Stop Kicking my Bladder!

Okay, so I've played the role of the pregnant woman that everyone loves to hate, because well, this pregnancy has been really really nice to me.

All my weight gain has been adding onto the "basketball also known as nugget", I haven't had a drop of nausea, I've been able to stay active and move around pretty comfortably, and since my second trimester started, I've been sleeping through the whole night about 95% of the time, AND I really have yet to have a negative mood swing (I've been in a really good mood most of the time). So without the requisite pregnancy scatterbrainedness and the fact that I crave yellow tail sashimi, which I can't have, it's been really easy.

But as my third trimester is kicking into high gear, I figured I'd share some of the not-so-fun things that have been happening too.

First, as the post title might have indicated, Nugget seems to like to kick and punch my bladder. This has led to some interesting teaching methods on my part, since Nugget has a penchant for doing this right in the middle of my lecturing, and I have to quickly think of some question for my students to discuss in groups for five minutes, while I take a potty break. Half the time, they don't even realize that these breakout sessions weren't "planned", which is good. Luckily, there hasn't been any Nugget Kickboxing-related leakage (or any leakage of any kind). I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Also, my lower back and lower rib cage are sore. I'm carrying the baby really high, so my ribs are way separated and I think all my organs are competing for space. At the end of the day, these aches and pains get worse, and when I wake up, they're generally better. And my back just gets tired of holding my "basketball" up.

And I have a touch of heartburn on occasion.

So, these things still aren't BAD, but I thought some of you might appreciate that I don't have a totally symptom free pregnancy!

So-called "child psychologists"...

The THE ETIOLOGY & TREATMENT OF CHILDHOOD was written by Jordan Smoller and published in a book called Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality.

Childhood is a syndrome which has only recently begun to receive serious attention from clinicians. The syndrome itself, however, is not at all recent. As early as the 8th century, the Persian historian Kidnom made references to "short, noisy creatures," who may well have been what we now call "children." The treatment of children, however, was unknown until this century, when so-called "child psychologists" and "child psychiatrists" became common. Despite this history of clinical neglect, it has been estimated that well over half of all Americans alive today have experienced childhood directly (Suess, 1983). In fact, the actual numbers are probably much higher, since these data are based on self-reports which may be subject to social desirability biases and retrospective distortion.

Under Construction...

My commute sucks, and that's only if I travel at off-peak hours. Fortunately, help is on the way:

After legislative leaders and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger demanded that the list be changed to favor congestion projects, and more of them, the staff put out a new list Monday with $1.1 billion in Bay Area projects. (http://www.insidebayarea.com/sanmateocountytimes/ci_5329443)

Here's another amusing tidbit:

Transportation officials' carefully organized media event Friday to celebrate progress in highway construction turned into a live demonstration of just how unhappy life is for commuters on Interstate 580.

Caltrans Director Will Kempton, California Transportation Commissioner James Ghielmetti and Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty were to update the media at 2 p.m. under an awning set up next to the eastbound lanes of the interstate, a short distance east of the El Charro Road interchange.

Haggerty, however, didn't get there until close to 3 p.m. after leaving Oakland at 1:45 thanks to the very traffic bottleneck that was to frame the event.

"There is no reason that any taxpaying citizen should have to go though this traffic," Haggerty said to a reporter who had made the same enervating journey with similar results. "Just getting from the 580-680 interchange to here has totally drained me for the rest of the evening."

Haggerty said he could not blame passing motorists who saw the assembly of transportation officials for flipping them "the one-fingered salute." (http://origin.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/localnews/ci_5406547)

Nugget's Crib

We ordered Nugget's crib today! The company that makes it is located in Reading, Pennsylvania. Go to their website for more info about the crib. Thanks Dad!

Lance will get to go pick it up in a week or so. If I'm really lucky Lance will have it all put together when I get home from the SRCD conference/Amy's Shower! Then we just have to get a mattress and sheets and stuff.

Well, and diapers/diaper covers, and my breast pump, etc... but progress is good!

Digital Baby Magazine

I just mentioned that we made an email address for nugget and that we're using it to amass offers for free stuff and newsletters and such. Well imagine my surprise when I was checking that email address and saw a message from "babytalk@texterity.com". Apparently one of the free subscriptions I got was a digital subscription to babytalk magazine, which is apparently using texterity to manage their e-magazine. This begs the question that if they're giving away free subscriptions, how the hell is Rachel getting paid?

Nugget has an Email Address

Nugget has an email address.

We use it mostly to sign up for free baby stuff - so if you see free offers in your web surfing, feel free to sign us up - but PLEASE use nugget's email rather than ours so we can control spam on our personal accounts.

If you really want, you can also send nugget messages that we'll compile at some point for a baby book.

Nugget.DeLancey@gmail.com

Free Baby Stuff

We got a handy little book as a gift, Free Stuff for Baby by Sue M. Hannah. I've started signing the kid up to win or receive some free stuff and will let you know the best of our swag.

• AventAmerica.com - free breastfeeding guide and free sample(?!?!)
• Parents.com giveaways - Baking Kit & Destination Getaway
• Beech-Nut free bib and Newsletter for more free stuff offers
• Gerber Gift Basket Sweepstakes and Newsletter for more free stuff offers
• Gentle Naturals Rebate on products
• Playtex Newsletter for free stuff offers
• Baby.com Sweepstakes for $1000 cash
• iparenting.com Newsletter to hear about free stuff offers
• babyzone.com - which simultaneously entered us for a free bib, free stuff from enfamil & similac (even though we're planning on exclusively breastfeeding), babytalk free subscription, Graco newsletter, american baby free subscription, and a catalog of birth announcements

Starting to look like spring...

Yay! It is starting to look like spring. The grass is green, the temperature is in the 70s, I'm eating lunch outside at work again. It is amazing how little the weather forecast will vary over the next 7 months or so.

Belly Shots

In response to, "Send us pictures of Cheryl at maximum capacity...we're curious to see if she'll topple over. :)" and other requests, we proudly present a series of belly shots.

We've been taking pictures (almost) weekly starting at 12 weeks, and we will continue to do so until that inevitable "toppling over" that Saru, Justin, Rachel, & Josh referred to in their email occurs or the baby is born, whichever comes first.

View the entire progression of clothed or bare (lifting my shirt just enough so you can see my belly) shots.

12 weeks	25 weeks

Cravings that I can relate to...

Cheryl hasn't had many over-the-top cravings, though I did find the ring peppers on a hawaiian pizza a bit odd.

This is in part wanting to show all our visitors what California fast food is like, but Cheryl has on a few days like the drunk Berkeley students had an uncontrollable craving for In-N-Out Burgers. Not McDonalds or Burger King, but In-N-Out specifically. We're not big fast-food eaters, and Cheryl especially is not a fast-food burger person, but gardenburgers just don't cut it. The kid must have my tastes.

She's also had cravings for Indian food, homemade chocolate chip cookies, ice cream, chocolate, and mexican food (particularly veggie burritos).

Here's a link to the hidden menu at In-N-Out burger so you can figure out what you want when you visit.

http://www.tiburon-belvedere.com/cgi/home.cgi?c=In_N_Out

What do you think...

We're having a kid. You tell us what to do.

Click here to take our survey.

Please only take the survey once. Your ip address and other details are tracked so you'll only serve to annoy me. We'll post the results when we're bored.

What we're reading- March

Here is what we're reading this month for pleasure:

• Book of Flying by Keith Miller
• What to Expect When You're Expecting by Arlene Eisenberg, Heidi Murkoff, & Sandee Hathaway
  
• The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth by Henci Goer
• The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy by Vicki Iovine

We meet again...

While living at KDR, Bacardi was determined to protect her turf from any intruders. One day "Chester's cat" popped its little grey head in the doorway which prompted Bacardi to jump from the loft and proceed to chase him up the big stairways, all the way across the third floor, and then back down the small stairway where the scared cat rolled over and lost control of his bladder.

Anyway, turns out that Chester is at Berkeley so we met his cat once again and now remember his name -- Sly (no relation to any of Sugar's ancestral line).

Childbirth as told by a second-grader...

I use a story in my classes about how a preschooler retells the "where babies come from" facts, to drive home the idea that children assimilate new knowledge into their already existing schemas and sometimes, these things get a little distorted in the process. The story I use has been lifted from the Developmental Psych class that I TA-ed at Brandeis (it's about that Professor's son). After that class, one of my students sent me this story, which has been forwarded around the internet via email. We hope you enjoy the story. Unfortunately, we don't know this teacher or the child in the story directly.
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I've been teaching now for about fifteen years. I have two kids myself, but the best birth story I know is the one I saw in my own second-grade classroom a few years back.

When I was a kid, I loved show-and-tell. So I always have a few sessions with my students. It helps them get over shyness and usually, show-and-tell is pretty tame. Kids bring in pet turtles, model airplanes, pictures of fish they catch, stuff like that. And I never, ever place any boundaries or limitations on them. If they want to lug it in to school and talk about it, they're
welcome.

Well, one day this little girl, Erica, a very bright, very outgoing kid, takes her turn and waddles up to the front of the class with a pillow stuffed under her sweater.

She holds up a snapshot of an infant. "This is Luke, my baby brother, and I'm going to tell you about his birthday."

"First, Mom and Dad made him as a symbol of their love, and then Dad put a seed in my Mom's stomach, and Luke grew in there. He ate for nine months through an umbrella cord."

She's standing there with her hands on the pillow, and I'm trying not to laugh and wishing I had my camcorder with me. The kids are watching her in amazement.

"Then, about two Saturdays ago, my Mom starts saying and going, 'Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh!'" Erica puts a hand behind her back and groans. "She walked around the house for, like an hour, 'Oh, oh, oh!'" Now this kid is doing a hysterical duck walk and groaning.

"My Dad called the middle wife. She delivers babies, but she doesn't have a sign on the car like the Domino's man. They got my Mom to lie down In bed like this. "Then Erica lies down with her back against the wall.

"And then , pop! My Mom had this bag of water she kept in there in case he got thirsty, and it just blew up and spilled all over the bed, like psshhheew!" This kid has her legs spread and with her little hands is mimicking water flowing away. It was too much!

"Then the middle wife starts saying 'push, push,' and 'breathe, breathe' They started counting, but never even got Past ten.

Then, all of a sudden, out comes my brother. He was covered in yucky stuff that they all said it was from Mom's play-center, so there must be a lot of toys inside there."

Then Erica stood up, took a big theatrical bow and returned to her seat. I'm sure I applauded the loudest. Ever since then, when it's show-and-tell day, I bring my camcorder, just in case another "Middle Wife" comes Along.