Hurricane Floosie.

Everyone can take a deep breath: as of this morning, the hurricane the was threatening us has pretty much dissipated due to high atmosphere shearing. In other words, Flossie turned out to be a Floosie.

By the way, how was Flossie chosen as a name for a hurricane? For that matter, how was Flossie approved as a name for anything other than a teddy bear in a dentist's office? Jeff and I were half hoping that Butter Bean would decide to make an arrival at the same time of the hurricane (you know, for the story) but that would then almost require us to name Butter Bean after the storm and there's NO WAY I would name my child Flossie. Unless, of course, she arrived with one or more teeth already in. Then it would be out of my hands.

Which reminds me, in my first act as a parent, I'm going to ask a favor of you all: if August 25 comes and goes without so much as a squeak from Mr. or Miss Bean, please do not call us to comment on the fact that the baby hasn't arrived. It's not that we don't want to hear from you, we do. But we need to teach the little one that working your family and friends into a tizzy over your arrival is just trashy attention-seeking behavior. We will not have any of it. Instead, we will ignore the fact that Butter Bean has not arrived yet. We will go out and do fun things. We will laugh hard at jokes that aren't really that funny. We will exclaim, "Wow! It's really fun out here doing these fun things! We're so glad we get to have so much fun." This tactic will be effective on two fronts: Jeff and I will probably get our minds off the fact that my body has very literally been taken over by a strong, fast-growing alien AND maybe the alien will hear us and decide that surrender is the best option.

Seriously people, we're going to need your help if this is going to work. I already tried to turn the temperature up on the little one with this weekend's fever, but I think s/he just thought we went to the spa. I bounced the guy around with sneezes and coughs, but s/he wouldn't budge, except to kick me really hard to express dislike of the bouncing. So we've got our work set out for us if we're going to convince Butter Bean that the outside world is better than the liquid heaven in which s/he's living now. Wish us luck ... and don't worry, we'll let you know as soon as s/he arrives!

Very sick.

Due do forces beyond my control, I am a very sick very pregnant lady. Butter Bean is expected any time now and I cannot breathe through my nose. Poor Jeff got sick first (on top of a very bad back sprain) and now I am coping with the difficulties of fever, acheyness, sneezles & wheezles. Today all we could manage was a drive around the southeastern tip of the island, stopping like tourists at all the scenic lookouts. It was a nice diversion, but I crashed when we got home. Jeff has been taking very good care of me now that he is feeling better. He even drove down to our favorite Thai place to get me soup - his first pregnancy food run in eight and a half months!

The problem with being sick when you are this pregnant is that you are already uncomfortable. Add to that the aches and pains of a cold, the raw nose and sore throat, and you have a real recipe for disaster. I have taken a couple of Tylenol in the last 24 hours to curb my fever, but otherwise I've been toughing it out medicine-free. Maybe this is just practice for the big game. Maybe I'll feel so great after I kick this cold that labor will seem like a walk in the park. Maybe. All I know is that I'm shamelessly plying Butter Bean with deals if he/she will hold off on arriving until I can breathe again. That's all I ask.

Okay, so I think my fever just broke, as evidenced by the fact that I am now fully aware of how hot my house is! Of course, it's nothing compared to the rest of the country these days, but it's still pretty damn hot. Luckily, I have mango ice cream and sticky rice (If you don't know about this combo, google it immediately! You're thighs will never be the same, but your taste buds will forever worship you.) waiting for me in the fridge. Feel free to send sympathy my way: I'm accepting comments, emails, and phone calls...

Pregnancy Update.

Check out that big belly! Ignore the wrinkles in my clothes. They are not evidence of wrinkles on my body. Also, ignore how thick my thighs are in this picture. They must look so big because of some combination of shadow & light and not because of the Frappucino & ice cream diet I've been on lately. In fact, don't look at anything but the belly. Besides, that's the only thing you're interested in anyway, right?

Otherwise, pregnancy is still going well, though I have good days and my-legs-look-like-they-belong-to-an-elephant days. I have made it a point to go to pregnancy yoga more often in the last few weeks to prepare for delivery. It's not easy, but it does make me feel like I might actually be able to get Butter Bean out without begging Jeff to hit me over the head with a cast iron skillet. If any of you are pregnant right now, I HIGHLY recommend yoga.

These days I'm going to the doctor once a week to "check my progress". At last week's appointment, I discovered that I don't like progress reports. They just mess with my brain. My doctor checked my "progress" last week and informed me that I was "further along than he would have guessed." Great. Now what? I'll tell you what - now you go back to work and act like nothing is different than before you went to the appointment. Good luck.

When I got back, I was delegating like I might actually deliver some time that afternoon. Turns out I didn't, nor have I delivered a week later. So, tomorrow I'm going to be strong. I'm going to say, "Doc, please don't tell me anything about anything unless I need to do something about it. Otherwise, please just let me live in expectant bliss for the next however long until this baby decides that he/she's ready." My doctor will no-doubt look at me like I'm crazy (he does this a lot), but I will be able to go back to my daily life without added obsession.

I had another appointment last week for my first sonogram is months. I would post the picture the technician gave me, but I couldn't even figure out what I was looking at, so I'm not going to torture you with that game. (Apparently, it's a profile, but if that's true then Butter Bean looks more like the Elephant Man than a baby. Come to think of it, that might explain the situation with my ankles....) The scariest thing I found out at that appointment is that Butter Bean already weighs 7 pounds 8 ounces. Excellent. My baby and Mary Abigail's baby now weigh the same amount! Only problem: her baby has not been inside her body for three weeks!!!

So that means that last week I found out that my body is sort of showing signs that I'm ready to deliver - but it could still be weeks - and that I'm carrying a baby who's head has likely already outgrown the cute little newborn hats I just bought. Now you know why I'm still working and why it is so important that I go to yoga two or three times a week. The working keeps my mind off of the inevitable... and the yoga gives me time to breathe and convince myself that I can do this. I can.

Volleyball Thursdays.

On Thursdays, we play volleyball with buddies down at the beach. I'm probably not supposed to be playing in my "condition", but I've never been one to sit on the sidelines. Plus, I LOVE playing volleyball! My only concessions to being pregnant are that I don't dig and I won't walk more than a step or two to make a hit. Luckily, our friends are very understanding and don't make me feel bad about waddling around the court.
This week, although I brought my bathing suit, I ended up playing in my dress. Good thing, too, because I had no idea that Jeff was going to be taking pictures! I know that pregnant women are beautiful and that I should be proud of my big belly - and I am, for the most part - but I also understand that seeing a VERY pregnant woman in a bikini can be a bit much if you're not prepared. A little kid riding his bike past me the other day stared with huge eyes at my stomach and said, "Whoa!" Thanks, kid.
This week, we had the special treat of Jeff playing volleyball! It's the first time that I have ever seen him play, and I was so impressed! He was serving, setting, blocking, digging... I couldn't believe that he had been hiding these amazing volleyball skills for the past four years. Unfortunately, he also paid the price for his enthusiasm with a serious back ache. He swears that he'll never play again, but I'm trying to convince him that perhaps he could just throttle back a bit and he might not need to throw in the towel completely.

Kudos to our buddies Nick & Denice for inviting us to participate in Volleyball Thursdays!

Butter Bean's Birthday Bash!

Today Jeff and I were treated to a fabulous party in honor of Butter Bean. Our friends Tara and Gabe were kind enough to host the party, which Tara took very seriously. She not only came up with excellent baby games, but she also found time to design the awesome invite you see below!

I couldn't believe all the games Tara had for us. The first, called Find Butter Bean involved lots of balloons with little messages inside. In order to "find Butter Bean" we had to pop the balloons and read the small piece of paper inside. Only one balloon had a message that said, "Butter Bean," but all the rest had funny messages like, "Yeah, right!" and "At least your mother loves you." Jeff, who is one of the greatest trash-talkers I've ever known, enjoyed this game profusely! Some of the other games included decorating onesies with fabric paint, matching the crazy baby names with their celebrity parents, and trying to get Nick to sit on a whoopie cushion. (The last one wasn't exactly a baby-game, but it was fun!)

Then we watched Gabe and Nick play Get Butter Bean Drunk, which was derived from a game I won at the only other baby shower I have ever attended. I was in Nicaragua and I won a contest to see who could suck down a baby bottle full of beer fastest. I'm proud to say that I won - and I didn't even cheat! (The other two girls bit the tip of the nipple off to make the beer flow faster.) Today's game was a bit anti-climactic as Nick and Gabe found it quite difficult to complete the game. After many minutes of sucking, Nick announced, "I have a new appreciation for how difficult babies have it." Below is a picture of me kicking culo in the Nicaraguan shower seven years ago...

I cannot forget to thank Gabe for his grill-master skills, Denice for the yummy coconut cupcakes, and Morgan for the awesome temporary tattoos! Jeff had the quote-of-the-day when we played What Did Butter Bean Eat? This was definitely the grossest game of the day and had all of us staring at a tray of disposable diapers labeled with numbers trying to identify the substance each was filled with. One "poop" looked like chocolate, one looked like split-pea soup, etc. While everyone was trying to figure it out, making guesses, and generally being grossed-out, Jeff chimed in with, "Diaper Two actually is Number Two!" What a great time we're going to have as parents!

Relay into the Groove!

Last night, Jeff and I participated in the Relay for Life! As I mentioned before, the purpose of the event is to honor survivors and remember those who have lost their battle with cancer. Since I focused on the sentimental parts in my last Relay blog entry (See Previous Posts for June), I'm just going to cover the silly, not-so-meaningful parts in this one. The first shot is of the traditional Chinese dragon that started off the event. (The little boy is giving him a dollar because the dragon is hungry and we all know that money tastes great!)

Our team name was "Desperately Seeking a Cure", which was pulled from the Desperately Seeking Susan movie by Madonna in the mid-80's. Therefore, we all had to dress up in 80's garb in order to truly rock the team-spirit contest. Not ones to shirk our costuming responsibilities, Jeff and I pulled together some pretty nice get-ups. I wore purple eye shadow and pink lip gloss for the first time in years. It was fabulous. Jeff was inspired by the Magnum P.I. episodes of the 80's and did his best to pay homage. Check out his moustache in the shot below...

We were a little worried that we'd been duped when we showed up to a group of non-dressed-up team mates. We tried to stay strong through all of the "Oh, you dressed up!" and "Look at you..." comments, but at one point we simply walked away to check out the rest of the event. When we returned, however, we were pleasantly surprised by a sea of colored plastic, purple eye shadow, and chiffon! Before our first lap, we posed in front of the banner I made for us. Very 80's, no?
Thanks, again, to all those who donated. Our team raised $5,000 for the cause, and we had a blast doing it. I think Madonna would have been proud!

Any Day Now...

Please do not ever say to a pregnant woman, "Any day now, huh?". Seriously. And if you make the mistake of saying, "Any day now...", do not, under any circumstances, argue with her about the answer. I'm not ashamed to admit that I have a big belly. That's right, little Butter Bean is so huge that s/he has pushed my uterus almost to capacity, which has had an understandable impact on my outward physique. While it may look like I am going to have a baby "any day now", I have - according to the due date gods - another five or six weeks, at least.

Here's a picture of what has been prompting well-intentioned, albeit inconsiderate, people to harass me everywhere I go:

Unfortunately, no one has tried to touch my belly. I say "unfortunately" because that would at least allow me the chance to rub their bellies and say, "You're getting bigger, too!" I was prepared for strangers rubbing my belly. I was not prepared for people to continue to tell me that, in their expert opinion, I am going to have the baby soon. If I didn't know better, I might actually start to doubt the prevailing medical assumptions and challenge my doctor with phrases like, "But the mother of three in the elevator said that she wasn't even this big on her third!" Thankfully, I've spared my doctor this conversation, but I still have not thought of a way to shut people up about it.

Another thing you can do to help out the pregnant population, if you are so inclined, is to listen to a pregnant woman when she says that she doesn't know the sex of her baby. Usually a few seconds after someone has reacted aghast at my admission that I'm not due for at least another month, they respond with some wives-tales reasoning for how the sex of the baby is causing me to look the way I do. "Oh, well you must be having a boy!" When I admit that, as opposed to my due date, the sex of the baby is something I don't know, they try to firmly convince me that they're right. "You're carrying so high, it's a girl. Look, look how high you're carrying. That's how girls are. I had a girl. They carry high." On the very next block, however, I'll encounter this lady, "Any day now? No? It's a boy, then? You don't know? Well, it is. My first was a boy and I was really big like you. Well, not that big, but I was pretty big." Thanks for the encouragement.

Last night, in yoga class, where I can usually find solace in all the big bellies filling the room, I walked right into my own hell. (It was Friday the 13th.) I usually don't go to Friday classes, so I didn't know the other ladies in the room. When I asked one of them who is about my belly size when she's due, she said, "In a week or so." At that point I rolled my mat out in the corner and waited patiently for class to begin. The rest of yoga class was torturous instead of energizing last night, due in no small part to the fact that every time I looked down at my feet I saw what looked like ten small cocktail sausages where my toes used to be. Luckily, I came home to a wonderful Jeff-specialty meal, pasta fazool, and later he rubbed my feet. I'm feeling much better this morning. Maybe I'll just stay inside all day and tell myself that I'm beautiful, swollen feet, big belly, and all!

Jane Ritchie

On July 11, little Jane Ritchie made a big appearance! Mary Abigail labored like a champ for many hours and then had a C-section because they were worried about the baby. Turns out there was nothing to worry about - Jane Ritchie came out screaming and apparently very alert. You'd never guess it from the sleepy visit we had with her this morning. It was nice to have time to catch up with MA and her mom who both seem to be holding up beautifully under the sleep-deprived circumstances. Jeff and I snuck a peach smoothie from Jamba Juice into the hospital figuring that MA would need a bit of yummy, contraband nourishment. We were right!

Tonight I made chocolate chip cookies for our buddy Nick who was also recently in the hospital. He had hip surgery and can't hardly get around these days. He specifically requested these cookies, so I have done something I swore never to do again following the past two years' king cake debacles, namely BAKING, and made him some cookies. My friend Tara helped me out by giving me an awesome tip on whole wheat flower and dark chocolate. Needless to say, Jeff and I have made a serious dent in the number of cookies originally intended for Nick. (Nick, if you're reading this, please ignore the previous sentence. I only added it for dramatic effect. The recipe I have for cookies only makes 5 cookies, promise.)

I'm feeling good these days. Very good, in fact. I've started going to pregnancy yoga diligently as we are nearing the finish line and I feel the need to stretch out as much as possible before my body starts doing it on its own. We're also swimming again thanks to Jeff's gift of YMCA membership. We went yesterday and had a wonderful time. Instead of passing me, Jeff would swim underneath me, which would make me laugh, almost causing me to lose my breathing focus, almost causing a serious chlorine water in the tummy situation! Fortunately, I held it together and enjoyed being in the water again. I swam the last lap very slowly, lying on my back, kicking softly, and enjoying the beauty and peace of the twilight Hawaiian summer sky. Life is good.

Metaversary.

On July 5, Jeff and I celebrated our fourth Metaversary. For those of you who don't know what that is, a metaversary is a celebration of the day we met! We are so lucky to have been together, more or less, since that day, and we love to remember the night that both of our lives changed for the best!

We had plans to go to Roy's (Thanks to our buddy Ragan!) to watch the sunset and have a nice dinner, but the leftover fatigue and, ahem, sunburn from the day before took it out of us after a full day of work. Jeff marked the occasion by bringing me a beautiful bouqet of roses and a family membership to our local YMCA! (We'd been talking about joining, but hadn't gotten around to it.) Instead of a fancy dinner, we went on a walk and spent the evening in conversation - much like we did four years ago. Of course, our house is much quieter than a bar and afterwards we went to bed together instead of Jeff walking me to my car. So sweet.

We did end up at Roy's this weekend to celebrate belatedly. It was so yummy and beautiful! Afterwards, we headed to McDonald's (!) for a taro pie and a hot fudge sundae. We never, and I mean NEVER, go to McDonald's, but Jeff has fallen in love with the taro pie after his first experiment with one a couple of years ago. They are only available here in Hawaii, so we simply had to try it. (Think apple pie with the purple, starchy Hawaiian taro root.) I am embarrassed to say that I have fallen in love with the hot fudge sundae and have consumed two in the past week! (I never had one until a couple of months ago - who knew they were so good???)

Fourth of July.

Let's act like I posted this last week, okay?

On July 4th, we caught up with our buddies Ken and Chris over on the Windward side. We always hang out with them on holidays - usually for some surfing - so we thought it only appropriate that we see them on the Fourth. It was so nice to see them and meet some of their cool friends. (They have the coolest friends.) Here's Ken throwing y'all a shaka!

One of their cool friends brought a stunt kite out to the beach. He had to stand in the surf to have enough room to fly it, which impressed me since the surf was not small. A couple of times he almost hit us and some other innocent bystanders on the beach. The best part, just like hanging out at the model airplane field, is when it crashes! Here's a shot of that...

Before everyone scolds me for being heartened by the crashing kite, let me say, "No kites were damaged in the making of this blog." Jeff the Pilot helped unravel the six-layered kite and get it airborne again. Then we all sat back and enjoyed watching the kite zoom around the sky.

The only problem with hanging out at the beach for a few hours is that, in order to do so safely, one must apply sunscreen. This is not new to Jeff and I, but somehow it was lost on us that day. It's as though my pregnancy amnesia took hold of both of us and prevented us acting like normal beach-going people who LIVE in Hawaii. Despite Jeff's best efforts (see below) we both ended up with super-embarrassing sunburns. We were, as my dad would say, triple-stupid.

Once we got home and lubed ourselves up, we welcomed our buddies Nick and Denice (the reigning king and queen of Hawaiian Mardi Gras) and their British friends Chris and Melissa for a Fourth of July barbecue. We did our red, white, & blue meal again this year: barbecue blueberry chicken, bleu cheese grits, and red cabbage cole slaw. Nick was full of compliments, saying that the grits were the best he'd ever tasted. When the Brits said they liked the grits he said, "These are the best you'll ever have." Yay! The best compliment of the night was, without a doubt, when he said, "Sarah, you've remained really normal during this pregnancy. You haven't, like, gone off the deep end." Excellent.

We walked over to the park across the street when the fireworks started down the hill. We could only see the largest, highest fireworks, but it was still a nice show. Fortunately, our entire neighborhood was full of fireworks, so we weren't at a loss for loud explosions and bright lights. Chris and Melissa were the hit of the night when they shared with us parts of the "Fireworks Code". Apparently, this code is used in Britain to teach kids about fireworks. Some of the tenants are, "Never turn your back on a lit firework. Keep fireworks away from animals and small children." It seems pretty straightforward, but I just love the fact that fireworks haven't even been legal in most parts of England for more than a couple of years and yet they have a multipart code that all children memorize!