Week 31- The Magic All-Telling Bump

Julia,

We are now 31 weeks along with you. Your Mom is growing and tired and beautiful! Her feet stink a little, but I rub them every night. I (apparently) stink a lot to her, due to her incredible super smelling powers, but your Mom lets me close enough to her to rub the aforementioned feet. I don't remember smelling this awful to her with Aidan, so hopefully you won't think I stink when you come out.

At any rate, let's try to move on to some non-stink related news.

Developmentally, you are going through major brain and nerve developments AND it says that all 5 of your senses are working wonderfully. Which would be good news if we weren't trying to avoid discussing the olfactory funk that apparently has consumed my being. Hopefully since you'll have taste now, you'll have good taste and you really won't inherit your mother's perception that I am a big stink bomb. I don't smell of garlic and onions and general stank; think of me as sweet...with a hint of sharpness.

Like a pineapple!

Which is quite coincidental, because at week 31, that's about how big you are!

Which is not surprising at all: Look how beautiful your Mother looks!

Can you believe how far you've come in just 20 weeks?

WHOA!

And the 31 week-old belly apparently is giving off 'Julia vibes' like crazy!

A few weeks ago a random Dad at our local yogurtery approached your Mom and said "I'm not trying to be creepy, but are you having a girl?" He could just tell! Amazing...and he was a bit creepy.

Then, this week, we went to a local salad bar, at which kids eat for free (so we'll be going there a lot) and we walk in the door. The employee who opened the door stopped us after we had taken a few steps and said "Excuse me. When is the little girl due?"

It took a moment to click that he- without knowing us from a cherry tomato- could tell you were a girl just form looking at your Mom's belly!

Isn't that incredible?

I gave him a high five and asked how he knew. He said "A man always knows."

Okay.

He also thought your name was beautiful and wanted us to make your middle name your first name. He also wanted us to spell it with a lot of apostrophes in it: perhaps "S'Keineh" or something. Sorry, magic oracle salad bar guy, you're very nice and your gender detection senses are very keen. But, Julia Sekina is Julia Sekina...although the spelling of your middle name is still being debated. But we do know there will be no apostrophes for you, little girl.

But, a rose by another name would smell as sweet. And you, little one, apparently are setting off all the oracles radars with your sweetness: they know you're a girl the moment they see how you're riding in the womb. We are so pleased with the seeming magical nature of these two random occurences, and think it's a good omen that you will be a great girl and strong woman. And nothing stinks about that.

Super Smell & The Quest for a Lullabye

Something stinks. And, according to your Mom's renewed super sense of smell, it's still me! After not hearing much about smells for quite some time (probably due to the cold and sinuses blocking that sniffer's super sensibilities), we are now currently experiencing a resurgence in your Mother's acute sense of smell!

The other day I went in for a smooch and Holly notified me that I "smell weird."

"What did you eat?" She asked.

"A slice of pizza and tuna fish." I replied.

"Yup! That's it! That's what it stinks like!"

Okay, admittedly, that snack wasn't my finest culinary hour, and tuna pizza breath would probably offend a regularly-powered nose.

But then yesterday, we were talking after we both got home from work and I was notified again that my breath stank once again. I did have a sandwich for lunch, but no tuna and pizza to speak of.

"You've been eating cloves of garlic again?" she asked.


First of all, I only did that like twice, and secondly, I hadn't done it that day!


But her nose was so sensitive that I was instructed to speak out of the corners of my mouth...like the Ninja Turtles.

Now HIS breath would certainly reek of Pizza and small acquatic organisms.

So, it's entirely possible that I suffer from halitosis. But I seriously doubt it. My mouth is so clean you could eat off of it! I think what we're really dealing with here is pregnancy Super Powers rearing their ugly heads again. First victim: anyone that might not smell like roses 24 hours a day. Namely, me and my breath.

Hopefully side-of-mouth-Ninja-Turtle talking will put that issue to bed.

Speaking of putting things to bed (how was that for a segue?), I started thinking yesterday about what Lullabyes we want to sing to you.

We could sing the Ben Folds Lullabye we heard at his concert (which you seemed to react well to, since you did kick your mother a lot during that concert).




And then, there are tons of Beatles candidates too, including Blackbird (which my old College roommate taught me to play on Guitar), I'm So Tired, Let it Be and Golden Slumbers.



And also a strong candidate is "All the Pretty Little Ponies" which- with a little bit of Hebrew added in- is pretty much the Lullabye Mimi and Pops sang me and Aunt Rebekka when we were growing up.

Ignore the "My Little Ponies" in this video. They are frightening doe-eyed monsters.

I also am quite fond of Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence," though I don't think it's a lullabye.

But, in an effort to sing that tune to you last night, I came across a very serious, chronic, hereditary illness from which I suffer: Lyric-itis. I inherited it from Mimi (who famously sang the song "You make me so very happy" as "Me so Me so very happy")

In "Away We Go" (that movie we were watching when I felt you kick) this pregnant lady sings a pretty cool lullabye to her niece: Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man." SHE KNEW EVERY WORD TO THE SONG off the top of her head! I couldn't even get through one verse of "Sound of Silence" before I started make words up. I couldn't even do "Let it Be" without the song playing along with me! Singing you a Lullabye is gonna be pretty tricky if I dont' know any words to any songs.

So I started compiling a list of songs whose lyrics I do know:

• Boehmian Rhapsody
• Row, Row Your Boat
• Some of "Rapper's Delight"
• Quite a bit of Weird Al's "Yoda"
• Werewolf Bar Mitzvah

Yeah, these will all make terrible Lullabyes. I've got to start memorizing some lyrics!

In any case though, please be sure that after we tuck you in and turn on your nightlight (which your Mom made herself! Check it out below) and BEFORE we start singing you a Lullabye, I will brush my teeth, rinse with Scope and eat a mint- just in case you get your Momma's nose.

Coolest Night Light Ever! Made for you by your Mother! Sleep tight, little guy!

Picture Perfect

Your Mom and I had Mimi and Pops over for dinner last night. Using ingredients from our garden, we made Thai basil fried rice and a Thai beef salad. Your Mother ate leftover spaghetti. The nausea is gone, but the aversions continue! In fact, the salad "smelled too much like salad" while we were sitting at the dining room table (which is currently living in the room which is going to be your nursery). Needless to say, I moved the salad bowl away from your Mom's general area, which seemed to help. But, she still was pleasant enough to say that the meal we prepared "stunk" and "made the whole house smell like stink"-- but at least she was nice about it! You definitely are making her senses go crazy!

But, the meal was hardly the coolest part of Mimi and Pops' visit, and isn't even close to being the main point of my entry today.

My Dad (your Pops) has invested in having about 20 years worth of slides converted into viewable, digital pictures. Not the fun kind of slides you're thinking of.

Fun Slide.

These types of slides were a major Pyramid Scheme propogated in the late 20th century. People would take pictures on their analog cameras, and instead of having the pictures developed (like being printed out), they would have them put on to tiny, translucent, white-cardboard-bound slides.

Less Fun Slide.

These slides could then be presented at a "slideshow" (which computers now use, I guess ironically, to describe a streaming display of pictures). Back in the day, people would set up a portable screen and slide projector and then be forced to gather round and be bored to death while looking at somebody else's pictures. Tons of people were duped into participating in this slide scam; and, because he falls quite easily for scams (ask him about the property in Waterwood or the "original" painting of some Eastern European castle he bought from a door-to-door salesman), Pops fell for the slide scam too.


So, about 20 years (or more) of family photos were developed into slides, put in metal boxes and never seen ever again. That is, until Mimi and Pops decided to pay some poor joe to convert over 10,000 slides one at a time into digital photographs.


For the first time in my life, last night, I saw photos of my infancy beyond the dozen or so I'd seen before. In fact, I saw pictures of me being removed from Mimi's belly (it was a Caserian). I saw pictures of my first moments on earth. I saw pictures of me being held and loved on by your Aunt Deborah and Uncles Taff and Dana when they were just kids.







I saw pictures of your Aunt Rebekka- who was just 2 - not trying to kill me. Although I may have been trying to eat her face.


And I saw tons of pictures of Mimi and Pops holding me, making silly faces, and looking altogether 80s-tastic with gigantic glasses and laughable hairstyles.

Now, the good news for you is that your Mom, seeing these new-found pictures of me as a baby, admitted that I was "mostly cute." But, the bad news is that from other angles I kind of looked like a turtle who had fallen out of his shell.

Turtle baby?

And those were the good pictures. In the rest I looked a bit like a wormy polyp. But, I had my moments. I wouldn't worry too much: hopefully your Mom's "cute genes" will outweigh my amphibious ones. And if not, you will have what they call "character" (which has served me reasonably well...afterall, I did manage to get your mom to marry me!)

Cuter Baby?

We also noted that I had gigantic ears. It's a well-known fact that your Mom did too. So, judging from the photos that we saw last night, your chances of not being blessed with dinner-plate-ears are slim to none.


But looking at these pictures from my infancy made me nostalgic for a time I don't remember and pre-nostalgic for the times that are fast-approaching your mother and me. And don't worry, I shoot exclusively on digital-- no slides here. Except for maybe one in the backyard.

Fudging the Diet

When our friends Buck and Jen stayed at our house before they drove to their new home in Seattle about two weeks ago, they had to leave something behind in our freezer. There was no way these could have survived a 4 day drive across the country. But, don't worry, from the second your Mom opened the freezer, she knew that we would find those left-over items a good home.

And she's been devouring Blue Bell Fudge Bars ever since.

In fact, the cravings for these Fudge Bars are so extreme, that, between dinner with friends and hanging out with them at our house, we HAD to stop at the grocery store to buy more Fudge Bars. There was no other option.

Oddly enough, your Mom has developped a serious aversion to the grocery store. Her heightened powers of smell transform the store's aroma (especially back near the deli and butcher sections) into an olfactory deflector shield.

Since I only had been able to have one Fudge Bar, I didn't know exactly which ones to get. Luckily, I recognized the creepy Coach from the box. He seems like just the type of person NOT to be selling confections to children.

Shouldn't he be keeping his eyes on the game?

But, I digress: Fudge Bars are THE most-craved food of the past two weeks. We're about to be on box number Three.

On another note, I think it's safe to say that the "Prune Experiment" from earlier this week was a complete failure. Though I tried to whet her appetite through offering nibbles here and there of my prunes, Holly has probably only eaten one prune in total all week. I, on the other hand, have had half the bag. Which means I'm lucky to have enough "down time" to sit at the computer and write this entry without having to run...if you know what I mean...which you don't, because, quite frankly, you probably don't even DO that yet!

Finally, though, I wanted to let you know that as we approach the end of your 10th week in your Mom's belly, it seems that the nausea is decreasing day by day. In fact, she's not feeling too sick at all! She's not passing out on the couch and drooling all over it, she's not turning green whenever I suggest food choices, and she's no longer seeking elixirs like hot tea, honey on crackers, Jolly Ranchers, Seltzer, or Voodoo chanting to help lift the nausea. Also a good sign, she's been increasingly more giddy, giggling, happy and fiesty; it must feel so good to not constantly feel sick-ish!

But, being in a love affair with Chunky the Coach and his fantastic Fudge Bars is bound to make one feel giddy... I mean, that's a lot of chocolate!

Consensus: Senses are Senseless

Besides her sense of taste being all out of whack, your Mom's other senses are giving her fits too.

Her Eyes deceive her.

+ Yesterday she couldn't come water the garden with me, because the visual of running water flowing out of the hose made her nauseous.

+For his birthday we bought BJ "The Watchmen" (you can see it when you're 15; I will force you to read the comic book first though). But your Mom couldn't even look at the gift. The lenticular cover on the DVD gave her motion sickness!

The biggest clue that her eyes are messed up:

+ Your mother said I looked cute the other day.

The Olfactory seems to be working at full steam.

The old sniffer has been in high gear for a couple of weeks now:

+ Note: Don't cook salmon for yourself with a pregnant woman in the house. EVER. Don't ask.

+ We couldn't walk by the old boat house down at White Rock Lake because it "smelled like old fish." For the record, I was at maximum smell capability, and I didn't smell a thing!

+ Our dogs (well, I guess they're your dogs too, now!), Preston and Toby, have a certain aroma (when they're clean, not dirty) that your Mom absolutely loves. "Their feet smell like Cheetos," your Mom used to say. But, their smell is now too overpowering for Holly's nose!

And, the lastest victim of your mother's nose:

+ ME! My smell (my signature scent) is too much-- it's overwhelming her! Now we're not talking about post-lawn-mowing or bike-riding sweaty stink or even Tex-Mex induced airborne events. We're just talking my regular smell...my musk. So, I've been rendered into some sort of Rogue-type character...I can't get too close to the one I love because my mutant ability can do incredible harm.

But, at least I'm cute! (according to a very reliable source)

On a side note, I've also been instructed to take my constitutionals elsewhere...not in the master bathroom. At least I'm still allowed to do it indoors! It's too hot outside for that kind of nonsense.

p.s. Cravings update: Last night your Mom needed Breathe Right strips to...well...breathe. This is an unrelated symptom to pregnancy...probably allergies (hopefully to ragweed or cottonwood...not Aaron). But, while at the store, I got your Mom some stuff she was craving: Wintergreen Gum, Peaches and Shockers (but, alas, they were out of Shockers).