Plants to Eat and Plants to Look At

I have a new craving. In the past six days, I have eaten a certain kind of salad four times, and I'm planning on eating another one for lunch at work every day this week, while supplies last. The thing about this salad is that I'm pretty sure I invented it, and it's so good I feel like it would be wrong not to share the ingredients with you. Here's what you do: In a big bowl, combine a couple of handfuls of spinach leaves, three or four strawberries, sliced, half a green apple, cubed, a small handful of cubed cheese (I'm a fiend for sharp cheddar), a small handful of sunflower seeds, and 2-3 tablespoons of an olive oil/balsamic vinegar blend or other non-creamy salad dressing. You won't be disappointed.

Matt and I went to the botanical gardens today. The heat was a little intense. By the time we made it to the prehistoric gardens, I was too woozy to spend any more time out in the heat, but we did take a nice, long stroll through the Japanese garden, which is my favorite part. Matt's too, I'm pretty sure. There are these great little paths through bamboo groves and fish ponds with massive carp and dragon flies swirling above the lily pads. Despite the heat, it was a good, leisurely, unstructured antidote to our day of massive cleaning and reorganizing yesterday. We reduced tons of clutter in the house, finished one more cushion for our glider, and started setting up the baby's changing table, custom-made by Matt.

Here's a couple pictures from today. Anyone wanna guess what color eyes our baby might have?

Excitement

There are many things about this pregnancy that have been difficult. I don't mind the physical aches and pains so much; I tend to regard them with fascination and satisfaction as good signs that my body is growing and stretching and aching to nurture the baby's growth. Sure, I'd rather be able to stand on one leg comfortably while pulling on a pair of pants - it's no fun feeling so rickety from sciatic pain and loosened joints and swelling. But really, I don't mind. What's been harder is feeling that our budgets and our schedules are so carefully balanced that one careless decision or forgotten detail might be ruinous. It makes it hard to relax. Worrying about health insurance and listening to Bush's arguments against renewing SCHIP before our daughter's birth are much more troubling than heartburn, for example. I kind of enjoy choosing which flavor of TUMS Smoothies to suck on after foolishly eating spicy Indian Food. The pink ones are fantastic, and they work so quickly! On the other hand, I do not enjoy the exhausting and tedious process of attempting to secure health care on the world's tiniest salary and knowing that the people who seem to have the best ideas about SCHIP are me and the editorial writers on NPR.

However, there are moments when I feel so excited about this pregnancy and the tiny little girl we are going to meet soon that I'm completely overwhelmed by it. Like when I feel her squirming around while listening to Bach on the headphones perched on my belly. Or when I read that this week, she will open her eyes for the first time. Or like yesterday, when I was in a meeting with our ED and a corporate partner helping out with this year's First Night Project, and I drifted off and imagined attending this year's parade, and then I realized with a blissful shock: Matt and I will be visiting the parade with our daughter this year. I had to bite my tongue awfully hard to keep from exclaiming that fact. Or like this morning when I walked through a room full of people at the coffee shop to get from the counter with my cup of green tea to the sugar station, and I felt her kick me, and I could not believe that no one else felt it, or noticed it, or could bear to do anything other than watch, with paralyzing awe, me and my daughter walking. Moving. Breathing. Growing. How anyone can stand to think of anyone else is beyond me.

Pictures

Here's some pictures from the past few days . . . a belly shot, and Django taking it easy after a bath. Behind him is the baby's new periwinkle dresser.




Not too much to say about these, except that a short time ago I could fit my entire body in one belly shot, and now the belly takes up the whole frame. Also, if you look closely at Django's picture, you'll see the folded up cosleeper our friend Grace gave us and the very edge of the wooden rocker/glider. These three items are in the baby's official nook. Next weekend Matt and I have some big plans to sew up new cushions for the glider with some nice green toile fabric we've had around for a long time. Big plans. If things get really crazy, we might even play some cribbage afterwards.

A Long Hello

It seems time for another post. I don't have any belly pictures today, but I can assure you: it's huge.

We had a very busy June. Matt is working nearly full time and taking two Summer Classes at ACC, which involve much welding and the writing of some very smart and funny essays. (The most recent essay was a thousand word exploration of Django's worthiness as a pet.) I spent mornings running a summer camp at a local elementary school with two other TAP Teaching Artists called World Adventures, in which we transformed different parts of the school into six different countries and developed little performance pieces with the kids for each country. On performance day, we had a huge audience of parents and relatives that journeyed through the school with us, following a giant, migrating bird through jungly hallways from one country to another. It was great fun, but hard work, and I'm glad it's done with. In the afternoons, I was transitioning into my new job as TAP's Development Associate, writing grants and familiarizing myself with what needs to be done to keep money flowing into the organization in a steady stream.

I also have been busy helping out with the writing center project that I've been working on for the past two years. In June, we had our first fundraiser, which went very well. Andrew Bujalski hosted a screening of his newest film for us and made an appearance at the after party, where we were able to gather more donations for our upcoming workshop for kids next week. The project is really growing - for awhile it was just me and the two other Founders meeting monthly at a local restaurant, and now we have an active Board, a sizeable roster of volunteers, guest teachers, and all sorts of people helping out with everything from web design to mailing out registration forms. It's very fun and satisfying to watch it grow.

We also managed to sneak in a quick trip to New England last month. For awhile, we had been planning to attend our friend Brian's wedding in New Hampshire, and, although we could not be away from Austin for as long as we wanted, we managed to sneak in a very quick trip to Portland, Maine and another trip to Vermont to see Matt's family there. We were in Portland for less than 24 hours, but really wanted to do some more exploring there and try to get a feel for the city. That's a lot to ask in such a short amount of time, but we did manage to drive around some of the neighborhoods there, explore the waterfront, and do a quick ferry ride to Peaks Island before meeting our friend Ben downtown and heading over to New Hampshire together. I'll post some pictures below.

The wedding was amazing. Brian's family went above and beyond in their duties as hosts, and the whole weekend there was tinged with the uncontainable joy of our group of St. John's friends being together for the first time in a year (or more, for some) and the nearly instant nostalgia created by knowing that our time there would be brief and the time before our next reunion would be long.

Our trip to Vermont was also short and sweet, filled with lots of good food, conversation, and a warm and restful end to our trip - most likely the last before the birth of our daughter.

And speaking of her, and the home front, and the present moment: she and I are headed to another prenatal visit with Dr. Neyman this week. Unless there's something amiss with our routine tests, there won't be much to report. She is moving constantly and growing larger everyday - her movements are visible from the outside now, and Matt has been able to see her pushing against my belly a few times. We signed up for childbirth classes that we'll attend for part of July and all of August - I decided I needed something more than the clinical classes offered by my OB's office and something less than a Bradley class, and so I chose a class at Conscious Birthing Austin. They are very supportive of natural childbirth but also supportive of "the compassionate use" of pain medication and the hospital environment, which is perfect for us. The woman who teaches the class told me that she's not as concerned with the environment in which a couple is planning their birth, but concerned with the inner experience and teaching techniques for deep and sustained "coping" with whatever might happen during labor and delivery. It sounds like an ideal class, and I'll keep everyone posted on how it goes.

I'm also looking forward to Matt learning more about the labor stages and what to expect at the hospital . . . what I'll be going through, what he might go through. Right now, I think he thinks he just gets to hold my hand for a couple of hours and then get to his favorite part: cutting the cord. I've been trying to get him ready for something possibly more intense than that. Here's a typical exchange, as of late.

Me: Matt, if shit hits the fan while we're at the hospital, you have to be ready to step in and advocate for me if I'm out of control.
Matt: I know. I'll just tell the doctors that if anything bad happens to you, I will kill them.
Me: But we don't want the people taking care of us to get upset! We have to keep them on our side. Before you freak them out, can you please tell them my blood type and my drug allergies?? C'mon, what's my blood type?
Matt: A positive.
Me: Good! Now, what am I allergic to?
Matt: Deez nuts?
Me: I hope you know the baby can hear your voice now.

Pictures of Matt and I in Portland, members of the wedding party, and a lady slipper in Vermont: