/her with my own two eyes.

Rainbows in the baby's roo

That's right, it's finally sunny in here! Yeah!

Bye Bye Partymester

Sorry about the delay in belly posting, we've been traveling and working on weekends and whatnot! We've made up for it by using Mission Pictures' new awesome Canon SLR (we use it for video) to get a super high rez belly.

Part of the whatnot is that we are now waving a sad goodbye to what my brother calls the "partymester". When I first heard this moniker, I thought it quaint, but now it brings a tear to my eye as it recedes into the distance. It's not officially over, but just like the '60s were really over by the summer of '69, the second trimester is ending early for us. Cati has started making sounds walking around the house that I've only heard people at the end of a marathon make. Groans, short breaths, and she even puts her hand on her hip the way runners do at the end of a grueling mile. It was amazing how quick the transition was. One week she was waking up early, peppering my poor groggy brain with chipper questions about whether the dragon print curtains she got would fit a jungle theme, and the next she was stopping in mid-meal, so tired she looked like she was going to cry. Poor Cati, she's a little bewildered. We often have this conversation:

"Sigh...why am I so tired?"
"Because you're making a baby!"

or

"I don't understand why I'm so weepy..."
"Because you're making a baby!"

or

"F#$%^#$!"
"Thank you for carrying our baby!"

We were hanging out with our friends Kate and Chris and their sweet little boy Arlo and we were talking about how nice it was having all these friends who'd just had babies because we were getting all these hand-me-downs and great advice and how it seemed almost too easy, that I felt a little guilty. They both immediately burst into the kind of laugh the evil guy in a James Bond movie has when Bond has just fallen into his trap.

"Don't worry, it won't be easy for long!"

New favorite snack

My new favorite snack is potato chips with thick slices of cheese on top. After a first
snack of cake and milk, and a taro bubble tea, and finishing up everyone's food at the Chinese place for lunch, this little salty repast hits the spot. Wash it down during happy hour with Ray's not-yet-so-famous New Fangled and we're all set for dinner!
(New Fangled is bitters, tonic water, lime, and a cherry in a highball glass - tastes deliciously like liquor, but it's decidedly not.)

We've been enjoying a wonderful visit to Portland to see Carolyn and Ray and their perfectly beautiful new house. Lots of walking, baby showering, and rain showering. Oh, and did I mention lots of eating?!?... Yum!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Baby Art

Our first piece of baby art is up on our wall. (Sorry it's sideways here...)

It's a Noah's Ark that a friend of Mom & Peter's made - Jason Snape is his name I believe. The most fun for me has been picking the matting and frame. I went to a frame shop here in town http://www.underglassframing.com/ with this print and my PhD diploma - long since overdue for proper framing. The owner, who helped me, immediately commented on how lovely the diploma's font was, which endeared him to me. A true letters nerd like me!

We looked at orange and purple mats, but nothing was fitting perfectly until I suggested we look for a more whimsical frame and we found this one, which sort of picks up on the clouds. I *love* this piece and feel like it'll grow with the baby and be a fun and lovely addition to our house for ever. Also, the covering is high quality plastic, not glass, so if it were ever to fall, it wouldn't break. Baby-proofing in an earthquake zone is a different experience!

Sigh

Hoo ha! Look at that belly! The little bugger is kicking all the time now, very present in our lives already. Cati keeps talking about how big her belly is, and I keep trying to remind her that it's not really "her" belly right now. I mean, sure, when she looks down there, I imagine it looks big, but it's just stretching around this little critter that's growing bigger and bigger.

Pregnancy so far has been a pretty blissful state, but there are some things that have been less fun so far (just speaking for myself, I'm sure Cati's less enamored of having to pee every 12 seconds, etc). For one, being in this kind of weird waiting state is a little hard on both of us, I think. There are so many decisions, actions, thoughts, that are clouded over with the knowledge that everything in our universe is going to change in a way that's impossible to plan. Not just the practical side--sleep deprivation, worry for baby health, constricted social calendar, family goodness--but also the emotional side. I think our friend Kelly said that it's like jumping off a cliff and falling and falling into love with no end. Cati and I both love each other very much, but I think we're also increasingly cognizant that there's another realm of love that we haven't seen yet. Just feeling that little kick gives you a glimpse of it. Of course, that's a good and wonderful thing in many ways, but how weird is it to wait for this feeling that there's no way to replicate? I think as children our whole lives are built around a new thing around every corner warping our minds and changing our vision for good. As adults, you start getting used to and relying on predictable rhythms. This sense that your life is about to be engulfed, even if it's by wonder and joy, is intimidating at times. Every time Cati or I say "We should" or "We'll need to", it's immediately modified in my brain by "That we is going to be three." How will we know what WE need to do, or how WE should feel or act?

And yet, of course, softening the fear and occasional annoyance is the knowledge that falling and falling, if you never hit bottom, is usually called something else. Flight.