Spaghetti Squash

Holy cow, I've reached the winter squash stage! Bananas and carrots seemed kinda substantial, but here at 22 weeks, we're talking hefty -- not even a wimpy summer squash, like a zucchini or something. We're up to spaghetti squash. That's really something.

At the moment, my little spaghetti squash is busy kicking the living daylights out of my belly button, and it's clear that he's got some muscle now. After weeks of having no appetite, I've spent the last 4 days constantly ravenously hungry, corresponding (I believe) to Barack's latest growth spurt. Over these 4 days, my uterus has noticeably expanded upwards, my stomach has noticeably been pushed outwards, and my in-utero son has begun kicking me with such regularity and ferocity that he's actually keeping me up at night. (But sadly, S still hasn't been able to feel him. So a few weeks from now, I may regret using "ferocious" to describe these kicks, because I'll have to hunt for something even bigger and grander to describe the harder kicks yet to come.)

Progress on the nursery this week: the little old bookshelf that was lovingly refinished and painted a nice glossy white by S's father and my grandfather a few weeks ago was moved into the nursery and stocked with picture books and stuffed animals (and the complete set of Harry Potter books -- sure, they're a bit advanced for a 22-week-old fetus, but it's good for the kid to strive for something). One (out of four) of the giant 7-foot deathtrap-in-an-earthquake bookshelves was finally empty enough to move out to the garage. (Note to self: don't volunteer to help S move the other three. I was fine helping to carry it the first several feet, but going down a few stairs and lowering it to the ground was a huge mistake. The "don't lift heavy things" prohibition is apparently really truly for my own good.) And we bought a glider, which was delivered today and is waiting patiently in the empty space left by the bookshelf for S to come home to help me to assemble it. (See previous note about me not lifting heavy things.)

This weekend, my friend C (who is due the day before I am) organized a lunch at her house for new mothers. The idea was that C and I could ask lots of questions and gather hard-earned wisdom from the other women. Picture the scene: 2 tired pregnant women, 4 tired lactating women, 4 infants ranging in age from 8 months to 18 months, and 1 hyper puppy. Total chaos. The babies and puppy had a grand old time, especially once the babies learned that throwing food to the puppy was enormous fun, and even more so when the puppy discovered that his tongue could reach a good portion of the high chair trays. C and I were able to get very little useful information. (Example: what stroller do you really like? Each of the 4 mothers admitted to owning 4 strollers each, none of which were the same, for a total of 16 different strollers among them. And from what we can tell, none of them particularly liked any of them.) The rest of the luncheon turned into a bitching session for the mothers, as they complained about everything they hated about labor and, most notably, breast feeding. I'm sure they were being very honest, but wow, hardly inspiring.

After all the mothers left to get the kiddies to long-overdue naps, I stuck around to help C clean up, and we talked about how, at this stage, we really didn't need to hear about all the breast feeding problems. Oh well. Ultimately, the big lesson of the day: everybody has different opinions about everything, and ultimately, you pick something, go with it, and don't look back. As frustrating as the afternoon was, it's kind of liberating to know that even if I spent the months doing research that each of the other mothers did, the decisions still end up pretty random. It really takes some of the pressure off.