Baby Bump in all its glory...

This is for my lovely friends out of state who want to see my baby bump :) I'm 24 weeks along now (which is 5 full months, starting my 6th...) and I feel like a million bucks!! I'm hungry. I'm gonna go eat an apple!

Ninja baby!!

I swear, sometimes it feels like I have a ninja inside of me!!!

The Road Less Traveled

"Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference."
~Robert Frost

Today was an amazing spring day, so Jon and I partook in my favorite Sunday afternoon pasttime. We took a long, intimate walk along Minnehaha Creek taking in the sun and the smells. The breeze carried the scent of the water, the earth, the promise of green things to come. But most was still brown and recovering from the long, rollar-coaster winter. Not even the grass had persisted through the decomposing layer of leftover autumn leaves. The path split and we walked along the dirt path with our fingers laced. And suddenly we came upon a lush patch of little blue flowers. Its lively contrast to the drab landscape took us both by surprise. It was just the spark we we needed to know that change was just around the corner. Isn't that always the case? When we find ourselves on the dirt paths of our lives, God brings us a joyous splash of life and promise that we need to continue and persist. That makes all the difference.

Beethoven's Ninth...a classy joke!

I guffawed when Jon read this to me...hope you get a chuckle out of it, too!!

A number of years ago, the Seattle Symphony was doing
Beethoven's Ninth under the baton of Milton Katims.

At this point, you must understand two things:

  1. There's a long segment in this symphony where
the bass violins don't have a thing to do. Not a
single note for page after page.
  2. There used to be a tavern called Dez's 400,
right across the street from the Seattle Opera House,
rather favored by local musicians.

It had been decided that during this performance,
after the bass players had played their parts in the
opening of the Ninth, they were to quietly lay down
their instruments and leave the stage rather than sit
on their stools looking and feeling dumb for twenty
minutes.

Once they got backstage, someone suggested that they
trot across the street and quaff a few brews. After
they had downed the first couple rounds, one said,
"Shouldn't we be getting back? It'd be awfully
embarrassing if we were late."

Another, presumably the one who suggested this
excursion in the first place, replied, "Oh, I
anticipated we could use a little more time, so I tied
a string around the last pages of the conductor's
score. When he gets down to there, Milton's going to
have to slow the tempo way down while he waves the
baton with one hand and fumbles with the string with
the other."

So they had another round and finally returned to the
Opera House, a little tipsy by now. However, as they
came back on stage, one look at their conductor's face
told them they were in serious trouble. Katims was
furious! And why not? After all...

It was the bottom of the Ninth, the score was tied,
and the basses were loaded. 

NEW Adventures in the Life of Brenda #2: I'm not the only one enjoying spring break

So I'm kind of on spring break. We don't have school, but I'm working a couple days with the extended-care program...aka glorified daycare. Today we went on a field trip to the Como Zoo. We saw a penguin poop on the floor and eat a fish, a monkey pick another monkey's nose, and a giraffe walk in sad circles in a small "winter shelter." But the highlight of the day came when we visited the lions' rooms. All the kids gathered around the windows looking over the lions as they napped. All the commotion must have disturbed the lions because the woke up and stretched. Then they commenced to...mate. In front of my 25 kids. We three chaperones just gave each other the best disguised "I can't believe this is happening!" looks behind our hands. After the kids grew less interested in their "wrestling" I said, "Well, it is spring break...!"

Baby "Norbert" Update: Brenda's feet and Jon's forehead

I started feeling the baby kick 2 weeks ago as I lay on the floor listening to my mom tell a story about leprechauns. I don't think the two events were related. Now I am 19 weeks and 2 days (which puts my due date around August 15) and just starting to pop out enough to wear the oh-so-comfy elastic maternity pants!!

Today was a special occasion. We got our mid-pregnancy ultrasound!! We had already gotten a preview of our little squirmy-pot at 12 weeks while we were searching for the heartbeat. But seeing the little tike today was like peeking in the nursery. "Norbert" was playing with his umbilical cord and showed us all 5 of his (or her) little fingers splayed open in a wave to mom and dad. We saw the miracle of the beating heart, the baby practicing breathing, we even saw him turn over and face us. From the pictures we are guessing that the baby made a good decision and chose mommy's slender feet with her "monkey toes" over daddy's extra wide, high-arch, crooked-toed hobbit feet. We are also guessing that "Norbert" has daddy's forehead, but that doesn't necessarily mean daddy's hairline :)

"Norbert" is the nickname we've given to Baby while in utero so we don't have to always say "it" or "the baby." We are also more apt to use masculine pronouns just because we are so used to using masculine pronouns to mean both he and she (we do the same thing when we read "masculine" pronouns in the Bible when speaking to mankind in general). "Norbert" is also very ambitious at this point and is 8 days ahead of schedule. But that's subject to change from week to week.

And no, we didn't ask for the gender, nor did Baby decide to reveal his or her little secret obviously enough for mom or dad to come to any conclusions on their own. Jon and I are both thinking it's a boy, although we'd both be just ecstatic with a girl!! We have some names in our lottery, but aren't giving any hints. If you'd like to put in your two cents on what you think we should name it, go ahead. But we won't listen to you :)

NEW Adventures in the Life of Brenda #1: The Destruction of Mary Poppins

Anyone who knows me knows that I have an entourage of absurd little anecdotes (not to be confused with ANTIDOTES) that I collect from my absurd little life to share to get a laugh. I'm not very funny or witty in real life, except when absurd little things happen to me, and so I am perfecting the art of story-telling so as to have some sort of humerous vein to pass on to my children. I will actually probably only pass on the klutziness, gracelessness, absent-mindedness, and goofiness that makes such stories possible, but none-the-less, I have tried. Now with a new co-star to share the limelight and often set the stage of my Adventures, I have found I must create a new, creative, and fantastic name to my anecdotes so I have come up with: DUH-duh-DAAAAH!!! Crash! "NEW Adventures in the Life of Brenda!" For that reason, I shall also start the counter over at 1 (and since I don't remember where the counter left off in the OLD adventures...) Thus commences Adventure #1...

It's about Mary Poppins and my husband's unquenchable desire to see the movie now that he was grown. UNQUENCHABLE DESIRE. Poppins was on his mind for MONTHS. After hearing quotes, songs, and the occasional "Ode to Poppins" from him, I finally suggested renting it. It seemed like everything was against Jon being re-united with Poppins. First a lengthy, painful, Blockbuster membership form. Then a fussy car who refused to start. Poppins seemed to mock us from her little plastic case. Jon glared at her, a look filled with greed and malice. Soon, Poppins. Very, very soon. Finally we arrived back home to pop-in the Poppins. But...

"Um, Jon...the DVD case won't open..."
A firey silence smoldered in the tiny apartment.
"...what...??"
The yellow security strip was still intact!
What happened next was like a blur. I backed away into the livingroom as Jon carefully got up and retrieved a pliers from the hall closet. He then went to work operating on the Poppins. A few moments and several manly grunts later he was triumphantly holding the yellow strip in the air, with the DVD case in a hundred pieces on the dining room table. Thankfully, the Poppins was not harmed in this procedure. We enjoyed the video, especially the dancing penguins!

The next day was when we felt a little sheepish about our actions. We ate our breakfast in silence around the bits of plastic and paper that used to be the Poppins' home. We didn't know how we would explain it to Blockbuster. So for weeks we pretended it didn't exist and hid the Poppins. Finally, one blustery night, I mustered up the courage to fess up to Blockbuster, admit our crime of impatience and pay whatever fine they threw at us. But do you know what they did after I showed them the pitiful mess we hacked apart? They credited us a free rental, took responsibility for the destruction, and apologized! That was not the response I was expecting!

I am thankful for the outcome, although I always check our rentals for the little yellow strip when I leave the video store now! I also learned that Jon will not be outwitted by little piece of plastic. When logic fails, that's when muscles come in.