...And then there's Toby's opinion

Toby is growing increasingly interested in “my belly” and the baby that is hiding in it. He often comes up to me and innocently tears my shirt out of my pants so he can have a look for the baby. It’s not the GREATEST thing to have your increasingly flabby belly flaunted to the world at a moments notice, but it’s nice to see he’s interested. It is certainly much better than his initial reaction when we first told him he was going to be a big brother.

I believe he was eating cheerios at the time. He stopped chewing for a second and stared at me. Intently. Then took another mouthful. I rephrased what I had said and added something nice about how he’s going to get to be a big brother. Another mouthful of cheerios. This time the stare was more of a glare, but still no verbal clues as to his understanding.

Finally I asked him a question, “Toby don’t you think it’s great that Mommy is having another baby?”

“Nope!” he replied, spewing cheerios as he spat the words out, “I just like baby Toby.”

His other fascination (other than my belly) is my stethoscope. He likes to come over and listen to my heart and lungs and tell me whether or not I need medicine. (He is KIND OF the expert on respiratory illnesses, having survived a fairly significant one himself.)

Tonight he got the clever idea of listening to my BELLY with the stethoscope. Finding this rather endearing, I asked him if he was listening for the baby,

“Yes!” he said excitedly.

“What’s the baby saying, Toby?”

He thought and listened for a minute and then very sweetly in a tiny voice said,

“Meeeooow!!”

No wonder he’s excited. He thinks I’m having a cat.

I'm Back! With some Exciting News to share...

…And I’m back.

My apologies for the month (maybe two?) long hiatus from blogging. But I have a somewhat good and somewhat lame excuse.

I’m pregnant.

Don’t let the boringly-punctuated-single-sentence-sans-superlatives give you the wrong idea - - Rob and I (and, to a much lesser extent, Toby) are very excited and can’t wait to meet the 4^th member of our family!

The boringly-punctuated-single-sentence-sans-superlative is there to ironically emphasize the fact that this tiny change in my uterus, of something that is apparently only 4 inches in length and 2.5 ounces in size, has thrown my entire universe out of whack such that...I stopped blogging.

My nightly ritual used to consist of playing hard with Toby after work and laughing with him as our wild adventures swirled around my head, aching to be put down on paper. After the lights were out and I sat quietly with a nice glass of red wine, relishing my alone time to reflect on my day and make some sense of it all in the form of my blog posts.

Not 2 days after this 2.5-ounce delight entered our world, my nightly ritual changed.

“Playing hard with Toby” consisted of inventing games that revolved around my lying on the couch with a blanket over my head, choking back nausea. “Wild adventures” were replaced with rapidly alternating feelings of intense hunger and nausea. Keeping up – kitchen-bathroom-kitchen-bathroom – took up a lot of my time that was spent off the couch. After the lights went out? So did mine. And oh, that relaxing glass of red wine…that is a mere 15-week-old memory at this point that has only recently started to resurface as my nausea has eased off. There have been many times in the past 4 months that I have found myself reflecting, marveling and anticipating, but those thoughts, I knew, would have to wait until it was safe to share them.

So I’m back. My posts, without red wine, may be somewhat tamer, but I’ve got new things to share and a great journey ahead with this 2.5 ounce. Thanks for sticking with me…