The Third Human

Happy New Year friends & family!

In 2009, we resolve to... add another Human to the family! And we are on our way, as I'm 9 weeks pregnant today. We waited until Christmas to begin telling everyone, but we've known since the day after Thanksgiving. It was hard to keep quiet - we are not good at keeping secrets, and actually we blabbed to a couple of people early and swore them to secrecy til Christmas.

On Christmas Eve I had my first doctor's appointment. I did not think it would be too exciting so I told Mike to skip it and go to work as usual. The doctor gave me a mild fright when she examined me - she said that we probably would not be able to hear the hearbeat until I was 10 weeks along, and I was only 8 at the time... but the moment she touched my belly she ran out of the room saying "I'm going to get the Doppler!" I lay there thinking, holy crap what if I'm like 12 weeks along and didn't know it?? But when she came back she said that because I'm so slender we might hear it... and sure enough, she found the beat - strong and fast, at 144. I wish Mike had been there for that - it was so cool - but he will hear it next time. 

To answer the most commonly asked questions: Yes, we were trying. Yes, we will find out the sex as soon as we can (it will be at the end of March). No, we don't really have a preference but we are both guessing girl. We do have some ideas for names but nothing we want to publicize just yet. I feel really well, I have had no morning sickness, have been a little tired some days, but not every day, and other than that don't have any unpleasant symptoms. I do want to eat everything in sight sometimes, and at other times all food tastes like wood. But overall I'm great. The doctor did clear me to work through my pregnancy and said that I should wear a mask for safety, but that paints these days are pretty harmless. And my estimated due date so far is August 6th. 

We're really excited and it has been so much fun telling everyone. We've gotten the best reactions from people we know who already have kids - they all tell us it's the best thing in the world and we're going to love being parents. I figure if the battle-worn still get excited about kids, it must be a pretty good experience, haha. We will be updating frequently so check back to hear more as my belly grows....

Christmas 2008.

Christmas was pleasant and mellow this year. I was at the tail end of the Black Death Plague, trying not to cough all over everyone, and I sounded like Joan Rivers with a touch of laryngitis, but other than that things were swell.

We had our potluck-style dinner with the family and I brought along a homemade buckwheat noodle casserole from my favorite cookbook, The Flexitarian Table. Although some said they enjoyed it, I was pretty unhappy with the casserole. The noodles had all clumped together when I was making them, and in the cooked casserole they were very lumpy and dense. Buckwheat flour is VERY STICKY and hard to work with: lesson learned. If I ever made this again, I would probably cut the buckwheat in half and use more regular flour instead. Why I choose never-before-tried recipes for important family dinners, I will never know... not the best idea. But I'm crazy. Luckily Mike's family is very gracious and would never tell me my food sucked!

On Friday night we went to some friends' house and watched Burn After Reading, the Coen brothers movie out on DVD. Coen brothers films are kind of hit or miss with me, but there was something about this one I really, really liked. I even liked George Clooney, whom I normally can't abide. The characters were a bit over the top but so well played, it was hard not to love them. And Brad Pitt always plays the slightly crazy bimbo ever so well. There was an attention to detail in this movie that just tickled me. I think our friends were bored by it, though.

On Saturday night we attended a party to welcome back a friend who has been working abroad and is home for a short vacation. The attendees were a mix of friends and business colleagues for both Mike and I so it was fun to schmooze and celebrate the season, and wonderful to see my friend, who's been away for several months.

Today, sadly, it's back to work. I've had plenty of vacation, but I always feel I could take one more day.

We did the unthinkable.

We canceled our cable TV service.

And our landline, so if you need to reach us, call our cell phones. We just couldn't stand paying Cox almost $180 a month every month anymore. I had a bit of a wakeup call recently when Mike's mom was asking us what TV shows we liked to watch, and we had a hard time naming any. We watch TV every day, but we can hardly name a show that we really love? What a waste!

We always thought that if the budget started to get too tight we would cut cable, but "not yet." Now, even though we're doing fine, the time is here. We canceled our phone & cable service - keeping the high speed internet because we haven't completely lost our minds - and signed up for a $17/mo Netflix account. We can still watch the really good shows on Netflix or at Hulu anyway. All told, if you add in the Netflix, we're going to save $120 a month! That's $120 extra to put in savings, to travel, to dine out... any of which will be a lot more worthwhile than the hour of television per day that we were spending it on before.