There are times

There are times. There are times, like when you go for an ultrasound and you see your little baby swimming around and yawning, and clenching his fist, and then waving at you, and sticking his foot up in the air and then crossing his legs. When your husband tells the radiology tech, "Can you make my wife some copies of these pictures? Because these are mine," and tucking them in his shirt pocket. When you go out to eat to celebrate and he tells the server, "Oh would you like to see some pictures of my son?" And without waiting for an answer shows her the whole string of blurry images, pointing out the profile, the yawning mouth, and the one that shows us that he's a boy. Sitting there at the table together, and thinking about your baby and how he is really real, a little tiny person in there. When you know that along with great times there will be awful times, and victories and failures, and joy and sadness, and ordinary ordinary days, there are times. There are times when all's right with the world.

Zaniness

Alexander's sense of humor is so zany sometimes. He cracks me up all the time. Just now he says to me from the kitchen, "The dish I'm making is called Ethanol, what have you done? -- you'll soon find out why. But you can't come in the kitchen." I did go into the kitchen earlier and I saw a can of corn. I think that's the connection -- ethanol production being not that environmentally sound after all and causing corn prices to skyrocket and a bunch of other related unintended consequences. Update: yes, that's what it was. Some chicken with a sauce that included corn. "There woulda been a lot more corn in there if it wasn't for ethanol," he told me.

The other Sunday, one of our friends was saying that she didn't feel like going back to work the next day. Talking to Alexander about it later, I was sympathizing and remembering when I felt that way. Everyone gets the Sunday night blues or whatever, but I used to wish I could get in a car accident and be hospitalized so as to not have to go to work...that's bad. But anyway, point being, Alexander says, "Yeah, I bet Red Fred (my dad) never felt like that! I bet Red Fred always had his hammer and his ----what's that thing called babe?" "A sickle?" "Yeah, I bet he always had his hammer and sickle right by the door on Sunday night, ready to go! A true comrade!" Who would think of that?

His speeches are another source of amusement for me. Some are one-time wonders, and others are old favorites that he launches into when the mood strikes him. Some are mostly nonsensical and others actually have a point. His "Morehouse Man" speech usually comes up if he is challenged about something. "What are you talking about? I'm a Morehouse man! What do you think this is, babe? You might be able to try that on some people, but oh no! Not me!" Then he will add some substance about whatever issue is at issue. To wrap up, he might remind you that he is a Morehouse man, in case you forgot, and then finish with "You can always tell a Morehouse man one or two things, but you can't tell him much!"

Emotionalness; the ten-month myth

I think I posted that I didn't think I was more emotional than before. Ha! Those days are gone. This week I cried because Alexander didn't want to leave the house soon enough to get food with me (he wanted to leave in 15 minutes, I wanted to leave in zero minutes), and because of some other things that are too dumb to mention, not that that has stopped me yet. I'm 16 weeks now, yay. Which, while we're on the subject, is not four months. It's between 8 and 12 days less than four months.

It's funny how many people have said to me, "You are really pregnant for 10 months." (Because you're pregnant for 40 weeks.) You're not. You're pregnant for nine months and maybe a few days. Four weeks does not equal a month. Four weeks is 28 days. Most months have 31 days. So that's 2 or 3 extra days you have to add to every four week block to make it a month. So if you keep insisting that every four week block is as long as a month, at the end of all the ten four-week blocks you have to subtract the 2 or 3 days that you have been adding to each block if you are calling it a month. (We'll skip February but the point is still valid.) So, 2 or 3 x 10 = 20 or 30 days. Subtract 20 or 30 days from "ten months" and you get nine months and some days. Voila! Also....if you're pregnant for 40 weeks and also for ten months, and there are fifty-two weeks in a year, then after the 40 weeks there are still twelve weeks left (3 months, minus 6 or 9 days) in the year. If you were pregnant for 10 months, that would mean that there were almost 13 months that year. So I know this is obvious to most people, but at least three or four people have told me the ten-month myth. So. There you go.

stuff you really like doing that you're not very good at*

Someone asked about this on a message board and my first thought was that there is a whole bunch of stuff I like doing at which I do not excel. Mostly sports, come to think of it. Snowboarding, playing hockey and soccer (OK on defense, but really not that great at scoring goals, also not the fastest sprinter you ever saw), drawing stuff -- when I was playing that online game that's like Pictionary (isketch?) once, someone said, "Easy there, Picasso," 'cause my drawing was so bad... As I pondered the concept, I decided it's good if you love something you're not good at, because that means you're a good loser and that you do things for some reason other than glory or whatever. To comfort myself, I decided these things. So, do you love doing stuff you're not good at?


*I know I ended this sentence with a preposition and I do not care.