Some thoughts on pregnancy and childbirth, from someone staring it in the face

So, I have two general beliefs about pregnancy and childbirth. The first is that it is a natural, healthy, necessary part of human life. I've had many people tell me this. (Though, I might add, never a woman in late pregnancy or who just gave birth.) As in, "pregnancy is such a sacred and beautiful time of life!" Or, "women have been giving birth in the fields for thousands of years!" Or, "I know a woman who delivered a baby while driving/mountain climbing/checking her email!" Meaning, we should be able to naturally and fairly uneventfully carry and deliver our babies the good ol' fashioned way.

The second is that there are a lot of natural, healthy, and necessary parts of life that are pretty dramatic and destructive. Like lions mauling gazelles, praying mantises eating their mates, and wildfires. That's pretty much what I think about at the end of every day when I can barely move because there's no room for this baby anymore and none of my bodily functions seems to be functioning properly, and I lie awake in bed reliving every moment of my last three birth "experiences." And I wonder if I will ever feel normal again, or have the energy it seems everyone else has, or eat a full meal, or sleep on my stomach.

That's about where I am at the moment. Dwelling on #2 while trying to remember #1. But check back in a month or so, and I'm sure I'll have forgotten all about this and be advertising the glories of pregnancy and natural childbirth. Maybe.

Kevin the chef

The other night, Kevin was sauteing some mushrooms and onions. He has this technique where the food flies several inches in the air, and then he catches them again without dropping any. Nellie saw it and was very impressed. I remember being pretty impressed by it myself in our early days of marriage! I asked her, "didn't you know that Daddy used to be a chef?" Now, chef might not exactly be the right word. I mean, he was a prep and fry cook at TGI Fridays, and a grill cook at a pub in Kalamazoo. Anyway, you'd have thought I told her Kevin used to be the king of England. She yelled to Annie, "Daddy used to be a chef!" Then she asked, very excitedly but in complete seriousness, "did you talk like this? One mo-ment, zare eez a problem weeth zee moo-stosh. Okay, zee moo-stosh eez feexed [twirling imaginary mustache]"--or, "One moment, there is a problem with the mustache. Okay, the mustache is fixed." Basically, she wanted to know if he spoke in a French accent and had a long curled mustache.

She comes up with a lot of stuff, but that one had us laughing hard.

Some favorite DJ sayings

Finally, I am better able to understand DJ when he's talking to me. Which is all the time. Both of us are less frustrated with this arrangement, though he still needs to be patient with me sometimes, and repeat the same thing over and over again. I do have a few faves when it comes to his new words and phrases.

1. Gamma Loon-ah (i.e., Grandma Linda)

2. Tanks. Made mine self! (i.e., Thanks. I made it myself!) As in, we're riding in the car, and he's in the back blowing raspberries. Me: Wow DJ, those are some really loud tooting noises! DJ: Tanks! Made mine self!

It gets me every time!

3. Dam-mam-it! (i.e., Dagnabbit!) Okay, this one is our fault. We got a kick out of that Geiko commercial with Old MacDonald in a spelling bee (watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zebvFBNZ3Mg&feature=kp), and started saying "Dagnabbit!" all the time. Urban Dictionary defines it as, "Oldcootism used during great consternation or surprise. Used by 1890’s prospectors, cantankerous old farmers, and young people playing old people on TV in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s." But the way it comes out of DJ's mouth just sounds so wrong, and so funny. If you hear him say it, please don't be alarmed.

A few bits about Nellie

Oh, Nellie. She's getting too smart for her own good, and way too smart for ours. Creative and wild, sensitive and stubborn. And the things she says! Here are just a few Nellie-isms from the last couple of days:

"Hey mom, sometimes when I eat meat I try to get it stuck in my teeth. Then later, I get it out and it's like a little snack. That just happened."

"Deleting the part about about the snapping, I really like snapping turtles."

And caught on the whiteboard at Woldumar: "Penel-ville. President  = Penelope Rose. Sidekick = Annie."

Nellie may not share Annie's quiet, sweet spirit (spirited, as it turns out, is something quite different), but I shouldn't underestimate her thoughtfulness and the encouragement she gives. For example, I've spent the last two months coding lessons for evidence of student engagement. I just finished the last lesson Friday morning. Every time I finish a lesson, I go back and tally the results for each student. By hand. Which is kind of embarrassing, because there are certainly way more sophisticated ways of doing that, including fancy qualitative research software that I was too cheap to invest in. Anyway, it means that there are little slips of paper all over the house with the students' pseudonyms and tally marks. I found one on my nightstand Friday afternoon with a note that read, "Good job Mom! Love - Guess Who?" Seriously, I want to frame it.

She's also planning a baby shower for me. It was completely Nellie's idea, and I wasn't quite sure what to do because although I explained that moms don't usually have showers for their fourth baby, she's really excited about it. She spent an hour after school planning it last week, then wrote the following Facebook message to my mom: "Hi grandma! Can I come over this Saturday to plan a baby shower with you? Here are some of my starts.
 Date: May 31, 2014. For: Jamie Wernet. Blue, green, yellow, and white jelly beans. Blue and white balloons and one should say it's a boy if you can find one. A cake that's blue and white, streamers of any color, party hats, punch, fruit like apples, oranges, pears, peaches, and a vegetable tray. Milk and napkins. I am inviting the Wacyks and some Wernets plus Pam Harrington. I U - Nellie and you can plan some things to We can say the other details in the invitations."

I'm looking forward to it--Nellie has LOTS of fun ideas about what people do at a baby shower.

It gave me a circle-of-life moment, because I remember Erin (11 at the time) planning a shower for my mom when she was pregnant with Emily, and I didn't think it was at all unusual. The only thing I can recall about the shower itself was that my great-grandma Nellie, Nellie's namesake, beat the pants off all of us in this game where you had to pick tiny safety pins out of a bowl of rice while blindfolded. She was about 95 years old.

So, 6-going-on-7 Nellie is a ball of energy and fun. She makes life interesting for everyone who knows her, undoubtedly. And of course, we wouldn't change a thing.