Swaddling practice

I'm in labor!

You might be surprised to hear this, especially since I obviously took the time to blog about it, but it's true. Now, to be clear, labor might take a week or four, but I learned today at the doctor's office that I am one centimeter dilated and 50 percent effaced.

For those who don't want to be TMI-ed, stop reading now. For the curious, I found this from ncnc.essortment.com:

As the cervix thins to what is necessary for delivery, 100 percent, the cervix starts dilating and progressing in one centimeter increments. Prior to 5 centimeters a woman is considered in the early stages of labor. From 5 centimeters to 7 centimeters is the beginning of active labor. From 7 centimeters to 10 centimeters a woman is in transition and near to having her baby.

That said, the nurse practitioner said she expects my due date to be about the same -- Feb. 20 (or Feb. 18, when her daughter was born!)

C'mon spring!

The good life...

Sunday nights at Barnes and Noble with a stack of cooking magazines, hot chocolate and my hubby.

C'mon Rami!

Sure you've got the pecs, but have you got what it really takes to win Project Runway? So far I've only seen the same (albeit beautiful) draped dress week after week. I'm pulling for you in the Project Runway Pool, but you're making me nervous.

So put those braids back in your little sewing box and come out with something creative tonight, kay? Five bucks is five bucks, after all, and I didn't put my money on you just because you're pretty.

Hiccup! Hiccup! Snore. Snore. Swish. Swish.

Baby M.'s got the hiccups.

I, personally, hate the hiccups, but I love when Baby M. gets them. It's a neat feeling that is something like a light kick that happens repeatedly in my lower left abdomen. And it's a gentle reminder the baby is in there and (hopefully) doing well.

I can't hear the hiccups, but I sure can hear Addy's snoring. Let me just say that Patrick will get a big elbow in the middle of the night if he's snoring in my ear. But I can't think of many sounds I love more than a cat snoring. As gentle as Baby M.'s hiccups are, the sound of Addy's snoring is just as gentle and sweet.

It's a lovely addition to symphony of sounds in our wee apartment: the jazz playing on NPR, the sliding of Patrick's mouse across the floor, Phoebe's occasional sigh, the tapping of my fingers on the laptop or the swishing of pages turning in my latest book or magazine. If we're lucky, it's all punctuated by the periodic meow from Clarkey, who thinks he lives with the people upstairs now.

When the baby comes, we'll add a whole cadre of new sounds and will be a veritable orchestra.

The Man from Plains

Over the weekend, Patrick and I went to the Detroit Film Theater and saw the Jimmy Carter documentary following the book tour for his controversial best-seller, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” The movie reviewers were more kind than some of those reviewing his book, but not by much.

I, however, really liked the film -- even if it didn't delve enough into the actual controversy which prompted Carter's provocative title. Here's why: we don't often hear a lot of deep debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I mean, yes, we see photos and video footage of suicide bombers (or freedom fighters, depending on who's talking), but we don't often tackle the political debate or discuss the longstanding political history behind the conflict.

Yes, this documentary may have too-lovingly painted Carter as a persecuted, God-fearing do-gooder, but at least it showed that there is an actual debate on which side is right in the Palestinian-Israeli fighting. Maybe it'll do what the book did -- get people talkin'.

No better time for ice-cream

Apparently no one wants to buy ice-cream when it's negative six degrees (with the wind chill), so it's really cheap!

Best New Yorker caption submission ever!!!!

June 27, 2005 - Cartoon Caption Contest # 9



“Try telling that to the Kansas Board of Education.”
Bob Schwartz
Cincinnati, Ohio

Drawing by Alex Gregory

(Greg linked this to my comments section. Wow! And it's supposedly by someone we know!)

Week 35 -- look at that belly!

From Babycenter.com...

Your baby doesn't have much room to maneuver now that he's over 18 inches long and tips the scales at 5 1/4 pounds (pick up a honeydew). Because it's so snug in your womb, he isn't likely to be doing somersaults anymore, but the number of times he kicks should remain about the same. His kidneys are fully developed now, and his liver can process some waste products. Most of his basic physical development is now complete — he'll spend the next few weeks putting on weight.

As for mom: Your uterus — which was entirely tucked away inside your pelvis when you conceived — now reaches up under your rib cage. If you could peek inside your womb, you'd see that there's more baby than amniotic fluid in there now. Your ballooning uterus is crowding your other internal organs, too.

Funny moment sidebar: I chastise Patrick all the time for not taking pictures of me, so he said, "I was just thinking about taking some because you're so huge now."

Heh. Heh. I'm sure he meant that in a nice way.

Do-Do-Do-Slide-Swish-Turn-Do-Do-Do!

That's me doing the maternity leave dance a little early. Once it's midnight, we will officially be eligible to be paid during part of the maternity leave because we'll have been with our company for a year. If I give birth in the next 45 minutes, it's all unpaid.

(Truly, I just want a healthy baby! Getting paid is a nice bonus, though.)

Do-Do-Do-Slide-Swish-Turn-Do-Do-Do!

Do you care about democracy?

Well, then you really, really should read this story in the NY Times about the problems with the electronic voting machines. Frightening, people!

Excerpt:

As the primaries start in New Hampshire this week and roll on through the next few months, the erratic behavior of voting technology will once again find itself under a microscope. In the last three election cycles, touch-screen machines have become one of the most mysterious and divisive elements in modern electoral politics. Introduced after the 2000 hanging-chad debacle, the machines were originally intended to add clarity to election results.

But in hundreds of instances, the result has been precisely the opposite: they fail unpredictably, and in extremely strange ways; voters report that their choices “flip” from one candidate to another before their eyes; machines crash or begin to count backward; votes simply vanish. (In the 80-person town of Waldenburg, Ark., touch-screen machines tallied zero votes for one mayoral candidate in 2006 — even though he’s pretty sure he voted for himself.) Most famously, in the November 2006 Congressional election in Sarasota, Fla., touch-screen machines recorded an 18,000-person “undervote” for a race decided by fewer than 400 votes.

Is Heaven in black and white?

I have always enjoyed the New Yorker (and coveted the mountain of issues my pal, Gina, had in her apartment) but really fell in love with it a few months ago when I was at Barnes and Noble and read an engrossing and very looooong story about the perils of the olive oil trade and how it's plagued by fraud and corruption. (Take note: that fancy olive oil you're dipping your baguette in might really be hazelnut oil or some other inferior oil.)

Patrick got me a subscription for Christmas, and the first issue I received did not disappoint. I could not put down the piece about the Getty art curator who was accused in Greece and elsewhere of illegal antiquities dealing. It was like a high-drama mystery novel delivered right to my door and condensed to a manageable 8 or so pages.

This week, the story on the Giuliani campaign strategy was fascinating, and now I'm riveted by a story about a Manhattan developer's efforts to bulldoze a city block that included one of the city's oldest buildings...and one man's efforts to find the story behind the structure.

It is so nice to read compelling, well-written, long stories that actually enlighten you. The New Yorker has been especially welcome since I'm getting over a bad cold and have to plow back into bed every couple of hours or so after any activity.

Yes, it soon may be hard to keep up with the weekly delivery when we have the baby, but I'm so glad the addiction has set in.

Buddy's Pizza

Patrick and I are reveling in the fact we can still just pop by a restaurant on a whim so we ate brunch at Leon's, a family diner in Dearborn, yesterday and just dropped into Buddy's Pizza today. (We're sure all that "popping in" will change when Baby M arrives, and I've been scoping out kid-friendly places and stores/restaurants that have changing tables in the bathrooms, etc.)

Buddy's has several things going for it: It's super kid-friendly (a crying little girl drew the attention of a waitress who came over to try to make her smile today) and it has delicious pizza.

Evidence of the latter: the Food Network named it one of the top five pizza places in the nation.

Here's the list:

Pizza Places
Vicolo Pizza - San Francisco, CA
Grimaldi's - Brooklyln, NY
Waldo Pizza - Kansas City, MO
Buddy's Pizza - Detroit, MI
Jumbo's Seafood and Pizza Eatery - Wildwood, NJ

From Buddy's Web site:

In 1936, Buddy’s existed as a "blind pig," skirting the State and Federal laws that governed the on-site sale and usage of alcohol. Booze was available there. The owner at the time was August “Gus” Guerra.

In 1944, Gus turned the blind pig into a legitimate tavern, but with World War II still raging, business was suffering. In 1946, Gus decided to add Sicilian style pizza to the menu. Soon the neighbors – and out-of-towners – were becoming hooked on Gus’s unique recipe. The legend of Detroit’s original square pizza was born.

More than 61 years, and numerous awards later, Buddy's continues to serve Detroit's original square pizza, made from scratch soups, and our celebrated Antipasto salad. Over time we have added a variety items to our menu including pastas, burgers, sandwiches and more - each prepared just as they would have been in 1946 — with the freshest ingredients and an acute attention to detail.

Week 33-plus

From babycenter.com and pregnancyguideonline.com...

This week your baby weighs a little over 4 pounds and has passed the 17-inch mark. He's rapidly losing that wrinkled, alien look and his skeleton is hardening. The bones in his skull aren't fused together, which allows them to move and slightly overlap, thus making it easier for him to fit through the birth canal. (The pressure on the head during birth is so intense that many babies are born with a conehead-like appearance.) These bones don't entirely fuse until early adulthood, so they can grow as his brain and other tissue expands during infancy and childhood. At this point, the amniotic fluid is at the highest level in the pregnancy. The amount will remain constant until delivery. Rapid brain growth has increased the baby's head size approximately 3/8 of an inch this week. Fat continues to accumulate which turns the baby's skin color from red to pink.

Pig goes for a ride!