welcome to the world

Seriously, my life recently got much more awesome. That's right: more awesome... because of her:

Photo and child are mine. No one has permission to reproduce, use, or copy this image. Cloning of this child is also prohibited. She's seriously awesome but she is one of a kind. As much as you might want to, cloning of this kid will not be allowed, no matter how awesome of a scientist the scientific community claims you to be. (I'm so serious about this, I ended a sentence in a preposition and did not correct it.) Okay, you have been warned. Carry on.

finding this very haunting

alien spawn wants out of it's cocoon

Just over a month before the baby's estimated date of arrival. Currently, it totally wants to bust out of my upper stomach alien-style. It is also practicing some serious MMA fighting techniques with my bladder. Pregnancy is certainly interesting.

A little soap-boxing about how people dress (triggered by hoodies and the "pants half down the ass" look)

What people don't realize is how you present yourself to the world affects how the world views you. Sure, other droopy-pants friends think they look just fine, but there are a lot more people in the world viewing you. Of course, people should not judge by appearance alone, but we naturally perceive things first by appearance. That is the first thing we know about a person: how they look/dress/walk/talk. Story after story on the news about kids in thug-wear committing crimes helps you form a subconscious (and often conscious) correlation between thug behavior and thug wear. Then you see someone wearing a hoodie and pants half down their ass, you mind will bring up the conditioned connection. Of course, a person's character and actions are a much better gauge of who they are but we see half their ass first and start to form a preconceived idea from that.

This certainly applies to other forms of dress as well: Dressing like a hooker, wearing dirty work clothes to anywhere other than work, mixing hot pink pants/chartreuse shirt/purple blouse/one plaid/one paisley shoe/three hats/47 bangle bracelets, walking around naked at the park. I just used the hoodie/droopy pants as an example because of current events.  

(note: the thug pic above is an actual thug. Surveillance video still of a liquor store robber.)

society is going cross-eyed

Though I do believe reading is reading and any reading is good, I am disheartened (and slightly disturbed) that most of the books adults are going crazy about are ones that are written for adolescents and teens.
 

Harry Potter: age range: 9-11

Twilight: 12-17

The Hunger Games: 12-17

Certainly didn't see such enthusiasm of people grabbing copies of Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" or tweeting how every needs to read Jonah Lehrer's "Imagine: How Creativity Works."
Do you think this is a reflection of society?

wow

Time keeps on ticking, ticking, ticking... into the future. Been busy building my private practice and growing this little one inside me. Such a crazy wonderful time.

baby signs

I'm totally going to teach my baby sign language. Maybe I should teach Greg, too.

oh baby

I am so blessed and grateful that my pregnancy has been uneventful thus far. Besides some minor "ickies" like heartburn and difficulty feeling comfortable through a full night sleep, it is really a wonderful experience. All the tests keep coming back with good results and I feel completely at ease with the whole process. Of course, there are also enjoyable things like pregnancy dreams.

My wonky dreams have touched on different topics:

An entire dream about a waffle iron that was half flat, missing the lovely little waffle craters

Another entire dream about undercooked rice pilaf

One about Harry Connick, Jr. having a crush on me

In another one, a woman was re-insulating my attic. (In real life, she went to my elementary school when we were kids.) The attic was huge, much larger than the house's footprint, and there was a huge picture window that was rotting out and letting in tons of rain water despite it being sunny outside.

My most recent dream involved me spontaneously deciding to run a 10K without any training. All the while I was thinking, "this is probably not a good idea while pregnant," yet I kept running.

One hundred and fifty two days until my estimated due date. That's a whole lot of opportunity for a whole lot of wonky pregnancy dreams.