Bumpwatch: Week 34

Merry Christmas from Aethelbertormyrtilla! Apologies for another missed week -- we are getting slack in our third trimester.

Bumpwatch: Week 32

Sorry, we missed a week!

Bumpwatch: Week 30

Bumpwatch: Week 29 & more

We were in Atlanta this weekend.



We saw Tom, Meredith, Harry, Ashleigh and Courtney. We learned all about Dooley, a skeleton who goes about the Emory campus praising and censuring students for their behavior, much like the guilt mime. Here he is:



We went to the aquarium, where I saw my favourite penguins:



as well as some fish:



Meredith made us a very nice hippopotamus. We had a bit of trouble getting him home, since he wouldn't quite fit in a bag. Here we are at the airport.



However, we got him home eventually, along with the blanket that Madeline made me in 1979!

Registry

Here is a link to our registry at Babies 'R' Us. It's only because people have asked us to publish it, I swear! We're not grasping and materialistic, honest!

PS -- new poll. Exciting, eh?

Bumpwatch: Week 28

Bumpwatch in DC this week.

Bumpwatch: Week 27

Happy Halloween!





Aethelbert is dressed as a pumpkin for his first Halloween. We're off to Robin's house to distribute candy to the hordes of children on Harper Ave. It's going to be my job to design and build costumes for Aethelbert as needed. How do you like my first effort with the marker pen?

Baby product namers: take note!

As we found when putting together our baby registry, there's something really weird about baby-product names. In the first place, baby companies have grotesquely twee names, like "Natures Purest" (btw: where's your apostrophe!), "Kiddopotamus," "Summer Infant" and the like. Incidentally, there's actually something a bit horrible about the notion of a kiddopotamus, but anyway.

In the second place, companies that have these twee names then give their products titles that are equally twee, but which don't quite sit right with the company name, leading to weird mixed metaphors and peculiar images. For instance, the "Summer Infant Dr. Mom Brush and Comb Set". Is the name supposed to evoke a freakishly clever child doctor a la Doogie Howser, but summery-er? Or a combination doctor-mother who ministers only to children born between June and September?

Sometimes products just sound strange, like the "Natures Purest Bassinet -- Hug Me." Who, me? And why should I hug a bassinet, even if it is the purest one? Or the Koala Baby Frog Stripe Super Towel -- for when an ordinary towel just won't do. Or the Summer Infant Mother's Touch Large Comfort Bather. This, the blurb tells me, is a product to help you bathe especially large babies. I like the way that Summer Infant have attempted to allude to this euphemistically by suggesting that the bather gives an especially large amount of comfort to one's baby, but have ended up with merely a baffling product name that neither sounds attractive nor explains what the item is for.

Then, perhaps best of all, there are the products which combine weird saccharine imagery with the utilitarian business of explaining what the product is actually for -- these things have a Philip-K.-Dick style uncanny feeling about them. In this line we have the "Kiddopotamus SwaddleMe Organic Cotton Adjustable Infant Wrap" -- only for adjustable infants! By the way, check out the ghastly photoshopping on the picture for this one -- fear the tiny-headed baby! Also see: the Natures Purest Sleepy Safari Diaper Stacker -- because when I think of diapers I always think "purity." Or "safari."

Mmm

What do you think of when you think of baby food? Maybe some wholesome fruit puree:



Or how about some blitzed-up chicken and noodles? Hearty!



Or how about these?



Yes, that's right, it says "meat sticks." Tiny hot dogs suspended in some kind of preserving liquid. I dread to think. Now surely stuff that's not safe for pregnant women to eat shouldn't be given to babies. Making it tiny doesn't change the fact that it's made from hoof-and-eyelid emulsion...still, could be worse. At least there's no baby cheeseoning.

Weekend of cooking and fun

We were just having too much fun to post last weekend. Richard visited, and brought sherry:



Then Dave, Amara, Melissa and Chris came over and we cooked lasagna (or lasagne, according to your nationality), making our own pasta, mozzarella and ricotta. Here's the ricotta draining:



Yes, we drained the cheese in baby's first bathroom.



Sorry baby. However Elizabeth was able to eat the cheese even though it was fresh cheese because we made it ourselves, with pasteurized milk. Take that, guilt mime!

Bumpwatch: Week 26

Belated bumpwatch:

Bumpwatch: Week 25

Our new place

Here it is, unpacked at last!

Living room...

dining area...

extra kitchen bit outside the kitchen...

aethelbert's room -- nothing much here yet except books...

except baby's first shower curtain. Because every baby needs his own bathroom.

Bumpwatch: Week 24

Note the new maternity yoga pants. It's not so weird that they don't have a fly because yoga pants never have one.

Out our window

For those who've been asking to photos of our new apartment, we'll get round to it shortly, I promise! In the mean time, here's our view of the city. It's kind of better in real life than in this photo, plus the screen isn't so obvious...we took one of the sailing boats we could see on the lake, too, but they came out like tiny white dots on a miniscule sliver of blue in the far background, so I didn't post it!

Bumpwatch: Week 23

Bumpwatch: Week 22

Here's this week's photo:

Second Trimester Ultrasound

After this we got our second-trimester ultrasound done, and found out we'll be having an Aethelbert (thus rendering the title of this blog obsolete, but we'll deal with that another day). We were quite excited, but not as excited as the ultrasound technician, who gave us three pictures just of the penis. I'll spare you those here; instead, here are the profile shots we also got.

Other stuff

All sorts of stuff has been going on since we last posted! First Tom's parents came to stay. Here we are at North Pond:



Before that we went to The Violet Hour for cocktails. Can you guess which one is Elizabeth's?





No, it's OK -- it's the water.

Bumpwatch: Week 21

Hello there. Apologies for having missed a couple of weeks -- we've been very busy moving to our new apartment. Having decided to move out come what may we managed to sell our old apartment at the last minute. Hooray! Anyhow, that's taken up all our time lately -- but we've finally unpacked the boxes of books, built the Ikea furniture etc. So, back to the blog. Here's last week's bumpwatch.

Beardwatch

So, here's a question: my beard: summer fling or lasting relationship? What do you think?

Bumpwatch: Week 19

Funny things about maternity clothes #1

See these maternity jeans?

They come with an entirely fake fly!:

Check it out. There's a big stretchy waistband, so there's no need for a fly at all -- and it's really only half a fake fly anyway! Weird, eh? I suppose maternity trousers designers thought it would look even weirder to have fly-less jeans.

Bumpwatch: Week 18

Of note: E. has a smart new haircut. Also, check out all the boxes! Only 13 days to go till we're in the new apartment!

In other pregnancy news, unhealthy food cravings have begun. After weeks of Eliz. craving only wholesome fruit, Tom was sent out on Friday night to purchase: ice cream, mini ice-cream bars, Nutella, cinnamon rolls and mini chocolate bars.

Bumpwatch: Week 17

Indubitably bumpish. Books stacked on the floor are because we're moving house. Hooray!

The Pregnancy Guilt Mime*

We're so grateful for the advice of people we barely know, many of whom give freely of their time and opinions to tell us just what we're doing wrong in our pregnancy, without even needing to be asked. However, we feel bad about taking people away from their important daily tasks in order to dispense pregnancy wisdom to us. They must be missing out on all sorts of other activities. Haven't they got anything better to do with their time? we repeatedly ask one another. In order to spare people from the chore of having to give us unsolicited medical advice, therefore, we've decided to enlist the help of a pregnancy guilt mime. The guilt mime is constantly on the lookout, ready to spring into action with a stern disapproving face whenever Elizabeth might be about to do anything that might threaten to knock a point or two off Aethelbert-or-Myrtilla's eventual IQ.

Here are some examples. Tempted to reach for a slice of lovely ham, E?

Better not. Think of those carcinogenic nitrates.

Don't fancy that massive dietary supplement pill?

That's better.

You get the idea. Apparently the occasional glass of wine is fine, though.**

Only joking.

*with thanks to Michael Meeuwis.
**People actually keep telling us this, weirdly.

Bumpwatch: Week 16

Home again!

Bumpwatch: Week 15

Apologies to anyone eagerly awaiting new pictures of Elizabeth in her yoga outfit. We've been away in Massachusetts and New Jersey. We had a few adventures, detailed below. First, however:

Bumpwatch migrates to Teaneck. This week it's pretty unequivocally bumplike. Plus we heard A-or-M's heart for the first time at our doctor's appointment today. Baby heartbeats go really fast. Maybe it's claustrophobic and is stressed out from spending so much time in a confined space.