Hilarious baby skills

When I was walking to the dentist’s today, I was walking rhythmically downhill and the baby was kicking me in the rib rhythmically in time with my stride.  It was pretty funny.

BAD CAR

Oh, man.  Our car is in the shop, and will be in the shop until early next week.  It has a four-cylinder engine, and the # 2 cylinder doesn’t have enough compression so it has been really running on three.  The problem is either the cylinder gasket or the valve seal, but they don’t even open up the cylinder to diagnose the exact issue unless you agree to fix it because the labor involves taking off the top half of the engine.  Then, once they know which part needs to be repaired, they send it out to be specially machined, which takes 1-2 days.  The estimated cost is $1,200-1,600.

This sort of problem can be caused by a number of things.  One, the car has a lot of miles on it (it’s a 1998 Honda Civic with 115,000 miles) so just erosion over time could be the cause.  Two, if the coolant system is not serviced the coolant gets very acidic and could cause erosion.  Three, we had a heat sensor fail in our engine about a month ago, which resulted in the engine getting very hot.  Heat does baaad things to engines.

The Kelley Blue Book Private Party Value of our car is $3,855-4,430, so this problem has not totaled our car.  We need a car, so it makes sense to fix the car.  We couldn’t even sell the car unless we fixed it.  It is amazing how we got our $1,200 IRS economic stimulus check like 2 days ago, though, and now it will be entirely spent.  Thanks, the government.  CRAAAAAAAP!

At least after this our car should be more reliable than it has been.

Okay, now I feel fat

Sorry to all the people out there who are like, “SARA!! You are NOT fat! You are 8 months pregnant and still skinny! You are skinny enough that if you wanted to you could easily hide your pregnancy with clothes and people would never know!” But I think I just passed the number which is the most I have ever weighed pre-pregnancy, and I feel big. My boobs are big. My stomach feels huge and is constantly moving around. This baby is gonna love a jumparoo or other rocking/bouncy toys…actually, it won’t even need them.  It can do it all on its own.  All of a sudden, I feel arms and legs, not just lumps. And my innie went from a snaggletooth to an outie – or, at least, it does every time the baby pokes it, which is pretty often.  Let’s just all agree that fatness, or even just “feeling fat,” is subjective, okay?

LOTS to update about! I am waaay behind and I know it. A recent lack of motivation has stalled me. Two weeks ago was my shower in Seattle. It was so amazing! First of all, because I love visiting Seattle. Second of all, because my auntie and closest friends FLEW UP FROM CALIFORNIA to attend. Third of all, it was great seeing my family – my Mom and Dad looked great, Alex and Steve are looking forward to moving into their own home later this summer, Linus is big (!) and walking (!!), and Hannah has amazing stories from her trip to Botswana and South Africa. I got to see a lot of people that I wish I could see a lot more often.

The shower was lots of fun! We got a ton of super-cute outfits, a moby wrap, a bassinet/changer/bedside sleeper, books, toys, and generous gift certificates, among other things. Plus a whole lot of love and vegan goodies. My Aunt Susie wrote a poem for the occasion which was very special. I will reprint it here:

I will never ever forget the day
That Sara Weisman came into this world
She was the first child to really ever come into my life
This beautiful baby girl!

I remember Karen sitting breastfeeding her
Both blissfully happy with no cares or woes
I couldn’t wait until they were finished
So I could play with her cute little fingers and toes

As a child, Sara was friendly and happy and always had a smile
She was the most fun and spirited little girl
She loved to listen to music
And always loved to dance and twirl

Grandma Betty was so in love with Sara
And proud as she could be
She would always share the exciting updates with me and Ettie
Having Sara for a granddaughter made her extremely happy!

Sisters came and life did change
No longer the only center of attention
But Sara coped and the girls grew close
With Karen, Mark, Lily, Val and Diane’s support and love, I must mention

And then Sara connected with Kelly
What a wonderful connection that turned out to be
They have been having a beautiful life together
And now a new chapter we all will see

Sara is going to be a mommy
Kelly a dad
Life is coming full circle
And for both of them we are so very glad

Picturing sweet Sara, at four
Twirling her blankie on the dance floor
Whoever would have thought
The daughter of my brother
Would be sitting with us today
About to be a mother!

So congratulations to Sara and Kelly
We know awesome parents you will surely be
We love and adore you both
And wish you all the best of life, love, health and most of all
To be happy!

All My Love,
Aunt Susie

How special is that, huh?  We also got Linus’s almost entire first year layette (clothes and diaper covers), which in addition to the huge box of baby clothes Glenda sent us and the stuff we have received at the showers means that we are basically all set up on the baby clothes front.

It was really nice to be pampered and “showered” with so much love during the trip.  Kelly and I have also been very much in love lately, and it was nice to get away from home with him.

Last week at work I had a second baby shower, this one with Tufts people.  That was also nice, although in a different way.  It made me appreciate how much community I have with the people I work with.  Pam was the life of the party with stories about raising her infant in Cairo, and other mothers had lots of advice and jokes.  We even got a strawberry vanilla cake from Whole Foods!  Pictures from this shower are up here.  (I have pictures from the other shower as well, and will share a web album soon.)  We received lots more cute clothes and a baby bath set which is very practical and useful.

I have been doing lots of research on cloth diapers.  I googled “cloth diaper Somerville” and was floored to find out that the store which carries cloth diapers is ONE BLOCK AWAY from me.  Seriously, I just walked across the street the other day and spent 2 hours with the proprietor fingering all the goods.  I will write another post solely on diapering because I have that much to say about it!!!

This past weekend, I had planned to drive to Rochester with Kelly for his youngest brother Casey’s high school graduation.  Unfortunately, I haven’t been sleeping well and I was completely knocked out by Friday, so Kelly ended up taking the bus alone and I stayed home all weekend.  To all the people who keep saying “Sleep now, while you can”: that is completely useless advice!  I only WISH I could sleep through the night!  I usually get up twice to pee, and fall right back asleep the first time but lay awake in bed after the second time.  And it can be very hard to get comfortable, so I toss and turn for a long time.  Oh, body pillow, why does your magic fail me?

Anyway, I was disappointed to not see Kelly’s family, to miss the graduation, to not get to cruise Rochester neighborhoods, and to miss out on the first apartment viewing that I orchestrated.  Kelly said of the apartment that I would have hated it and found it totally unacceptable.  I believe him!  Too smelly.  But I console myself with the idea that in two months I will be residing there, so I will have plenty of time with the fam and to get to know the city.  In the meantime, I spent the weekend culling more books for sale (I blew past my goal of 10 grocery bags and am now up to 14).  I also emptied one set of floor to ceiling shelves in the bedroom so Kelly and I could move it into the hallway last night.  We will do the same with the other set and then have plenty of room to create a baby corner, which I am raring to do.  Also we need to sell our bedroom chairs on craigslist.  Anyone local want some comfy, slightly bouncy chairs for a good price?

I am feeling ready to quit work and just be at home bring productive.  It takes a ton of time to declutter and get rid of stuff, which is what I really want to do before the move.  Not only am I great at tucking an amazing quantity of stuff into spaces you wouldn’t think could hold that much, but once you have gone through it and decided to give it away or sell it, you still have to do the work of hauling or posting it!  We gave away our vacuum, which is great.  I am so happy to not ever have to think about that again.  We also got a swiffer, which I enjoy using because it is easy and effective, but I wonder if there are chemicals even on the dry sweeping cloths – they smell funny to me.  The internet was not forthcoming.  Since I kicked up a lot of dust moving all those books and cleaning shelves, I ended up using a lot of dusting cloths.

I am nesting!!

Sleeeeeeep

Oh, man, I need sleep.  I keep waking up at 4:40 to pee, but then I can’t get back to sleep after that.  Two nights ago I eventually fell asleep again around 6:15, but last night I just ended getting up after about an hour and a half to clean the house and pack for the trip to Seattle.  I am sooo tired today.

Also, last night I was exhausted.  I went to Isis Maternity to buy some compression hose for the plane after calling ahead to make sure they had my size in stock.  Lies!!  Not only did the Arlington location not have it in stock, but none of their other two stores in the area did either.  Motherhood Maternity in the Cambridgeside Galleria Mall assures me they have my size in stock – we’ll see.  I’m taking off work after 1 today to have lunch with Barb (who is in town for the day) and then go buy compression hose, finish packing/doing dishes, and get the taxi around 5:15.

Can’t believe I will be in Seattle tonight!