Blue ribbon day

From the get go, I knew I was having a boy. I knew it. I wasn't happy about it at first (girls are more affectionate! They talk about feelings! Their clothes are cuter and their names are more fun!), but I talked myself into an acceptance of my fate, and that acceptance eventually became excitement. Yesterday, when I woke up for my doctor's appointment - the one that would tell us once and for all just what it was I was building in there - I actually thought "oh no, what if it's a girl? I don't want a girl." Progress.

By the time we got the official word - yes, boy - I was both completely unsurprised and thrilled. "I knew it!" I shouted, jabbing a finger in the direction of the ultrasound tech. Beside me, Oliver nodded wordlessly. We make a lovely couple, don't we?

After the appointment, I skipped along the blocks to the subway station. "Boy! boy! boy!", the running chorus in my head. I passed people on the street, attempting to pierce them down to their souls with my happiness. "Boy! boy! boy!" On a corner of 29th somewhere between Madison Avenue and Broadway, I noticed a church with an installation of some sort along its fence. Big blue and yellow ribbons were tied to the rail, thousands of them. A white tag with a name and number hung from each. Still bouncing, but with my interest piqued, I glanced at them as I passed. I figured out pretty quickly that the numbers were ages, and that the names had military titles attached - private, corporal, sergeant.

Oh.

How many of those boys' mothers skipped along at one point, shouting "boy!" to themselves and making all sorts of plans? How many of them had daily conversations with their unborn little ones, saying things like "I'm always going to be here; you'll never be alone," and "I'll never let anything hurt you"? Who am I to think I can make promises like those? How can I possibly fight against all those forces out there, any one of which can crush me at will?

I can make him a radical pacifist with an affinity for Canada. That's for starters.

Surviving the summer

I'm not an air conditioning sort of person. I don't mind sweating out the occasional hot streak, and I love ceiling fans. I also love open windows, simplicity, and saving money. And so on and so forth.

So yeah, sweat. The last few summers haven't really involved sweat so much as cooler weather, ceiling fans (bless their hearts!), and our lone rotating fan that occasionally swept over me as I went about my business. This summer has been different. It topped 100 a couple weeks ago, and has regularly pushed well past 90 in the days since. The air has occasionally been uncomfortably humid and there have been air quality warnings. We have spent many evenings slouching listlessly on the couch, eating applesauce and bran flakes for dinner (I ain't turning on no stove!), and letting the dishes pile up (I ain't letting no hot water touch my hands!). Our third-floor apartment has little air circulation, and it has been a little bit brutal.

We've made it this far though, and I think we're going to make it all the way. A few things that have made it all possible:


*Pillow in the freezer. Yes, the pillow comes out smelling faintly of damp cardboard. Oh well.

*Wet washcloth in the freezer. Comes out of the freezer NOT smelling like cardboard. Bonus!

*Cold shower after work. This cools me down for a good 30 minutes. Bliss!

*Running ice cubes over my arms and neck. 

*Putting a box fan in the window. It pulls in the cool air at night, letting me sleep peacefully.

*Going to the movies, where there is always air conditioning. Would I have seen Toy Story 3 and the Karate Kid if it weren't a million degrees out? Probably not.

*Sitting on a couch made of ice. Okay, that one's not real. I can't tell you how many times I've wished it was, though.


Only six weeks until September.

A few thoughts on pregnancy

**Warning: if 3-D ultrasound photos creep you out, do not scroll down.**

I have no plans to turn this blog into an all-pregnancy-all-the-time kind of place. Nor do I, for that matter, intend to make it an all-about-my-baby-all-the-time thing, when that point comes. Since both are a pretty big thing in my life though (the first now, the second later), I'll write about each with some regularity. This is Steffblogg, after all. It's not Alliblog. Ugh. Alliblog. What a horrible name. The whole point of it has always been two pronged. First, to give me an outlet to write about things I want to share. Secondly, to give people an idea of what our life here is like. Especially Oliver's mom. He's a man of few words on the phone, and I know he doesn't tell her about 9/10 of what goes on with us. Sorry about that, Konni.

I'm one-third of the way through this pregnancy, and I've been thinking about it a lot (Shocking, I know). It's been really positive so far, and really interesting. Some things that have really gotten me thinking:

1. I don't think I can properly describe in words just how good it has made me feel when people react with real excitement and happiness to the news. I've gotten cards, hugs, promises of handmade gifts, multiple exclamation points (via email), and declarations of "you just made my day!" I know I'm stating the obvious here, but other people sharing my excitement... it's the greatest feeling. It makes me want to go find a friend / relative, hear some good news, and shower that person with well wishes. 

2. I know I'm going to eat these words in a few months... but I'm really impatient to start looking pregnant. I've got a little bump, but it's so small that it's probably mistaken for a regular paunch. The aftermath of a big lunch maybe. I want the cute, medium-sized bump! I even bought a t-shirt for it last week: navy blue with a cute design and the words "two hearts that beat as one". Sappy? Perhaps. Don't judge me!

3. If you go onto Google and type in a symptom - any symptom - and the word "pregnancy", there will be hits. Aside from the obvious ones: bloating, cramps, constipation, backaches, nausea, exhaustion, etc., there are things like "hot feet", "numb fingertips", "nodules on the gums" and "drooling". Drooling? Good lord... Who knew this was such a carnival freakshow of medical issues? And here I was worried about farting in public.

It's all worth it, though. Here's a picture of the little one. It was taken about three weeks ago, so things have probably changed since then. Still:

Weekend in the Quiet Corner

You might remember me saying that we were going to Martha's Vineyard for the 4th of July weekend. Plans changed, as so many plans have changed this year (sometime I'll tell you about the dozen different summer trips we mapped out before actual flights were booked). Unsure how well three months of pregnancy and three nights of tent sleeping would mix, I canceled our campground reservations only to discover that all hotels were already booked. Ah well. Next year, perhaps?

Instead, we found ourselves in Connecticut's "Quiet Corner", a sleepy, somewhat bucolic area in the north of the state. We stayed at a beautiful B & B, wandered down country roads, snuck into a corn field (being careful, of course, not to disturb any of the corn), swam in a pool, saw fireworks. On the actual 4th, we went to Woodstock's annual 4th of July Jamboree. This place was almost unreal in its small-town Americana charm. There was a frog jumping contest for kids(' frogs). There was a pie eating contest (not for frogs). The ladies of the church sold strawberry shortcake with homemade biscuits. A band played in the gazebo - the band meets once a month in the local church basement, and its leader invited members of the general public to come and join anytime.

The festival's high point was the parade - it was the coolest, folksiest, small towniest parade I've ever seen. The elderly veterans marched first, followed by a marching band of local citizens. The town's kids came next - it seemed like every single one was there - on bikes decked out with balloons, red-white-and-blue streamers, and stuffed animals. A string of vintage cars followed, and the local fire trucks closed things out. Short, simple. 

 the view

 the corn (way more than knee high, by the way)

 measuring the frog's jump

fancy bikes in the parade

(And on an unrelated note, Germany lost its game today. I've written about the team a couple times, so I thought I'd complete the story arc with a mention of their demise. A sad day indeed.)

Deutschland Tor!

Germany won another World Cup game this weekend, beating Argentina to move on to the semifinals. We watched it at a local sports bar, and I have to say it was more than a little strange to see Oliver drinking a beer at 10 am. Ah well. That's how it's done, I guess.

The actual strategy/athletics part of the sport still sort of makes my eyes glaze over, but I've found other ways to amuse myself. A couple things I've noticed:

Mesut Oezil. This picture doesn't really show it, but he has the biggest, saddest eyes I've ever seen. He runs around the field looking like an abandoned puppy. And he's 21 - a little baby! I want to take him home - teach him to read, give him a soft toy to play with.

Bastian Schweinsteiger (in black). The literal translation of his last name is "pig climber." Pig climber. Heh heh. Oh, the schoolyard taunts he must have dealt with. Guess he's laughing now, though. All the way to the bank.

And of course, there's Joachim. Looking sharp as always, my friend.

Seriously, this World Cup thing is turning out to be a lot of fun. It helps of course, when the team you're rooting for keeps winning its games. We joke that if it were possible, we'd sneak a tiny Germany jersey and soccer ball into the womb. May as well get the whole family in on the fun, right?