Our New Addition

I'm at a loss for words, as how does one even start writing about such a huge, wonderful, scary, and amazing change in life?

Helena Ann joined our family on Monday night at 11:55 p.m. - just had to be a January birthday! Her weight was 6 lb. 7 oz. and her length was 20.25 inches. She just seems so teeny tiny!


Surprisingly, during labor, I wasn't even thinking about the babe being a girl or a boy. Little Critter was just my baby. So when the doctor announced "It's a girl!", I thought "Oh yeah, forgot about that aspect of our child."


Her first name - Helena, accent on the second syllable - comes from her great grandma Helen, John's grandmother. She is a wonderful lady, and we're so proud to give that namesake to our daughter. Ann, her middle name, is my middle name, was my mom's middle name, and was my recently passed grandfather's sister's name. Another namesake I'm glad to pass on.

Three Generations of Anns

We were in the hospital until 5 p.m. on Wednesday. She was all dressed in her "going home" outfit and tucked away in her car seat when the nurse checked and said, "No, not tight enough." But the car seat wouldn't go any tighter! So, Helena actually had two "going home" outfits - one on top of the other - because we needed to give her some bulk.

We Three Plus a Tim Horton's Iced Cappuccino (My Long Desired Treat!)

We've now been home for three days and are having a splendid time being a family. My dad has joined us, and we're all having fun watching her stretch, hearing her cry, and seeing her many faces. Oh, and yes, there have already been tears (mine, of course) over not wanting Helena to grow up.

D-Day

Our List of Things To Do Today:

• Eat breakfast
• Find great books at Another Story Bookshop with my mom
• Buy garam masala, fennel seeds, and chili flakes at The Mercantile
  
• Eat lunch
• Walk through the entire mall while searching for rubber boots (didn't find any)
• Succeed in finding a shirt for my mom & getting her to buy it!
  
• Drink lots of raspberry tea and eat lots of pineapple (supposed labor inducers)
  
• Go grocery shopping
• Watch my mom make delicious honey mustard chicken and then eat it
  
• Complete two crossword puzzles
  
• Have a baby

Well, we ALMOST got everything done today.

We'll be three any day now!

The countdown for Little Critter's arrival is nearing its end. Yikes! Until recently we were both feeling pretty good about our new upcoming roles. We even got our crib area all set-up!


Then, a few things happened.

Our good friends Dan & Jemma and their six-month old Levi came and stayed with us for the night. Now don't get me wrong, we had a great time with them. But after they left, John turned to me and said, "I'm nervous. The baby is with you 24/7!"


Then on Friday night I had quite a few Braxton Hicks contractions that were 14 minutes apart. All of a sudden we're thinking about actually going to the hospital to have this baby, and it was just too much for me. All I wanted was for Little Critter to stay inside for a long LONG time!

While we anxiously/patiently wait, we've been having some fun just the two of us. One night we got all dressed up and went out for a dinner at a local Polish restaurant. I had a Potato Pancake Hungarian Style, which means filled with goulash. John has Weiner Schnitzel and Potato Dumplings (Notice the fried egg - that's kind of his thing...he's had burgers, pizzas, and now schnitzel topped with fried eggs.). The food was delicious, and I loved how each dish included "a bouquet of salads on the side." See the sauerkraut, beets, and vinegar coleslaw salads?


There's a local theater near us that shows regular movies and fun features. We went and saw "The Thief of Bagdad" (not a spelling mistake!), a 1940s silent film that was accompanied with live piano. We felt that the beginning was a bit slow but once we got involved with the storyline, the music went perfectly with it and it was lots of fun!

The Thief of Bagdad

If Little Critter stays inside for until the due date, more dates are planned. But we'll see what happens!

Pink is for girls and blue is for boys.

Did you know this hasn't always been true?

Long ago young children of both sexes often wore the same clothes: loose white dresses.


But around the turn of the century, colors started being advertised as being for certain genders. Pink was seen as a boy's color, as it was the lighter relative of a strong fierce red. Blue was associated with the Virgin Mary, thus a more feminine color.

I'm not completely convinced there was a strong color designation given to each gender in North America, as this 1927 Time article indicates that it depended on which store you went into. However, the article does say that when the Crown Prince of Belgium was born, "The cradle...had been optimistically outfitted in pink, the color for boys, that for a girl being blue."

Today's color associations for became apparent around the time of WWII. Many attribute this to the Nazi's use of pink triangles to designate homosexuals, but others also associate it with the dark colored uniforms that the soldiers (mostly male) wore. It is obvious that at this time pink was no longer seen as a manly color.

Book by Lynn Peril

As women were being urged to be beautiful perfect housewives in the 1950s, pink became a definitively feminine color. The slogan "Think Pink" was used to convince women to embrace their femininity.

It's obvious that the colors' designations have been almost wholeheartedly accepted as nowadays you can't walk into a North American store's baby department without being overwhelmed with baby blue (the name now causes a hmmm...) and pink. But think, less than 100 years ago you may have walked into a baby department and those colors would have been for the opposite gender!

This Belly is Not My Own

The belly/bump/stomach area of a pregnant woman is an interesting thing.

First of all, it gets a lot of attention, whether wanted or unwanted. Some people just can't NOT feel a pregnant woman's stomach. Others have absolutely no interest in touching it. Some mothers love to post photos of their naked bellies on the internet and other pregnant women hide from any camera that appears. Some love seeing those photos and some are grossed out by them.

What I used to not understand is why pregnant women always rubbed their bellies. I mean, I never went around rubbing my stomach. But now I do all the time.

My belly no longer feels like it's mine. There are all kinds of movements that I feel and see that are out of my control. Every time I feel a limb sticking out or the rhythmic beats of hiccups, I am reminded that there is someone else, another person, in there.

When I rub my big bump, I don't think about me massaging my own body. Instead it's me letting my babe know that I'm here, me sending a little bit of love LC's way.

More Pregnancy Ponderings

How has this happened? I am 30 weeks along in this pregnancy!

That's three-fourths of the way through. I remember when I had three-fourths of the way to go. It was a time full of trying to get a bowl of chicken noodle soup down at ESLI during my two-hour break between classes and evenings spent on the couch while John cooked himself dinner. I like this part of pregnancy better.

Here are my current thoughts:
1) Despite wearing pants with no zippers for three months now, I still check to make sure my fly is up before I leave the house!
2) My belly is becoming more noticeable in regular life activities. Bending over to tie shoes is becoming a little awkward. On Sunday night I tried to scoot in so someone could pass my chair, and it just wouldn't move. Yep, the belly was already touching the table.
3) There have only been a few times when I've felt really uncomfortable and they've only lasted for short stints. One spot in my mid-left back does sporadically hurt often, but can't complain too much.
4) Heartburn is making appearances. Ugh.
5) Charlie horses and toe cramps like to visit at night.

Yikes, I am complaining. I'll stop with all the body ailment thoughts, but I do need to include this little story:
A few weeks ago John came home and started complaining about his aching legs and hips from all the walking he does at school. I decided to join and complained a bit about my pregnancy pains. John responds with, "Yeah, well at least your pains are temporary."

7) Why do maternity shirts need to air dry? Come on, couldn't that one aspect of clothes & pregnancy be made simpler? And why do maternity shirts that can be dried shrink?
8) We've ordered a crib & mattress. Whew, two things off the list. All this purchasing and preparation is not easy for an indecisive woman.
9) On the other hand, shopping with John has never been more fun. We look at clothes and he finds 10 things he wants to buy. We look at strollers and he's immediately on a mission to figure out how every single stroller folds, unfolds, brakes, moves, changes height, and on and on.

Now let's move on to fun thoughts about Little Critter:
a) John thinks LC is a girl. I think LC is a boy. What do you think?
b) Movements are getting bigger. This morning was the first time I felt movement in my entire belly at the same time. I think LC is figuring out how to do quick flips! No hiccups felt yet.
c) LC is being introduced to dancing. John likes to hold onto the sides of the bump and dance with LC. No, I don't move. It's just the two of them :)
d) The last few times at the doctor's, before they measured me or even touched my stomach, the doctors have asked "Do you find that the baby is often on the right side?" That's a definite.

And the latest bump picture (taken unbeknownst to me):

No Question Now

I have popped!

The Bump

Here it is at 24 weeks (the beginning of the sixth month)!

Thoughts on Pregnancy

The current ones in a bullet-point list:

• Everyone was right in saying that feeling Little Critter move makes all the first trimester grossness worth every minute.
• The semi-regular naps are wonderful however...
• Sleep is never without crazy dreams. A few nights ago I dreamt that my brother's law firm was involved in some illegal acts. My whole family found out, so the firm tried to bribe us. The only bribes I remember were free rounds of golf for life for my dad and a shopping spree at Victoria Secret for me - but the store only sold Crocs in kid sizes.
• Garlic bread has never tasted so good, which is strange since garlic was NOT MY FRIEND a few months ago. Also, Little Critter really likes strawberries.
• Wow, there is A LOT of stuff that a baby needs - and that's with us definitely not planning on getting everything that "they" say you need.
• My mom advised me that I should begin preparing for motherhood by working on my relationship with spiders. Living in Bangladesh and especially basements in BC have made the little spiders easy to kill, but big ones? I am trying. The shrieks are no longer coming out of my mouth. Plus, there is a large spider currently living underneath my bedside table who I am trying to live peacefully with. [There's no way I'm going to kill that monster!]
• I look forward to sleeping on my stomach again someday.
• We finally have a doctor. I do wonder, though, why it takes a pregnant woman two weeks to find a doctor when she lives in the fifth largest city of North America.
• Why has no one invented prenatal ice cream? It would be so much more fun to take than pills!

Little Critter

This little guy is probably familiar to many of you.


It's the little critter from Mercer Mayer's books. (If he's not familiar to you, you NEED to get to a bookstore or library ASAP and find out who he is.) These books are a favorite, as he's a real kid who tries his very best in doing things, but instead always creates some kind of trouble or extra work for his parents.

My mom read these books to us kids for years. When reading Mercer Mayer's books to kids now, I always follow her routine, "Can you find the grasshopper? Where is the spider?" Let me explain for those of you who NEED to get to a place with books - on every page there's a grasshopper and a spider (except for a few books in which it's a frog and a spider) and kids love to find them. Besides the grasshopper and spider, there are great illustrations in each book that help to tell the story. Without the pictures, you'd be lost.

Well, here's another picture you need to see in order to understand the following words:

Let me introduce you to another Little Critter!


By the end of January, Lord willing, we'll have our own Little Critter.