Such a little kid, so much stuff

This morning was sort of an unexpectedly tender moment. I finally took a bunch of tags off the mountain of clothes that our little one has received from family and friends and decided to wash them all (7th generation for sensitive skin) and put them away in his drawers. And it seemed like a simple idea when I started, but somewhere in there I realized I was washing my baby's clothing for the first time and it seemed this wonderful tangible act of caring for him. And it wasn't hard to realize that it was an action I will perform over and over again once he is actually here, eating, spitting up, and pooping all over the place. This first time they got washed on cold gentle cycle, but I suspect they will be up for heartier washing in the future.

I can't believe such a little peanut could acquire such a mountain of stuff. Right now he has a plastic upright of drawers (we're still waiting for the crib and dresser to be on sale or something) and he has pretty much filled them up with clothes already. He was quite a popular little recipient at Christmas this year. It seems as though we already have enough clothes to dress the little guy in a different outfit every day! And although I am trying desperately to be a practical mom who thinks of poopy-blowouts and ease of washing, I am a total sucker for the adorable little outfits people have found for him: monkeys, giraffes, elephants in blues, greens and yellows. Adorable. And so funny to think that I am busy cooking the little body that will someday fill those clothes.

And he also is starting to accumulate a nice bunch of entertainment. Aunt Mary got him a fun Fisher-Price rainforest crib soother so he can press the button and make the monkey swing while soothing classical music is overlaid with rainforest sounds. Wild technology. What did we have as kids? Wind up music boxes in our teddy bears? My sister Bridgette gave the baby a cool Fisher-Price exercise mat for Christmas because she won't be here for the Wisconsin shower: she is a reservist who is shipping out to active duty for 400 days beginning in January.

Preggers at Christmas

After a mad-dash through the maddening labyrinth of Philadelphia airport, we arrived (panting) to discover that our connecting flight out to Chicago was delayed by more than an hour. So it gave us some time to grab a bite to eat and settle in for our own little long winter's nap.

It is always sad to leave the McDonnell's at the end of a visit. And this was a particularly nice visit. In addition to the lovely baby shower that Denyse threw for us, we enjoyed a big family "brupper" (brunch for supper) with the extended family on Saturday. Everyone wore their Christmas pajamas while we enjoyed quiche and Pat's masterful pancakes. After brupper, we played a Christmas exchange game that involved rolling dice and picking from a pile of small gifts in the center every time we rolled doubles. Much fun was had by all.

Friday night while sitting together on the couch, Terry's sister Bri became the first person other than the two of us to feel the baby kick. The next night at Brupper, after a nice dose of delicious maple syrup, he was pleased to oblige more of the family, so Denyse and Pat both got to feel their squirmy little grandson. Terry's cousin Jenny barely put her hand on my stomach and she got one of his stomach-shaking Pele-style kicks.

We also went out for a delicious steak dinner to celebrate the dual birthdays of Terry (31) and his brother-in-law Jesse (30). I lamented the need to have meat that was fully cooked instead of deliciously rare.

On Sunday, the day of Terry's actual birthday, we went out for Five Guy's Burgers, a Washington DC favorite of his that is spreading out its roots. I don't know whether it was those mouth-watering burgers or the cajun fries, but the munchkin started doing these crazy flipping acrobatics. He's usually a pretty active kid, but he was unusually squirmy and vigorous, rolling around and punching out with all four limbs at once. And he's kept up that level of activity ever since. Last night was the first night since I've been pregnant that his little antics have made it tough for me to sleep. Normally he's a pretty chill little guy at night. I'm hoping it will taper off sometime soon as he settles back in (perhaps recovers from the holiday sugar rush? Mommy was a little less than disciplined with the cookies). Otherwise this is going to be a long, sleepless, Tums(R) filled final three months.

Wilmington Baby Shower

Wilmington Baby Shower

We are very blessed to have lots of friends and family who love us and are excited about our upcoming arrival. Unfortunately, our loved ones are scattered all over the country. So we are having several showers to make sure that we get to share the experience with everyone.

While we were in Wilmington, NC visiting Terry's parents for the holiday season, Denyse put together an awesome baby shower, complete with a sort of Asian meets baby pastels theme. We played a few fun shower games (including "guess Erin's circumference") tested our knowledge of nursery rhymes, and just enjoyed each other's company (all the while with kiddy favorite songs playing in the background). Everyone was so warm and so very generous. You can view the whole album by clicking on the link, but I'm attaching some of my favorites here for you to check out.

Me posing the ever-bigger belly with the beautiful table set up.

Bright, beautiful and tasty (chocolate!) cake.

Aunt Mary proves that she's got the best eye to size up my big belly.

Everyone poses with the extra lengths of ribbon from the belly size guessing game. Everyone guessed long but Mary, who pretty much got it spot on.

Me with my mother-in-law Denyse, who gave us a great little camping outfit and the baby's first ever pair of jeans.

Me showing how Ghanaians wrap their babies and carry them on their backs, using a cute blue plush monkey.

Lots of cute boy's clothes, including some that folks picked out thoughtfully with a camp theme in mind, knowing this baby is going to spend plenty of time at Camp Anokijig.

Instead of cards, everyone was asked to contribute their favorite book for children. We got lots of amazing soft books and books with things to feel and play with.

Yeah for clothes with Mommy on them.

Mexico Babymoon

Terry and I got on a plane the day after the US elections and headed out to the sunny Mexican Riviera. On the plane I had my first doubts: we didn't really like the so-called "all inclusive" cruise we took for our honeymoon, so I was starting to get nervous that we wouldn't like the all inclusive hotel we'd booked for our babymoon. The fears melted away as soon as we walked into the gorgeous open-air lobby, with a giant thatched roof and an open central area with "jungle" through the center, populated by scarlet macaws, peacocks, several monkeys and something that looked like a chicken-sized guinea pig with longer legs.

The staff was amazingly friendly, the food was about as decent as you'd expect (but not more), but I thoroughly enjoyed waking up to the tropical morning and enjoying a little Mexican chocolate to start the morning off. After that, the day was ours to do as we pleased. We took a couple of special trips. One took us to this giant theme park thing called Xcaret. It was one part tropical animals, one part adventures (snooba, snorkling etc), and one part Mayan cultural extravaganza. Another day we took a day trip to Chichen Itza to tour the most famous Mayan ruin. Other days we just took it easy at the hotel, reading books by the pool, eating chocolate ice cream, sipping blended lemonade, or swimming in the super salty beautiful ocean.


On the beach in front of our hotel

In the lobby of our hotel, in front of the open air center section (with macaws and monkeys and whatnot!)

The hatchery at Xcaret, a sort of Mayan culture meets nature meets tropical zoo sort of theme park.

On a cool spiral building in Xcaret just after doing our underground river snorkling adventure.

In front of awesome lagoon right by the sea turtle hatchery in Xcaret.

The main temple at Chichen Itza. Named one of the new seven wonders of the world. Incredibly precise agricultural calendar where the movement of the sunlight across the temple accurately marks the solstices hundreds of years later.

In front of the awesome temple of the warriors and thousand columns.

Self portrait in front of the main temple.

The natural sinkhole (cenote) from which the entire compound derives its name: Chichen Itza.

On the way back from Chichen Itza our tour stopped off at a different natural freshwater cenote where you could swim.

The cenote looks all totally exotic lost world, eh?

Self photo above cenote, where you can see all the tiny swimming people.

Hello December! Hello Belly!

I've been pretty behind on all things in life it seems these last few months. And somehow despite not achieving all my goals--personal, professional and otherwise--the time has flown right by. At any rate, while I still need to put together a post with pictures of our fabulous amazing wonderful "babymoon" vacation to Mexico, I wanted to post a quick update.

Yesterday we got back into Chicago after Thanksgiving with my folks in Racine, which was nice and low key this year because it wasn't the whole clan gathering at Grandma's, it was just Terry and me, Robyn and Andy (her boyfriend), Mom and Dan, and my stepdad's sister and son. Even still mom managed to put together a totally impressive spread including a nice roasted turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, etc. My sister and I both eagerly drooled over the sweet and sour cucumbers and apple cranberry relish (both longstanding traditions that date to my Great-Grandma Richter).

On our way home we hopped off the metra to say hi to our friends Lynn and Zack in Waukegan. My allergies to cats and dogs went stratospheric and pretty soon Lynn and Zack were graciously packing us into their second car--a lovable 1995 Corolla named Rufus--to get me back home and to enable us to pick up our Christmas Tree.

Now we pause while I do a little happy dance....Okay I'm back. Have I mentioned that I LOVE Christmas? Emphatically ridiculously love everything about the holiday season. If I had my druthers I'd be blaring holiday music from about June 15th, but out of respect for Terry's sanity I keep it under wraps until the day after Thanksgiving. But since we were out of the country for all the major holidays last year, I had something like two full years of Christmas spirit all pent up.

We took Rufus to Home Depot where we scrutinized a variety of trees for longer than I care to admit. But picking out a tree is a hefty duty! Its like the five points of picking a fine diamond: you have to consider color, shape, fullness, evenness, and scent. We finally thought we had a winner, so Terry (manly manly) hefted the 6.5" Douglas fir over his head and toted it to the checkout where they give the bottom a little buzz. The guy asked if we wanted some of the lowest branches trimmed so it would fit into the tree stand and (stupidly) I said yes. Well, three buzzes of the saw later we stood it back up only to discover it now looked like a man without pants on. The bottom of the tree was hideously bare. With a pitiful apologetic look at the buzz saw guy, we went back into the fray to pick another tree.

We found a great tree, and when we got it home wound up putting it into the stand about sixteen times trying to get the thing to stand upright. I had just about resigned myself to the leaning tower of Christmas when we realized that we needed to trim one of those pesky lower branches and viola! A perfect tree. I think somewhere around effort number nine (when the drill and saw first made their appearance, as did several efforts to shim things with cardboard), Terry lost his patience. But bless him he held on until we got it right.

Today we braved the sleet and flurries to head out to the mall to try to get some more Christmas ideas for Terry, who has so far been a slow starter on his Christmas list. We took several hot cocoa breaks, which made the experience all the more pleasurable.

And I also had what I consider to be a pregnancy milestone: for the first time a total stranger at a store said to me "So, are you expecting a little boy or a little girl?" And then later on the way home we stopped at the grocery store and the check out girl said "Hey Mama!" to me. And after all my bump envy and all the weeks of waiting, I have to say that at least so far, it is just as fun and nice as I thought it would be. Maybe I'll get tired of it eventually, I don't know. But for today, it really really made me smile.

Voting nerves: what world for the baby?

I know we have both Republicans and Democrats among our friends and families. And I love you all. But today I find myself totally preoccupied with the idea that after the election tomorrow, it will be in some ways a subtle shift, but it has amazing implications. I remember growing up and wanting to be President some day, and feeling that people's responses to this were at best indulgent. Like it was cute but totally unrealistic that as a woman I could ever be President.

If Obama wins, our baby will never know a world where people believe a black man cannot be President of the US. If McCain wins, the baby will never know a world where a woman could not hold some of the highest offices in the land, and be a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

And that is a pretty amazing thing.

It's a Boy!

Bright and early we went downtown for the 20 week ultrasound today. And we came away with a small roll of glamor shots featuring our kiddo!

Doesn't he cut a dashing profile? What a cute little kiddo.

Boy it is cramped in here. Can't a little guy get some space?

Adorable little footsies and toesies. And he's rubbing his feet together just like his dad does!

Welcome to the gun show. The beach is that way.

After all I've said about the baby looking less alien. In this shot of the spine, he really looks like a velociraptor.

And for those who are curious...

All evidence points to "boy."

Now don't rush out and start buying blue clothes folks. We're still hoping to get gender neutral clothes. Think yellow, green and purple. Or black pleather.