22 weeks pregnant- It's alive!

Last week on Friday, I came home from work and just wanted to take a rest. So I got into the bathtub and just laid there in the warm water, grateful for a working hot water heater. Now, I've been able to feel the baby kicking for about 3-4 weeks now, but it hasn't been something that Mike could share with me. Every time he put his hand on my tummy, when I felt a kick he said he didn't feel anything.

But when I was in the bath and feeling kicks that Friday, I could see my belly move too! It was kind of creepy and sort of weirded me out at first... but it quickly became super cool to be able to watch the movements as well as feel them.

When Mike came home I promptly made us lie down on the bed to watch my belly for any signs of life. We waited and waited, and finally he got to see good one, like something pushing for it's way out!

A week has gone by and we see even more movements when we sit and stare at my belly for any length of time.

We got our new couches! Their humongous

This morning we were bombarded with deliveries that we have been waiting for about a month now. We got our couches from Jordan's Furniture; and the bathroom store decided to deliver the new vanity and sink for our upstairs bathroom.... at the same time! The furniture guys were literally waiting in line to get up our stairs while the bathroom guys were struggling to get our stuff upstairs as well. It was chaos in the house for a little while.

To top it off, the people who bought our old couches only picked up one, so we still have one of the old couches.... and now these two huge couches to deal with! These new ones are a lot bigger than the old ones, it'll take a while to get used to. I feel like they take over the whole living room, but they are nice though! The cats have also managed to get comfortable on them... and already put a nice big scratch in on of them!! ARRRGGhhh. I'm afraid that will happen a lot.

One of the bathroom furniture guys was sooo intrigued with all the African art up on the wall, especially the weapons. He kept asking about where they were from and wanting to hear stories. I showed him some other Malawi stuff around the house and ended up giving him the Malawi coasters we have that I've NEVER used once. He freaked, he was so happy.

Animal, getting comfy (probably right before she dug her claws into the nice new leather)
So guess we need to cover them up with blankets.. or maybe that cool plastic furniture cover stuff that my grandma used to have.
Say goodbye to the old couches, we'll miss them!

Nancy and Nori's visit to Boston

This weekend Nancy and Nori braved the Fung Wa Bus and paid Naomi and me a visit from New York! That Fung Wa is always an adventure, reminding me of many times in Malawi.... luckily we are all seasoned to sitting on the side of the road waiting for another bus to rescue us from the broken down one that leaves us in the middle of nowhere! Poor Nancy had to do that Friday night when the water hose blew out on her bus.... only to make her have to wait for the later bus. She overheard another bus goer mention on the phone that he was on the "Fung Fucked" bus!! So appropriate

She arrived late Friday night unscathed, and the three of us sat catching up at Naomi's house until my pregnant self couldn't take the sleep deprivation any longer. Nori showed up Saturday and brought some cheesecake for us from Junior's! That was awesome! It was good hanging out with the two of them, here's a pic at Naomi's after eating an awesome brunch. Thanks Naomi!

Holly's Wedding

On Super Bowl weekend, we were invited to my friend Holly's wedding in Beckemeyer, IL. Population 1100. Holly was an environment volunteer that lived nearby me in Malawi; she would have to come to my town of Mzimba to do shopping and go to the bank.

It was a fun weekend of exploring a small midwest town, save for a few hiccups: I originally booked our flights home during the time the super bowl would be actually happening, so when Mike realized this he had a small hissy and proceeded to go and buy his own one way ticket home for earlier on Sunday. I was fine with that, got to stay and hang out with peace corps friends and watch Holly open her presents. Well, it was fine except when Mike went home early Sunday morning he took the bags with him... including my shoes! (ok ok, so I was the one who packed the shoes in the bag, so what)

I walked around the hotel in my socks for the next couple of hours trying to figure out what I would do until I saw some of the bride's maids, and one of them graciously let me wear home her silver glitter slippers that she had bought as backups for the wedding reception. So I wore those around the snowy town and through the airport till I got home, I looked like Dorothy trying to find her way home.


This town if full of John Deere fans, hence the tractor outside the church to take pictures with after the wedding.

Lisa's New Pet Name

Lisa and I have never been too big into strange pet names, like "snookums" or "my little tiddly wink," but we do have a habit of calling each other "baby." I'm not sure how it started, but we fell into it pretty early on in our relationship.

This has created a problem for me recently. Not only is Lisa my "baby," but she's also carrying a baby! I had to come up with something new. So that's when it struck me.

Here's the background: Grandfathers on my Dad's side of the family are always called Pop-Pop. I'm not sure why, but that's the way it's always been. When my great-nephew Nick was born, he naturally started calling my brother Joe "Pop-Pop." But the problem was what to call my Dad. I'm not sure where Nick got it from, but he started calling my Dad, his great-grandfather, "Triple Pop."

Calling Lisa "Baby-Baby" didn't make much sense, because it would sound like I was either stuttering or an R&B singer. But following Nick's example, "Double Baby" would be a perfect new pet name. I've included a photo below to illustrate my reasoning.

Somebody Bring My Wife Back!

The farther and farther Lisa gets into pregnancy, the less and less I seem to understand her. To point, her obsession with matching things for the baby's room. Lisa has always liked things that match, like her scarf and gloves, or a necklace and earrings. But Lisa trying to match everything in the baby's room has taken this to a new level.

Here's a list of the matching things she's bought so far:

• Sheets
• Dust ruffle
• Crib bumpers
• Mobile
  
• Hamper
• Diaper holder
• Switch cover
• Lamp shade
• Picture frame
• Book ends
• and, my favorite, "wall hangings"

The wall hangings are the strangest thing. They are flat pillows with designs on them that you can hang on the wall. I think they're for frustrated fathers to bang their heads on when you can't get the baby to stop wailing, or when you get the credit card bill with all of the baby crap on it.

The baby won't know if the things it its room match; this is all for adults. I don't know if anything in my room when I was a baby matched, so it obviously did not matter to me. In fact, I'll bet that nothing matched, which would explain my current decorating sensibility.

Here's the kicker. Thanks to you, our dear readers, Lisa has chosen a line of products from a company called Kidsline. The line is called "Malawi." Of course, Lisa was going to choose this one. The thing I don't understand is why the motif has anything to do with Malawi. It has pictures of crocodiles, elephants, giraffes, zebras, hippos, leopards, etc. Now I haven't spent much time in Malawi, but I think you may find more of these animals in a zoo than in that country. If Kidsline really wanted to capture the essence of Malawi, it would have deforested hills, people pushing overloaded bicycles down the road, and drunken unemployed men. I think the real reason it's called Malawi is because young children from Malawi make all this stuff.

My clothes are getting tighter

Today marks the day that begins my 20th week of pregnancy. In other words, I'm half way to being a mom! It doesn't feel as though I've been pregnant for 20 weeks, although my clothes are getting tighter and my stomach feels full quicker when I eat meals. Just wait till I'm 30 weeks or more and my stomach has been pushed into the cavity where my heart is! I can still see the anatomical diagram of the developing fetus in a womb at the Science Museum and the mother's stomach was this little walnut looking thing sitting behind her sternum.

This weekend we went to a wedding in Beckemeyer, IL.... population 1100.... and 500 invited to the wedding. Pretty much the whole town, seating was picnic style... and the reception took place at the local VFW. It was sort of a culture shock coming from Boston, we could not even stay in Beckemeyer but had to stay in Carlyle as that town had the only hotel around! I'll put up some pictures when I finally get my camera back. I ended up forgetting to take it back home, and making my newly married friend to have to deal with and fed ex to me before she flies off to Costa Rica for her honeymoon, sorry Holly!