Hotel California...and a little baby news

We had a busy month here at the (Carter) Blaustein house. Dad was here for about 2 weeks - on hiatus from a vacation at Josh's place in (hotter than the surface of the sun) Texas. Unfortunately, the weather was a bit on the cool side during most of his time here - mostly 60's and low 70's during the days and high 40's to 50's at night. I think he thought he'd be transported back to Maine :-) Two days after Dad hopped on a plane back to Texas, we got our second house guest of the month - Lydia. Hailing from sticky-hot SW Florida, she was pretty pleased with the lack of any humidity and near-perfect weather here in our part of the country. It managed to warm up the day before she got here, so her first experience in sunny SoCal was pretty great, I hope.

Now the dogs are exhausted. They just get so damn excited when people come to visit. So much more hands-on-petting-time for them ;-) Lucy even peed a little when she saw Lydia.

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I figured I'm doing pretty good at growing this kid, so in between our travelers, I planted some cucumbers in Brodie's favorite (former) lettuce barrel. I'm SUPER happy to report that exactly 5 days later, I started getting little baby cucumber seedlings. Now there's 20 and counting...and they are growing like weeds! I can't wait. I've been sitting on some pretty yummy sounding pickle recipes for a few years now and I'm just way too excited to get started on them. I expect to have our first cucumbers by the beginning/middle of June! This is an unnatural excitement. Oh, and my tomatoes are doing famously, in spite of the blight that has plagued them. We've been enjoying some really sweet grape tomatoes and we're about to have our very first Early Girl come ripe this weekend. So much for that black-thumb I used to have!

I'm also pleased to report that our new clothesline is up and functioning. Doesn't sound too exciting, I know, but I was close to weighing down our back fence with the weight of the line that I had attached to it. I don't suspect that our landlord would have appreciated that, despite the fact that it's possibly as old as the house, so it's likely time to replace it anyway. Either way, we finally (with the help of Dad) decided to make a typically-in-ground umbrella line...a portable (read: not cemented into the ground), collapsable line. Now I don't have to sacrifice the entire backyard everytime I hang laundry AND we can take it with us when we go. It's win-win. And I like to win. It's the little things, folks.

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And now for the baby-talk! Spork is getting more and more active every day. Lots of kicks and punches, forcibly trying to push his/her way out of my lower/mid abdomen, etc. Yesterday, Jordan played "push on the baby to make it bounce/push back" and got quite a kick out of it. Apparently our kid feels like it's got a bobble-head. Hopefully it'll grow out of that.

I'm also hoping that the random hip pain stops popping up. I'm obviously getting adjusted very regularly, I've showed Jordan how to do Webster's technique, we bought some SOT blocks...it's just unrelenting when it shows up. I don't know what women do without having the ability to get this work done at will...because walking/standing gets near impossible during a bad day - even with constant care. But, as long as it's not everyday, I think I'm pretty lucky. If this is the worst that pregnancy has to offer, it's not so bad ;-)

Oh, and if those old-wives-tales are correct, I'm going to be birthin' a hairy baby in approximately 10.5 weeks. I had never experienced heartburn prior to being pregnant. Now I can conjure a little (or a lot) up after just a simple glass of water. I'm happy to have heartburn if it means I get a kid with a mop-top. I LOVE babies with lots of hair. I'm thinking mohawks or pigtails within the first day. The possibilities are endless...

And for the record, I'm still a fan of being pregnant. Things may change toward the middle of August, but for now, it's still pretty great.