My Favorite Things List #1

List #1


Spectator events
Yoga pants
Ice cream
Metamucil
Baths
Getting a seat on BART train

The Outside Lands Music Festival in Golden Gate Park

Sleeping Like A Baby

Sleeping is a big topic in the pregnancy and baby world.

I was once told I would make a good mother since I don't really need that much sleep. I have never particularly liked sleeping. Sleeping (not the other things that can happen in bed) is boring. Don't get me wrong, being well rested is a wonderful feeling but I never really prioritized sleeping. I was even known to blithely quote the saying "sleep when you're dead".

Now lots of things about pregnancy seem either intuitive or perverse. Like the heightened smell ability, what a great way for pregnant women to protect themselves and the baby from food poisoning. Same with the predilection for bland foods, another way to protect the baby. Breast feeding- nature's genius design. All intuitive.

But what about the pregnant sleep? Growing a baby from my flesh and bones and hormones, from the same energy with which I ran my own life obviously takes a lot out of me. So I am more tired than I have ever been. And fatigued. I never knew what fatigue was until I became pregnant. (oh look pregnancy is already building that motherly compassion in me.)
Perversion #1: The paradox is that at the moment I am most tired in my life, I have the most difficulty sleeping: Perversion #1. Sometimes I am not comfortable. I have a huge belly in the way. Sometimes I am too hot- incubators stay warm. Round ligament aches and stomach pains plague me after my brain quiets at night and keep sleep from arriving. Add to that one or more trips to the bathroom at night to relieve my compressed bladder. Plus the need for middle of the night snacks- apples with peanut butter are my favorite- when the baby rumbles for more foods. It adds up to less than a full night's sleep.

I end up having to drag my baby-laden body through days fogged by fatigue. The only remedy for the fog that I know of is coffee. Perversion #2: Cut back on coffee while pregnant. Read: Cut back on coffee when you are the most tired and ill-focused and think that no one at work will mind. What? I didn't have a coffee every day before but now a small cappuccino is mandatory. I would drink three if I was not warned its no good for my growing baby.

So I guess God/Goddess/nature has a sense of humor. You would think that in advance of many nights dedicated to caring for a newborn, I would be allowed the blissful sleep of innocence. Some say that this is preparation for those interrupted nights of baby feeding. I don't buy it.

Someone please send Mr. Sandman my way. I'm leaving my window open.

Pregnant Superheroes

If there ever was to be a pregnant superhero, I know what her superpower would be: hyper sense of Smell. In a typical episode our superhero, lets call her The Incubator! would be called in to determine the location of a bomb threat. The Incubator! would be needed to save the lives of hundreds of office workers trapped in a skyscraper. Using her overly keen sense of smell, she would bravely detect the location and chemical make-up of the threatening bomb. A emergency bomb squad runs in after her keen assessment and the day is saved!


While I am dreaming up superhero roles and costumes that can be played by a woman who is looks like she swallowed a 25 pound bowling ball, my devoted partner in real life- Daniel Sherwood suffers at the nose of his pregnant girlfriend.

Daniel is Canadian. That said, Daniel likes to drink beer. The way children like ice cream or hippies like bacon. However, sometime in my second month of pregnancy he noticed that every time he closed in for a kiss, I would duck away. In bed at night, he would schootch over for a little cuddling and my sweet response would be "Can you please not breathe on me?". Quickly we realized that the smell of beer breath had no allure for this pregnant lady. Teethbrushing, mouth-wash gargling did little to mask the hop soaked aroma of a beer drinker. An aroma that lingers easily 24 hours on the human body.

The appeal of the woman you impregnated as my friend Ben Z. says is irresistible. And Daniel soon avowed off beer in exchange for affection. These days you can catch Daniel, that Chardonnay liberal he is, with a glass of wine or rum cocktail. Everyone has to make some sacrifices for a baby.

The Zipper

I am so glad to be 26 weeks pregnant and not 10 weeks.
At 26 weeks with my belly that enters the room before me, people smile and offer me a seat. The guys at the coffee shop, colleagues in meeting are extra considerate. Although I feel like Winnie-the-Pooh, I also feel cute in a universal way.

However at 10 weeks I didnt think these charming thoughts. In fact at about eight weeks I chose to focus on a zipper.

Since I didn't start this blog until my second trimester. I'll take this post to publish down some thoughts I wrote down in the early weeks.

At about eight weeks, I chose the mental image of a zipper. I began picturing the small chrome colored object. That ingenious and ubiquitous device that is found on purses, blue jeans, backpacks and almost every other personal item. I started wondering 'could I make myself a charm bracelet with one'? I recalled once seeing a zipper ring on a woman's finger.
Pregnancy had taken me for a ride. A ride on a windy mountain road on an empty stomach after two nights without sleep. A ride I could not get off. Barely did the car seem to stop for a break.

Being the kind of girl I am, I was not so poetic about it at the time. No, I griped. I complained. I whined. I moaned. Unfortunately for him, the most frequent listener was the ever-patient Daniel. My gift for words perhaps was more of a trojan horse as I described each churn of my stomach and the smells on the crowded BART. I griped about spinach and feta salads that grossed me out. I complained about onions chopped too coarsely. I whined about being tired and stuffy nostrils.

Until one evening where I was at a party with my good friend Jolie. Jolie was four months ahead of me in pregnancy. Jolie is a inspiration. She is a tough girl. Not tattoo tough, but the kind of tough that stays at a party until midnight and wakes up at 5:30 a.m. to pack a travel van for a trip. Tough enough to bike to everywhere she needs to go. A girl who can share her house with anyone. She doesn't need seem to need things but finds joy in what is. When I asked her how she does it- she said she justs zips the lip. And presto, I realized I needed my own zipper.

So for the next long, few weeks of pregnancy, I visualized a small chrome zipper. It was a meager attempt to keep the outpouring of complains shut inside my lips.
Daniel will tell you I whined like the best three year old. But I want him to know that I tried.

What's in a name?

What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell so sweet?

Somehow this Shakespeare quote seems rather obtuse as I have to decide what to call my baby for the rest of its life.

Daniel and I are thinking about names. Daniel's been really good at coming up with them. He has this great concept that baby middle names should reflect the place they were born. His brother has the middle name Omar since he was born in Algeria. I think that's cool. That's how Daniel came up with one of our favorite boy names, Andreas. As in the San Andreas Fault.

I, however, live under the blanket of pregnancy fog. Pregnancy fog makes it incredibly hard to think in an associative manner and remember anything. Plus the remaining clarity I have is used to keep my solar work on track. So I am terrible at remembering all those names I have loved for the last 30 years of my life. Yes, I did the girl thing and made lists of my favorite names. I played "hands up" through out grade school with 'names of... boys'.

We do have a few front runners we really like. I want your input, its easy to come up with a weirdo name- I've seen it done. And then no one can say anything to your face. Be kind with your responses as we do like these names. Here goes:

Boy Andreas Joaquin Raphael Kofi

Girl Jolie Celeste Tanya Tatyana Anika

Have at it.

Free Box

On my way to work this morning, I scored a bottle of chewable papaya enzyme tablets , organic nipple cream, and Gripe Water- an herbal tonic to relieve baby colic. I picked these things out of a cardboard box placed near the curb and a child carseat. They were clearly there for the taking along with a few other new baby items that didnt appeal to me. The first item is unopened, the other two are barely used and new looking.

Berkeley has a traditional of recycling. Municipal curbside recycling began in Berkeley in the 70's. Today however, a more informal version of curbside recycling has entered local culture. I would guess it originates from the Free Box concept. The Free Box was a wooden platform in People's Park in Berkeley that goes back to the park's establishment in the late 60's. Anyone could bring stuff that they no longer wanted to the box and leave it there for someone else to pick through and pick up. I haven't looked to see whether the People's Park Free Box still stands. The community freebox requires someone cleans up the truly unwanted cast-offs. Today's People Park is home to many homeless and the Free Box can get pretty skanky.

Well somehow this idea has been translated in the personal free box. A resident puts out a bunch of items that he or she no longer wants and lets passersby come and take what they will.
I love this.
More than the good stuff I've scored over the years, I love the assumptions that make this system work. First, that people in the neighborhood walk. Many will walk by and someone will find something they will take home. And second, that products, say 2/3 a bottle of hair conditioner can have a second life.

So today I am a little more ready for my baby with a couple organic creams and chewable relief to heartburn. Thanks neighbor.

'Are you excited?'

The number one question I get as a pregnant lady is 'Are you excited?'

If that's excited as in going to big party, Burning Man, a new job, a promising date; then the answer is no. Excited doesn't seem to encapsulate the feelings I am having.

The feelings I am having have ranged from themes of 'the Zipper', "I feel like a Science Experiment' 'A pot-bellied three toed tree sloth', and 'the Slow Life'. I hope to write on these subjects over the next weeks.

But excited? As in butterflies in my stomach, counting the moments until the day arrives. Not really.
Maybe its my life strategy of managing expectations. If I don't expect too much, I won't be so disappointed. Sometimes that seems like a very defensive outlook. Other times it seems supremely practical. I don't enjoy the feeling of the floor falling out from under me. There were some years when I went leaping off of waterfalls. But somehow that doesn't seem the best strategy for pregnancy and expecting a baby.
Yet I also think I am denying myself joy- the joy of exploration of growing a new being inside my body, of approaching motherhood.
So this week I am trying to find a way to get excited. What I have read and noticed is that most expecting parents seem to get excited by shopping for new baby things. This definitely does not excite me. Even worse it puts a spell of doomsday over my head as it suggests I am about to begin a life of shopping and errands for meaningless, practical stuff.
So instead I am trying to think of things I can do to build excitement and anticipation for the baby's arrival in early November.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
I just finished my first baby quilt for my inspirational friend, Jolie and her brand new baby Chasin. I could start another for myself. Other ideas?