No, I didn't swallow the Thanksgiving turkey

Yes, this is me in all my 21 weeks pregnant glory on Thanksgiving day, looking to all the world like I swallowed the 26lb bird whole.

Note, the drink in my hand is HiC not Chardonnay. I think this should be recorded for prosterity - given what is 'coming', this could be the last Thanksgiving you'll see me entirely sober. Thanks Hubby for this 'candid' shot.

So, we've established that my belly is growing... what other delights can I share with you from my 6th month?

Movement: Baby has joined an Olympic Gymnastics team and is almost certainly going for Gold. Activity in-womb has definitely picked-up in the last week or so. Hubby actually felt Vixen Baby practicing a double-somersault the other morning. I gave that one a 9.0. The 'flutters' have become more intense and seem now to go in all directions - outwards, sidewards, inwards, and downwards. Yes, downwards. This manifests as one of two extremely uncomfortable feelings: (1) the bladder kick and (2) the cervix kick. #1 is annoying/irritating, #2 is a tad painful. Lets just say that some doors should only be knocked on from the outside. Ahem.

Of course, now if I don't feel the baby kick for a few hours I'm starting to wonder what the heck is up. Great, parental anxiety is already kicking in (if you pardon the punn). I'll be sure to knock that one on the head asap.

Food aversions: any tomato-based sauce or soup and red meat.

Food cravings: None. It's a moment-by-moment thing for me and has been throughout, although I'm always partial to a baked potato, scrambled eggs, or a wrap.

Constipation: Yes.

Other symptoms: Nasal congestion/sneezing fits continue as do the eye-crossing ligament twinges that double you over if you don't stand just the right way mid-sneeze.

As most of you know I've pretty much sworn-off reading any pregnancy or parenting books. Hubby and I plan to go to all the necessary birth and parenting classes provded by our med group in the New Year, but are otherwise not filling our heads with a ton of parenting cautionary tales, fads, theories or techniques. Everyone has an opinion on this, I'm sure, especially if you are a parent, but this is our personal choice. It could prove to be revolultionarily freeing or monumentally stupid. I guess we'll find out for ourselves.

Our theory is that too much information can be paralyzing, so we're sticking to obtaining the basic facts, listening to advice from friends and family, and (when the time comes) evaluating what's best for our baby on an "as it comes" basis. Maybe we'll change our minds after two weeks of sleepless nights or during the hundredth terrible-two tantrum - and we're totally open to that. Open, open, open... that's our motto. (I exclude natural birth from this philosophy. Here I'm open, open, open to the drugs, baby!)

I did actually think that this vacuum of information would be tough to do with my personality but it has been amazingly easy. I read "What to Expect When You're Expecting" cover-to-cover in my first month and haven't opened the thing since. I haven't felt the urge to, quite frankly. Unlike other events in my life, I just haven't felt the need to analyze and understand it from every possible angle via 12 different books and websites. Fortunately (and knock on wood), I've had a normal, healthy pregnancy without complications; the whole process has been very natural and without incident. I figure that women have been doing this for as long as we've been on the earth and they didn't have books, websites, and DVDs to help them out. I'm fortunate enough to live in an age where I have doctors, regular check-ups, diagnostic tests, and scans to catch any issues. I don't see any reason to fill my head with a list of potential issues that could arise or philosophies about how I can make my baby the next Einstein before it even leaves the womb. Again, this is just me, I'm not knocking people who want to do this. This feels right to me.

However, with all this said, there is one book I just started reading this weekend that is absolutely my kind of parenting book. My sister-in-law gave it to me on Thanksgiving and I think she found my mommy-soul-mate.

"Sippy Cups Are Not For Chardonnay" by Stephanie Wilder-Taylor, has had me laughing out-loud all weekend. From quotes like "If you're holding your baby 24/7, that's not a baby, that's a tumor", to her theory that 'love at first sight' after delivery is merely the result of narcotic euphoria, Stephanie's tales of negotiating parenthood for the first time are down-to-earth, humorous, and common-sensical. Not a whiff of condescension to be found. I love it! Even if you're one of those mothers who would consider Stephanie's parenting philosophies as outstandingly lackadaisical, I defy you not to laugh at her mince-no-words advice. Here's an example from the chapter about keeping your kidless friends, post-baby:

"Next, you know how your new-mom companions are never available to go out? Well, news flash, you aren't much either. If you have any single girlfriends left, and they are willing to stay friends with you despite your new all-consuming responsibility, you need to make an effort and meet them halfway! For the friends who are with it you've gotta get your ass in the game once in a
while. No one expects you to go out every night or even every week, and they know you're not available on the spur of the moment. But now and then, even if you don't feel like it, you must force yourself to go out and have fun without your baby, or you'll shortly be dropped from everyone's Evite lists... Okay, so you can't drop all and fly to Vegas for your best friend's bachelorette blowout, but you can still buy her the biggest turbocharged dildo the world has ever seen! Yeah, I said that, and I'm a mom!"

How do I meet this woman????

Although there's not a parental philosophy in sight and she does play-up humor for dramatic effect, there's also no sugar-coating the parental experience: breast feeding does hurt, your post-delivery hormones do leave you a blubbery mess, and getting your baby to sleep through the night is a nightmare.

I love books like this because they seem 'real' to me. Hearing about the difficulties of a new mother struggling to keep her identity and her sanity, is much more refreshing and comforting that reading books by uber-moms who seem to have the whole thing down to an art or parenting 'experts' who seem to think parenting is like training a dog - ie: it's all your fault that your dog/baby can't roll over and high-five you after 30 minutes of the correct 'parenting'. (Seriously, it can't be a mistake that there is both a Dog Whisperer and a Baby Whisperer out there!) All of this, I think, has a tendency to leave you feeling less than adequate at the end of the day. I already know I won't be the perfect parent. Heck, I'm not the perfect wife, daughter, or employee either. So, I don't need to be reminded of the 365 different ways I could be doing better for my baby - I get reviews at work, thank you. So, I'm just going to do my best and try not to be racked with guilt and anxiety about all the things I'm not doing right or at all.

I guess we'll see how it goes...