A Thousand Words: Family History

Read my latest post on The Nervous Breakdown:

The stories start right after Sunday lunch.

We are all crammed around our tiny kitchen table – me, my brother, my parents, my fraternal grandmother, and my maternal grandfather. The table only fits four, so my Dad is sitting on the office chair brought out from the living room and I am sitting on a small, red leather stool that’s usually in the hallway. I am wedged between my brother, my grandfather, and the dishwasher.

Our Sunday lunches – golden chicken soup, Wiener schnitzel with potatoes and cucumber salad, brownies – start late and end quickly. Toward the end of the meal the others know what is coming and they start to scramble towards the living room right after the last bite of dessert.
It is probably my position at first – too far from the door with no obvious escape route – that makes me the perfect audience for my grandfather’s stories. Later I feel too polite and too invested to get up and leave with the others.

So I load the dishwasher and sit back on my little red stool and prepare myself for a long afternoon.

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Moving right along

Yesterday was my 16-week appointment, even though technically I will be 17-weeks on Saturday. (Side note: I always found it totally annoying when people used to say 16 weeks instead of four months. It required me to do some quick math in my head. And now here I am doing the same thing!)

I got to hear the baby's heartbeat - blupblupblupblupblup - and the doctor measured my belly. "Wow, it got big!" he exclaimed and I wanted to punch him just a little bit. First of all, it's not even that big, second of all, I still look like I am just fat.

I started a prenatal yoga class this week and I was the chubby girl amongst all the pregnant women. I had some serious belly envy. I know it's coming and I know it all depends on body type, but come on! What can I say? Patience was never one of my strengths.

The big day is 9/9/09 when we will find out the baby's gender. Can't wait! Hopefully he/she won't be shy and will show us the goods. We also started to look at daycare centers - ugh. It's a bit daunting, not to mention weird to be thinking about passing baby off somewhere before I even met him/her. The first place we saw was OK, but it was all very cluttered and dark and messy. We are going to see another one this afternoon, so I am hoping for the best. Although, what the "best" might be is still yet to be determined.