Kings of the Road

Stella is three weeks old today–my oh my how the time flies. In just one week, she’ll be a month old! Before I know it, she’ll be getting her driver’s license.

We attempted a little photo shoot today to mark the occasion:

Stella’s first bath in the baby bathtub was a success! Before today, I had only given her sponge baths. Since her umbilicus fell off last week (ohmahgod my baby is growing up so quickly; she already lost her umbilical stump!), and the last of the scab is finally gone, I decided to give her a “big-girl bath.”

She just loved it! She loved being naked, and having warm water poured over her. She only got upset when I took her out, started drying her off, and put her clothes on. In fact, she got so upset that I had to read her a chapter in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to calm her down. I think it helped when I explained that unlike poor Charlie Bucket, who only gets one tiny chocolate bar once a year on his birthday, we have chocolate everyday in this family. She promptly fell asleep.

Stella is two weeks old today! We just got back from her two-week check up, and the doctor said she’s doing “great.” He noted that she is very strong, and that she is eating like a champ–she’s gained a pound in about 10 days. It is pretty obvious that she’s eating well–she’s getting a little chubby chin and rolls on her tiny little arms. She’s been hitting up the 24-hour BK Buffet.

We are so excited to announce the arrival of Stella Moxie King, born April 16th, 2008. She weighed in at a whopping 8lbs 15oz and 21 3/4 inches long. She has a head of long reddish-brown hair and big blue eyes like her daddy.

After an unexpected C-section both mommy and baby are doing fine.

Here is a link to some additional pictures.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bethanyking/sets/72157604585766692/

Larry is going to twitter the labor and birth of the baby.* Well, he’s going to try, although I have my doubts that when things get really heavy that he’ll want/remember to do it. (What I mean is, he’s supposed to be my Labor Coach–I need him to coach me, not type messages into the phone every five minutes. So we’ll see.) Even if the updates are not every five minutes, he’ll definitely have the birth announcement and a little picture of the baby whenever she finally arrives. For those of you unfamiliar with Twitter, it’s a useful web application for staying in touch with friends and family. You can create little 140-character messages that people “following” you can see. Sort of like a mini-blog. Or stalking.

Any hoosier, you can follow the twitter labor and birth updates over there —> to the right, see it up there, at the top of this blog? Or better yet, come on, don’t be a laggard, be a first mover! Sign up for twitter yourself! Here’s the link: http://twitter.com/. Sign up, and then you can “follow” LAKing, Larry’s handle on twitter. You can even choose to receive text messages on your phone every time he twitters. You can leave the house, go to the movies, go shopping, or even get a pedicure while I am laboring. It’ll be like you’re right there.

*he really wants to AUDIO RECORD the labor and birth. My response was: are you fucking kidding me?

Ever since Larry and I moved into the townhouse, there has been something living in the vent above the microwave oven in the kitchen.

The first time I heard them, as my mom and I were unpacking the kitchen, I freaked out a bit. I like animals, but not wild ones living in my house. My overactive imagination assumed that it was a family of pterodactyls or giant R.O.U.S.’s (Rodents of Unusual Size, duh.) I positioned a scary looking plastic iguana in the cupboard over the microwave to scare away any critters should they find a way out.

However, I soon heard little tweets and chirps, and realized that birds had taken up residence. Smart birds, obviously, because the vent surely stayed much warmer than any raggedy nest they could have lived in outside in January. To get them to shut up, I’d turn the fan on, but it didn’t do much. I called the property managers, and they sent pest control out to ‘take care’ of the situation. They determined that it would be too hard to remove them from the vent, so we were to let them live there until they were old enough to fly out, at which point they would cover up the vent opening on the outside of the house.

Naturally, I befriended my little freeloaders. Every morning, they chirped when they heard me in the kitchen, and I’d say hello, and ask how they were doing. I gave them names: Mustang Sally was the mom, and the babies were Eleanor Rigby, Lovely Rita and Michelle Ma Belle. The babies hit puberty in February, and they got louder (presumably lots of fights with Sally, door slamming, etc.) They also became mean, and would laugh at me if I dropped or spilled something. Little bird bitches, they don’t know how good they had it, living in the vent.

Being the smart little birds that they were, I’m fairly certain that they were building an amusement park for birds, complete with rides and funnel cakes. Inside our vent.

Larry noticed that they were flying in and out of the vent opening during the day (with the amusement park items), so the time had come to send them on their way. Pest control came back out to the house yesterday and sealed the opening, the door to their home and future amusement park.

Damn it, I miss those little birds.

Just kidding. No baby. That’s me, six weeks old, and so little that my mom was hiding behind me and holding me up with one hand. Kind of like a puppet.

Stay tuned! Little Bethany part deux is coming soon!

Baby. Baby. Baby. Baby. Baby. Baby. NO Baby. Not yet.

We’re all ready to go–we put the final touches on the nursery, installed the car seat, and packed the hospital bag. Now we just wait.

I’m feeling huge and a bit uncomfortable. I can put socks on, but I can’t really cross my legs anymore. I’ve given up putting lotion on my legs because bending over makes my back hurt. My feet and ankles are so swollen they look like butternut squashes. And OOOOOHHHHH the pressure. The baby is head down, on my bladder. I can feel her little butt wiggling at the top of my stomach. My back aches.

Enough complaining. The pregnancy hasn’t been bad at all, and I really do like being pregnant. I love feeling the baby move inside me. And lucky me, I never got nausea, heartburn, indigestion, or any other of those symptoms. Some stretch marks and swelling, and that’s about it. Oh yeah, and my PREGNANT NOSE.

People still say that I’m “glowing” and that I look like “the happiest pregnant woman they’ve ever seen.” I think they are mistaking a pregnant glow with my permanently flushed face and gigantic red nose. A cashier at the grocery store asked me when I was due, and then she told me she knew I was having a girl. When I asked how she knew that, she said she could tell by my nose. AAAHHH. Yes, it’s swollen and red. How does that mean I’m having a girl?

I’ve discovered that people have no qualms about what they say to me. Adults, not kids, say the darnedest things. Some of my favorites include:

• “Are you having twins? You look like you are having twins.”
• “Are you okay? You look sick, like you are about to throw up.” *(see note above about not experiencing nausea.)
• “How many are in there?”
• “I hope you have your bag packed and in the car.” (as he slowly backs away from me, like I’m going to get birth goo on him right then and there).
• “Are you sure there’s only one in there? That’s what they told my mom, and then out came me and my twin brother.” (coming from a man who is 55 years old. There have been advances in technology since 1952.)

Dressed up for Amy’s wedding, 38 1/2 weeks pregnant

The nursery

I am a complete SLACKER. It’s been far too long since I updated the blog. But for a good reason: besides the whole growing a baby thing, I’ve won several online lotteries!!! Lotteries that I didn’t even enter! It must be the internet lottery fairies signing me up for all these great contests. I’ve been spending my days and nights dreaming up how I am going to spend all my winnings!

I’ve received these winning notifications in my inbox. Just look at all these fabulous prizes:

• Mark Dulle, Online Coordinator for THE BRITISH LOTTERY, informed me that I won 590,983.00 British Pounds from BRITISH ONLINE INTERNATIONAL LOTTERY.
• I was notified by Mr. Marcus Green, that I won £500,000.00 and a new Model Range Rover car in the Range Rover Automobiles Lottery.
• Then, I won ANOTHER Range Rover from the ONLINE LOTTERY SWEEPSTAKES PROMOTION just a few days later!
• I got an email saying that I won a lump sum pay out of 1.000.000.00 Euro (One Million Euros) from the Euro Millions Lottery Winners International E-mail programs.
• I won a total sum of£516,778.00 (Five Hundred and Sixteen Thousand,Seven Hundred and Seventy Eight Pounds Sterling) from UK NATIONAL LOTTERY, Sweepstakes International program.
• Most recently, Mr. Mou Xinsheng from China wants me to receive money on his behalf. This one is definitely the most cryptic of all messages, but it could be promising!!

Can you even believe how lucky I am? I am so busy though, I haven’t had the time to contact these lottery programs to claim my prizes. If anyone wants to claim them on my behalf, I would be glad to forward you the email addresses of the esteemed gentleman that originally contacted me. There are some great pointers on collecting the prizes on this website, with examples on how to engage in a long, meaningful dialogue with the scammers lottery managers.

A little update on the pregnancy…

Everything is still going well! I don’t have gestational diabetes, nor am I anemic. Yay! I joked to the doctor that it must be all the hamburgers I’ve been eating, and she sternly said “that’s not the course of action I recommend for anemia.” KIDDING, Doc. Then she told me not to drink juice or soda, because they are loaded with calories. No problem, as I have a slight obsession with Pellegrino, the snob’s water. Screw soda. I drink about 4-5 liters of pellegrino a week.

The baby had a bit of a growth spurt, I think, because people have told me I look like I have “popped” this week. Um, people also told me this in November, in December, and the beginning of this month. How much can one person pop? Today at the dry cleaner, the cashier asked me when I was due, and when I told her I’m not due until April, she asked if I was having twins. I have 10 weeks to go lady, and I am not having twins! And I’m measuring perfectly normal! I think the baby is just hanging out high in my belly. I can feel arms and legs moving around under my belly button. I’m pretty sure she’s doing pilates in there. Or maybe she’s dancing…

I’ve also been having some strange dreams, but not the puppy-dog nurturing maternal dreams that the books and websites talk about. Nope, not so much. The other night, I dreamt that the baby came out at the doctor’s office. She could already talk and she also knew sign language. I played with her for a while, but I decided that she wasn’t quite done, so I put her back in. Oh my god, can you even imagine? I wonder what that means? Probably that I’m not quite ready! I need more time to get the nursery in order, and read all the books on how to be a mommy, and teach Larry how to change a diaper.

And because I’m sure you’re all dying to see this giant belly of mine, I’m sharing a picture:

whoa!