Overheard at playtime

Jane was languidly rocking in her little toddler rocking chair, while Michael pushed her and sang the words to Rock-A-Bye Baby. Or rather, he sang the first line over and over again, because she seemed to like it.

Michael: Rocka, rocka, rocka...
Me: You know, you're going to be in danger of the council.
Michael: Never mind! She doesn't speak Greek!

A somewhat indelicate topic

But one which demands addressing, nonetheless.

Last night we went to our electric cooperative's annual company picnic, mainly for the free BBQ dinner and promised Mayfield ice cream truck. We hadn't read the minutes, didn't pay attention to the meeting, and left before the final drawing for the grand prize.

We arrived in a somewhat frazzled condition, having been held up for two hours by a terrible wreck on the highway right in front of us. We didn't see it happen, but it must have happened just a minute or two before, as we could actually see clear highway ahead and saw the ambulances zoom past a few minutes after we came to a complete standstill. They actually stopped traffic going the other way so as to land helicopters on the road (why couldn't they have landed the helicopters on the road in front of the wreck? That was nice and clear), and cars were giving up by the droves, crossing the grassy median, and turning back for the last exit, nine miles distant. We weren't sure our car could handle the dip in the middle, nor were we sure how to get there from the wrong exit, so we stayed put and ended up sitting there for just over two hours.

So our condition upon arriving at the picnic, just before they stopped serving the food, was not ideal. Normally I try to avoid unsanitary bathroom conditions, but after spending longer in traffic than I even intended to be out, circumstances dictated otherwise. There was a small cluster of rented toilets off in a corner of the parking lot, and would you believe it, there were three for women and three for men!! Completely unsatisfactory for a crowd of that size, and sure enough, there was a whole line of women waiting while the men trooped happily in and out of their bathrooms. It infuriated me to the point of waxing philosophical, to wit: 1) Why would anyone manufacture male-specific portable restrooms? 2) Are they somehow cheaper to manufacture than the standard kind? 3) Why would anyone with any PR experience even bother renting male-specific portable restrooms? 4) Whoever ran the statistics for the planning for a crowd of this size? 5) WHY would it be cheaper to make a special kind of portable restroom for men only? Isn't standardization always the best method? And so on.

I was waxing eloquent to Michael about this later, and was considering researching the matter further, calling various port-a-potty manufacturers and demanding to know their costs of production for various units, when Michael informed me that, in fact, all the units were identical, and they were probably just labeled 'Men' and 'Women' because people are used to having separate, designated restrooms.

!!!

Sugar high

Last month at my checkup it was mentioned that next time, I'd get the horrid sugar water to drink for the glucose test at the next visit, and my midwife suggested that I could also take home a bag of jelly beans to eat instead, if I preferred. This got me all excited about the possibilities of eating sugar without drinking the dreadful fake orange juice, and I had just decided to make a batch of toffee for my glucose overdose, when I discovered, this last visit, that it had to be a very carefully controlled dose such that only a certain number of Brach's jelly beans would do. The hassle of tracking down the right brand and size and having to chew all those jelly beans in five minutes didn't seem worth it, so I resigned myself to drinking the orange stuff after all. However, having gotten all excited about making a batch of toffee, I decided to go ahead and make some anyway, which I did.

I have yet to find a good recipe for it; I remember that it requires roughly equal parts butter and brown sugar, which must be boiled for a certain length of time before being poured over chopped nuts and topped with chocolate chips, but the only recipe I found in all my cookbooks required corn syrup and water as well. This didn't sound right, but I tried it, and it turned out pretty well, although the finished product was a bit too chewy around the edges. Perhaps actually having a candy thermometer would have helped.

Trapped

Last night we were eating dinner with friends, and I discovered upon reaching home that I'd left my purse there. The friend graciously offered to drop the purse off at Michael's work today, so I should be reunited with it tonight, but in the meantime I am stranded at home without my cell phone, car keys, driver's license, library card, or any number of those useful things which make the world go 'round. I don't have a bicycle so I can't even bike to a store or the library, and I've gotten several notices that books have come in for me. It's a grey, cloudy day, perfect for curling up with a good book and a cup of hot chocolate, and all I can do is bustle around and clean the house all day. Alas and alack for pregnancy forgetfulness.

Halfway there

Baby is 6 1/2 inches now, or else 10 inches from head to toe. Apparently until 20 weeks, the length is measured from 'crown to rump,' because until then the baby is too curled up to be measurable full-length. Although I must say, there is nothing curled up about this baby. We may have thought Jane was an active one, but this child takes the cake. Whatever the 'quickening' is supposed to feel like, there is nothing fluttery about Baby's movements over the past few weeks.

Some people last week, even after seeing me, didn't know I was pregnant.

We still haven't started taking our weekly profile pictures. At this point, since we have no good 'before' shot, we may just not bother. Also, there is some debate as to whether these pictures ought to include Jane or not.

Sara and me with our babies

Audra and me with our babies

Courtney and me with our babies

Mrs. Hall: Turn sideways and bump bellies!
Courtney: There's nothing to bump.

Reagan playing Peekaboo with Jane

Jane, fallen asleep on the long drive home

Carry me back to Old Virginia

This afternoon we will set off for our family's annual Labor Day campout at a YMCA camp in Maryland. I'm a little nervous about the weather, as we are driving and it appears that we'll be following the storm (or vice versa) all the way up the coast. Yesterday heavy rains hit the Atlanta area, and traffic slowed to a crawl. Not fun for the poor little baby in the backseat, who already thinks a ten-hour-drive is quite long enough.

The following week Michael has computer training for work in North Carolina, and we decided that rather than drive home to an empty house for four days, Jane and I would hang out in Virginia the meanwhile and visit with friends and family before picking him up on Friday. We have no fixed engagements at present, but hope to see everyone while we're there!

So to speak

The other night we were reading Luke 6, about the ears of corn and the reference to David and the consecrated bread. (We're reading through the New Testament together in the ASV this time, for variety and a refreshing change of perspective.)

Me: Do you know what that's called in the King James version?
Michael: Shewbread, isn't it?
Me: With an E. And you know what I always say?
Michael: I think I heard this last time we read this...
Me (eagerly, before he can cut me off): There's no bread like shewbread!

On an unrelated note, I took this quiz online. Alas, I only scored 75% because I kept clicking on the Next arrow when no correction was needed, and the quiz read that as a skipped answer.

Maternal musings

- I just started wearing maternity clothes this week. I can still squeeze into most of my normal clothes, but I've decided that I'd rather look pregnant-and-hardly-showing than normal-and-rather-pudgy. Maternity tops have a way of subtly yet unmistakably announcing the baby's existence.

- After Jane was born, I was shocked and dismayed at the residual belly I was left with. I hadn't expected to lose all the weight immediately, of course, but I wasn't prepared for the immensity of the bulge. At the time I joked that I had reverted to three months pregnant. This weekend, however, we were looking over pictures of the first day or two, and I definitely looked far bulgier then than I am even now. So maybe post-partum actually leaves you looking four or five months pregnant.

- I'm glad Baby waited to launch onto its immense growth spurt until after the play was over. It would have been embarrassing to keep asking the costume people to take out the waist after every performance.

Free Pepsi!

I don't shop often enough at CVS to pay attention to the ads, but I just stumbled across their flier online and discovered that they have a terrific sale on Pepsi products this week. In a word - aside from the sales tax and the postage stamp for the rebate - free!

You buy four 12-packs of any Pepsi product for $10, and send away for a $10 rebate. Simple!

We're not in the habit of drinking soft drinks. But anything free is pretty irresistible! Besides, it's great to have soda pop to bring to potlucks and whatnot. I can hardly wait for Jane to get up from her nap so we can dash off to the nearest CVS and buy our dose of sugar water.

Nor iron bars a cage

On Friday we watched The Shawshank Redemption, a brilliantly made movie with way too much bad language and a horrifying depiction of prison life. It made me wonder how accurate to real life the portrayal of the brutality of the guards - and the unconcern of those in charge as to how the prisoners treated each other - is. The utter hopelessness and despair gave rise to the consideration of other imprisonments, which led to the random compilation of the Ten Worst Imprisonments of All Time. Except I couldn't think of ten right off. But for Jean Valjean it could be the Ten Worst Unjust Imprisonments of All Time:

- Judah's mother and sister, walled into the Tower, in Ben-Hur (Being bricked in! The leprosy!)
- Edmond Dantes in the Chateau D'If, from Count of Monte Cristo (The suddenness! The reversal of fortune!)
- Doctor Manette in the Bastille, from A Tale of Two Cities (Having to write your memoirs with your own blood!)
- Jean Valjean in Les Miserables (Well, so he did commit a crime, but in disproportion to the punishment. And having his footsteps so dogged by Javert!)
- Westley in the Pit of Despair (The Machine! The Albino!)
- The poor sap in The Pit and the Pendulum (Shivers!)

I'm sure there are others equally as horrible in terms of length of duration, uncertainty as to duration, suffering while incarcerated, and effects on family and fortune meanwhile.

Round Two

Now that the play is over, we can sit back, draw a deep breath, and prepare for the next big event looming on our horizon: the arrival of Jane's little brother or sister, coming February 2007. Jane will be an active almost-two-year-old, and no doubt much in need of a fellow child to share in the spotlight and spare her from spoilage. Alas for the new baby, which will have a hard act to follow to be as model a child as Jane has been. (Or perhaps its making its arrival just as Jane hits the vaunted Terrible Twos was a clever stroke of genius on its part.) We are all much excited at the addition and look forward to meeting our new little one next February.

Overheard last night

Michael (rummaging through the freezer): What's this?
Me: I don't know.
Michael: Good. Can we throw it away then?
Me: No! I'll work it off on my brothers next visit!
Michael: Do you actually like saving money, or do you just like feeling clever when you think you're doing it? Because it wouldn't actually cost us anything to throw this away.

Goodbye Dolly

Our final performance was on Saturday night, and with that last show ends an era of our lives - hectic, frenzied, short, but so much fun. We were delighted at how many friends turned up throughout its two-week run, and thrilled to have my family come down this past weekend to watch. They enjoyed it thoroughly, and when we got home that night at almost midnight everyone crawled out of bed to talk over the play in excited and voluble whispers (because the 'everyone' did not, of course, include Jane).

So now that's done with, and we are feeling a bit lost, rather like Bilbo once he got back from the Lonely Mountain. I hope we don't go off and do something rash and wasteful with our sudden influx of free time, like sign up for Netflix or something. Plenty of yard work and bills to catch up on.

And with all that excitement of guests and plays and Jane walking this last weekend, the thing I'm most thrilled about is the $100 Kroger gift card I won yesterday! I saw fliers at our local Kroger last week advertising a back-to-school day for kids on Sunday, and I determined to take all five of my brothers, who I was sure would appreciate meeting the Keebler Elf and the Mayfield cow and participating in the Oreo Stacking Contest and the Milk Mustache Contest. But little did I dream that a local radio station would be there passing out prizes just for stopping by! My mom had dashed to the store earlier in the day and ended up winning a box of pop tarts, so I made sure to stop by the table in hopes of a similar fate. It was the perfect ending to a perfect weekend.

No, actually the perfect ending came that night, when we celebrated my dad's birthday with chocolate cake and homemade ice cream. Hurrah for celebrations, and for causes for which to celebrate!

That bwessed awwangement...that dweam within a dweam...

Three years ago today was the happiest day of our lives, as of then. And the intervening years, swiftly though they have flown by, have only gotten better. Why do I love being married to Michael so much? Let me count the ways:

- Every so often he will remark, 'We haven't seen Pride and Prejudice in a while. It's about time to watch it again, isn't it?'

- I love to watch him play with Jane. She absolutely adores her Papa, and for good reason.

- He is always willing to help with the dishes if I had a long day.

- He always compliments my cooking and is impressed with the littlest things, such as homemade piecrust.

- He takes pride in ownership and maintains the house and lawn well, without making it an idol.

Oh, and speaking of P&P, on Monday night we watched Sense & Sensibility and I remembered having seen it first when it came out ten years ago, at which time I distinctly recall identifying more with Marianne. I didn't quite approve of the indecorous excesses of her behaviour, but I certainly sympathised with her passion for books and reading, romantic fancies, and volatile temperament. As we watched the scene of her meeting with Willoughby and her almost-swoon upon discovering that he reads and glibly recites Shakespeare sonnets too, I realised that my notions of felicity in marriage have changed drastically since that time. Ten years ago I probably would have placed a lot more weight on the discovery of shared interests, which after all is nothing but a happy coincidence. By far the most important element is the character; the personality is just frills.

When Michael and I first met and struck up correspondence, we established an easy rapport by email because we had read many of the same books and recognised each other's quotes and nonsense. (Gandalf: 'Think of the riddles they both knew, for instance.') But that has very little to do with the basis for our relationship. In our marriage, we don't spend a whole lot of time sitting around going off on quoting sprees. It's nice to have common interests, but those can grow over time, and indeed we have each been responsible for introducing the other to a lot of new horizons. How silly it would have been for Michael to have been waiting all those years for a girl who liked sushi! How silly it would have been for me to have put 'Has read Emma' on my List. In the end, it is far more significant that I married a man of good character who is deferent enough to learn to appreciate my tastes than it would have been to have snagged a guy who just happened to like the same things that, at that time in my life, were top of my list.

Here is Jane, right after a bath