a look of satisfaction after eating a thanksgiving meal

This picture is two weeks old. I think this is when we were at 30 weeks. But it was taken right after a delicious Thanksgiving meal...good times.

32 weeks

Folks, we have eight more weeks until the arrival of Kumquat. Of course we are excited to meet him and to unveil his name to the world :). Kumquat is probably around 3.5 pounds right now, but I'm not too worried about him plumping up as I seem to be doing a good job of progressing nicely myself.

Last night we attended another baby class. Topics covered: C-sections, drugs, SIDS, shaken baby syndrome, and cuddling with baby. I'm definitely not a fan of learning about the "icky and bloody" part of giving birth. Makes me queasy. Right now I also get emotional and a bit sad when I learn about babies getting hurt. During a break period Curt and I were hoping that a more cheerful and happy topic would be discussed...like cuddling! And so when they talked about cuddling and communicating with baby I was really happy :). I was thinking...awwww...that's more like it, something pleasant.

Another thing that came up was the best place to have the baby sleep at night. Up until last night we just assumed that Kumquat would sleep in his crib in his room, but learned that proximity and closeness might help the little guy sleep better at night. So we are thinking about having him sleep in a bassinet type thing in our room, at least for the first few weeks. Makes sense.

Kumquat's movements are super cool and super strong. The placement of the movements is high in the womb. If i'm sitting it sometimes takes my breath away...or I'm startled by the strength and intensity. When this is happening I'm forced to look down from what I'm doing and stare at the belly. Kind of puts me in a trance. My brain is still functioning although I don't feel as quick or sharp all of the time. It's really easy to daydream about the baby. Curt has been helpful in keeping me on task!

Images from November

4th Annual Wood Salsa Competition

There were 10 totals salsas, and the competition was won by my mom (Bev) after a tie-breaker vote with my salsa (Curt).    I got a few shots of the salsa, but the Audrey, Cole and Lucy ended up being a lot more fun on camera than cut-up veggies, so they got most of the air-time in the video...

Back in Time...

(Curt writing this one):
A couple months ago on our family vacation to the Garmisch resort near Cable, WI we had a photo contest among our group. Throughout the 4 days of vacation each person was to pick their best picture from each of the four categories (Action, Humor, Nature, and Audrey) and submit them to our group of judges. We finally got around to printing off the pictures and getting them in the hands of our judges: Carolyn, Josh, Jillian, Calvin, Than and Thanh. Here were the winners:

Action Winner: This one was mine (Curt). One of the other resort guests let their dog out and it found a squirrel to chase. I love how I got the squirrel in mid-air.

Audrey Winner: This is Christine's picture. One of the nights close to sunset we went down by the water to check out the sand. This is great one.

Nature Winner: This one is my dad's (Doug). A great shot of the wild mushrooms outside our cabin. This one was a unanimous winner, capturing all the votes.

Humor Winner: This one is also my dad's. This was in downtown Hayward outside one of the shops.

30 weeks

I tracked Kumquat's movements this morning from 8-1 pm. I used the simple dash method of keeping count and counted anything that he did like: kicks, stretching out, etc. It should be noted that I ate two cookies by 10 am this morning, and had lunch #2 by 11 am. This could explain the spike in movement coming from Kumquat. Other notes: I wouldn't consider this morning to be a super active morning for Kumquat as he seemed rather subdued compared to other occasions. Also, he really favored my right side and often I felt a body part pushing really hard above my belly button (what i like to call a butt check). It just feels like a build up of pressure and I can only assume that he's trying to stretch out.

Yes, Kumquat's mom and dad are nerds because we like numbers and stats and visual representations of them. I will try to do this again sometime for a comparison, but keep in mind that I don't really have a legit baseline because I eat different things everyday :).

Other exciting things at 30 weeks? We attended our first baby class last night! We learned lots about gravity friendly positions to get him down and ready for delivery, breathing techniques, when to go to the hospital, and what position he needs to be in to come out easily. It was fun to hear stories from other couples about their pregnancy battles like how one dad was so scared from his wife waking up in the middle of the night screaming that he fell to the floor. She had a bad leg cramp. I can kind of relate because I have had 2 cases of nightly calf cramps. They definitely hurt as the pain kind of lasts throughout the day, but I can't say that I woke up screaming. Instead, I couldn't talk and tried to whimper to Curt that I needed help rubbing out the cramp. It must have been hard to understand me because at first he thought i was dreaming :). Another comical moment was when the toy baby "popped" out of the model uterus while the instructor was demonstrating why it's important for the baby to be head down...kind of like pop goes the weasel.

And yes, they did show us a live birth video. Curt likes to say that it was an eye-opener from him and and eye-closer for me. I couldn't watch it. I was the only one who didn't. Oh well.

I must say that the class was great. There were only three other couples. It's a fun way to bond with your husband. And Curt was probably the most attentive and supportive one there, which I thought was cute. The other dudes seemed slightly checked out and complacent. Having this baby will be quite the bonding experience for us!