Skipping Town

It was hot this weekend. We’ve been lucky this summer—there have been fewer than usual weekends whose defining element was the heat. Nonetheless, when it does happen, it’s dramatic, even with central AC. Saturday we drove to Napa to spend the day with Beth and Nate and the babies. The morning was deceptively cool, but once Nate and Andrew went out to play golf, the day grew rapidly hotter—even in Napa, which generally escapes the level of heat we have in the Sacramento area. By the afternoon, when we all set out to have lunch at the Napa Blues & BBQ Festival, it was blazingly hot. Blazingly. An inferno. Well over 100 degrees. The babies’ cheeks quickly grew bright red. Beth and I wandered around for food in a kind of heat-coma. It wasn’t long before Andrew and Nate caught up with us and suggested we just go to a restaurant, any restaurant, with AC. Our hearts full of hatred for NorCal, we abandoned the festival and had an AC-focused lunch instead. It was even hotter, of course, onc...

Here's another glimpse of the baby, from Wednesday's ultrasound: From a totally objective standpoint, I think she looks pretty cute. Just after the technician captured this image, she yawned a couple of times. Bored with the camera already.

Andrew and I had our second ultrasound yesterday, a follow-up ultrasound so they could check the position of my placenta. (Let’s hope the position is good.) We were relieved to get confirmation that Baby Littell is still a girl—I had visions of a surprise that would send us out in a desperate quest for new clothes and bedding. She’s even head down now, clearly ready for the big day. When we arrived, the technician asked my due date. Thinking he had it in front of him, I said, “The 17th.” “Of January?” he asked. “Um, October,” I said. He looked at me in shock. “Really? You’re so small,” he said. “You don’t look eight months at all. I bet you do exercises to keep your abs in shape.” This seems like a particularly insensitive comment coming from someone who should know better, someone who sees pregnant women all the time, and my annoyance at the “you can’t possibly be eight months along!” commentary is growing. Such observations remind me of similar comments I received for pretty much my ...

It’s been years since I’ve read children’s books. Now, however, with Baby Littell’s library quickly growing thanks to family, friends, and my Amazon habit, I’ve had the chance to read some new works and refamiliarize myself with old favorites. And I am struck, and mildly horrified, by how depressing some of my childhood favorites really are. We won’t go into the Velveteen Rabbit again, which takes sad kids’ books to a different level. We’ll talk instead about Corduroy , what I thought was a charming book, published in 1968. We read this a million times in the Orlando household when I was a kid, but all I really remembered was something about a bear trying to find a button for his overalls in a department store. This weekend, I found a copy for $1 at the flea market, so I snapped it up. And last night, I sat down to read it to the baby, with Andrew looking on in between glances at the baseball game. I read the first two lines and looked at Andrew in open-mouthed horror: “Corduroy is a ...

I’ve raved many times about the spectacular market we go to every weekend here in Roseville, a stunning combination of flea market and farmer’s market, each one larger and more robust than any flea or farmer’s market I’ve ever seen anywhere else. We were able to appreciate it anew this weekend since it didn’t get hot until later in the afternoon, leaving us freer than usual to wander around the eclectic aisles. I snapped a few pictures this time, but they really can’t convey the true scope of this place. The Farmer's Market: The Flea Market:

I may have gained only one pound over the past month, but the baby is apparently still growing just fine; at my appointment with the midwife today, the measurements and her heart rate were all on track. In the days before each of my appointments, I become convinced that everything is going wrong—she’s moving too much; she’s moved too far over on one side; I can’t possibly be big enough; surely my blood pressure is sky-high; etc.—and it’s always nice, and somewhat surprising, to hear that everything is actually okay. My near-zero weight gain is due to this diabetic diet I’m on, and I was instructed by the midwife to eat more. She also gave me the permission I’d been waiting for: I do not have to follow this diet to the letter, and as long as I steer clear of sweets, white rice, and white flour, I’ll be fine. And if I do want a little dessert, she said that was okay—just have a small portion along with the meal, not on its own. And if Andrew and I want to have a nice Italian dinner out n...

Trying to find a food the man in your life will love? Try this: Crack eggs into a bowl, mix them up, and pour them into a hot buttered pan as though you’re making an omelet. When the eggs are almost cooked, drop several tablespoonsful of jelly onto the eggs, and roll up the omelet. Voila—Jelly Omelet. Serve. I don’t know about your man, but mine almost gagged when I read this recipe to him. It’s just one of several gems in the gem of a cookbook I found this weekend at the flea market, Foods Men Like . It’s a small Betty Crocker cookbook from 1970, and it provides one or two man-pleasing recipes for each letter of the alphabet. Besides the Jelly Omelet, it contains other apparently man-friendly foods like Apple Pie—Deep Dish Style (so much more manly than regular-style pie), Lobster and Steak Combo (very manly), Hungarian Goulash (huh?), and a refreshing Orange Swizzle drink (really?). Of course, as one does with any A to Z collection, one turns immediately to see what the writers came ...

Over the past couple of weeks, I've watched both the HBO remake of Grey Gardens and the original 1975 documentary, and I feel just a tiny bit obsessed with Little Edie Beale. After watching the documentary last night, Andrew said it made him want to clean the house; but it kind of made me want to arrange a sweater over my head, secured with a dramatic brooch. My favorite Little Edie quote is, hands-down, the following, which she delivered on an ordinary morning while explaining her quite extraordinary outfit to the cameraman: "You can always take off the skirt and use it as a cape." You can indeed. Here's her full explanation: It's just fantastic.

This morning, for the first time in a long time, I realized I had no freelance work lined up for the day. Things have been slow lately—much slower than usual—but I generally have something on tap to keep me busy for a few hours. Not so this morning, and I fell into my usual freelancer’s despair of ever having work again. “Why can’t you just enjoy a nice Friday?” Andrew asked, and, indeed, I wished I could. There are only a few more weeks where I’ll be alone for an entire day—once the baby comes, it may be years before I’m totally alone for any real stretch of time. It’s a strange, unnerving thought, and it did make me want to revel in the quiet day, reading and writing and just noting what it’s like to be alone. An hour later, however, after I read the paper and ran an errand, a couple of new assignments came in, and the day turned into just another workday. But as I sit here now, working, I do have a sense of something coming to an end. The quiet, the aloneness. Sometimes I wonder if ...

This dress makes me look particularly big, but then again... Last night, while I was lying on the couch, Andrew and I spent some time looking in awe/horror at my belly, which was moving around so much that it looked like I was housing a family of ferrets in there.

We did it: this weekend, we bought baby things. With about nine weeks to go before my due date, we finally made some initial baby purchases, including a crib, crib mattress, changing table pad, and one picture frame. Andrew also assembled the changing table. So, progress. The baby’s movements have morphed from forceful kicks to more languid, extravagant stretching and turning. She seems to want room to stretch out like a little cat; unfortunately, my uterus is only so big. Sometimes I can watch what appears to be her head move across my entire stomach as she eases into another relaxed position. Yesterday and today she seems set on settling on the left side of my belly, making me feel a bit lopsided. She should enjoy this while it lasts: in a few weeks she’ll need to settle into a nice head-down position. Andrew and I are narrowing in on names. This weekend we each secretly wrote down our top four choices from our master list. We had one overlap, but there’s still room for negotiation. ...

I've lost track of my weeks count, but I think it's something like 32. I should really figure that out. In the meantime, here are a couple of pictures from last night. Andrew and I were letting off some nervous energy following our graphic weekly dose of Prepared Childbirth by photographing the tiny being who's going to be causing so much angst n' terror.

This afternoon, as I drove into Sacramento for a haircut, the gas light went on. I felt a surge of rage at Andrew. Filling the car with gas is a man’s job. It’s Andrew’s job. How dare he let me set out for the hair salon with no gas in the car? Wasn’t he thinking? Doesn’t he love me? I considered calling Andrew from the highway. But then the baby kicked a few times, and I thought—no. I could do it. I could fill the car with gas myself. So I did, for the first time in about two years, marking the second time I’ve filled our Volvo with gas. (The first time I did, two years ago, I had to call Andrew from the gas station because I couldn't figure out how to open the gas tank. It requires a key. This time, no phone call was required.) I know, I know. For all of you “real” drivers reading this blog, I know that’s crazy. And I suppose I’m a “real” driver now too, regularly getting on the highway by myself to go to the dentist or hairdresser, or to drive out to the airport. Still, it’s jus...

There are about ten weeks to go in my pregnancy, which seems like not much time at all. Nonetheless, Andrew and I seem to me to be strangely unhurried about the preparations. We haven’t made even one baby-related purchase, with the exception of a bureau/changing table, which is still in its flat Ikea box, unassembled. Yesterday I spent an inordinate amount of time selecting a few children’s books to buy from Barnes & Noble. It seemed important to choose just the right books, to formulate a book-buying strategy. I suppose there’s no need to be urgent about it all, but it does seem like it’s time to start crossing things off our to-do list. Out of curiosity today, I went to The Bump.com, which provides a thorough to-do list for pre-baby-arrival activities; I’d found the wedding checklist on its sister site, The Knot, useful during wedding-planning. This was the first time I’d looked at the pregnancy list. Apparently I have 47 things left to do. But these “to do” items aren’t really t...

In public places these days, like the grocery store and gym, it’s not uncommon for people to approach me and ask me when I’m due. Last week at the pool, two women approached me separately to tell me how “cute” I looked. It’s always a friendly question or comment, and I don’t mind engaging in pregnancy small talk as long as it stays to the what-are-you-having, is-this-your-first variety and not the pregnancy-horror-story variety. Nonetheless, I find it surprising that people are so bold. It seems like a big risk to me to approach a rotund stranger and assume she’s pregnant—what if she’s not? What if she’s just missed her Pilates class a few too many times? Andrew disagrees with me—in my case, anyway—and says there’s no way I could be anything except pregnant. Indeed, my figure these days pretty much resembles my normal self with a basketball tucked under my shirt. Still, I’d hesitate to make any pregnancy assumptions. There is no good recovery if you’re wrong, none whatsoever.

There was some good karma going on at the mall this weekend. I’d gone to the mall to idly poke around the only store I can still shop in—a maternity store, the only one at the mall—and had left empty-handed, dissatisfied with the sales going on. With only two months to go, it’s hard to justify buying more maternity clothes. About thirty feet from the store, I was stopped by a woman holding a baby. “Would you like a gift certificate to that store?” she asked. I looked at her skeptically, ready to give a polite refusal, sure it was a ruse of some kind. But she quickly explained that she’d gotten a $25 gift certificate because of a class action suit of some kind and, since she herself wasn’t pregnant, thought she’d just give it to someone who was. We chatted for a while about her stroller—she was pushing the kind Andrew and I will probably buy—and then I headed back to the store, where I spent the gift certificate and then some in a fit of “I’m pregnant! I deserve to look cute! I won’t be...

Last night, Andrew and I had the first in our series of six “Prepared Childbirth” classes. Not "Preparing for Childbirth" but "Prepared Childbirth." I hadn’t really noticed the name of this class when I signed up for it. But now that I look at it, the name seems to imply that childbirth is something that can be packaged up and cleanly, neatly purchased (one box of Prepared Childbirth, please)—all one needs to do is slip it from its wrapper and microwave it and BAM, new baby. If only. Our first class involved introductions and thoughts about what we did and did not like about being pregnant. There was a preponderance of longing for sushi, a complaint about hugely swollen feet, a few laments about wine and beer, and much ardent support for the epidural. I contributed a mild complaint about no dessert. I felt pleased that my weight gain so far has been “all baby,” and that I can still easily fit into all my shoes. We also covered the stages of labor in a general way. A...

I was gazing at my model diet chart today, trying to figure out what I should have for lunch, and I realized I could have a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato. And it felt like a revelation. I could even cut up the rest of the tomato and have it with a little salt and olive oil if I wanted. I’ve never been so excited about lunch. I have never been on a diet in my life, so actually watching what I eat is a brand-new experience, and a strange one. I started paying close attention to food once I got pregnant—really counting portions of calcium, veggies, and fruits and eliminating high-mercury fish—and I felt like I’d worked out a really healthy, satisfying system. For months I’ve been bragging about how I’ve been eating so healthily, especially thanks to the farmer’s market. I know it’s not my fault that I’m temporarily glucose intolerant, but it is a bit defeating after feeling like I’d been doing so well at nourishing the baby with healthy things (and the occasional Blizzard, which, re...

The good news from Friday’s battery of tests is that I don’t have gestational diabetes. The bad-ish news is that I do have pregnancy-related glucose intolerance, which means I have to monitor my diet and, I think, my blood sugar for the rest of the pregnancy. I’ll know more about what this all entails after I talk to a nutritionist on Thursday. The model diet they sent me seems to involve an ungodly amount of whole-wheat toast. I’m off to buy a new loaf now, having exhausted the remains of ours for breakfast and lunch. What I do know for a fact is this: there are no more Tagalong Blizzards in my near future. If you’re lucky enough not to be temporarily glucose intolerant, please enjoy one, or many more than one, as I certainly would, before this inspired, limited-time-only Blizzard flavor disappears forever. And oh, my goodness, I was just going to put in a link to information on DQ's Tagalong Blizzards, because I'm masochistic that way and also hungry, and on DQ's website ...

This weekend marked our third annual trip to the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival. Though we were excited about the trip, we were also somewhat taken aback that this is our third summer in California—doing something once or twice seems somehow less “permanent” than being around for an annual festival for the third year in a row. We also calculated that this was our sixth trip to Lake Tahoe. Our claims of not really living here grow flimsier by the day. Anyway, we had a fabulous weekend. We got to the lake before lunch on Saturday and spread out on the beach, with our books and a cooler of lunch. It was pleasant in the sun, but soon grew hot, and we did something we hadn’t done in all our previous five trips: we swam in the lake. And it was amazing—cold, but not numbingly so like the other times we’d attempted it. Being pregnant, I am generally uncomfortably warm all the time, and the water felt fabulous. I stayed in far longer than shivering, non-pregnant Andrew. The lake is the ideal...