week 20 picture

I'm a little behind on these pregnancy development progression documentation things. As I'm writing this I'm at week 22, but here's a picture at week 20. It's not the best picture in the world, but I'm no photographer. Check out my friend Kelly or Rebecca for that, I'm so jealous of these photos. I should have been a photographer... (p.s. I owe this maternity shirt to Rebecca, thanks I wear it all the time, as you've probably seen.)


Anyway, there I am. You may also notice the haircut I got earlier that day. I took this photo using Nick's joby, which I highly recommend. It's an excellent gift, especially for men who never ask for gifts, you know the type.

My moms will be here in 4 days! I can't wait!

my first task

So, it's like 2:15 am. Unfortunately not an atypical time for me to be awake. I don't normally participate in random online quizes--definitely no "20 things" craziness--and i have vowed to never touch facebook (although I admit that every once in a while I sneak onto Nicole's to see pictures of someone). However, today I'm proud to admit that I have visited or at least driven through all but 5 of the United States. I was personally surprised by this. Here's my map:


visited 45 states (90%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or try another Douwe Osinga project

My world travel map isn't so exciting, although I have been to Canada and Mexico, Spain, France, and Andorra (Andorra didn't show up very well...).

Nicole looks big. She feels big. It's seriously a good thing that she's made anatomically to handle this kind of thing. Wow, could you imagine if she wasn't? I cannot nor shall I try. We'll post pictures, or at least something interesting soon. Maybe it was a bad idea that Nicole let me be a coauthor. She better be careful.

I'm a co-author

Look out folks, I've just become a co-author on this blog. Now I can post whatever I want whenever I want. Like right now: Sometimes I'm glad I don't know what cows are thinking.

Nick

So I was talking with an old friend of mine that hasn’t been able to meet Nick and she asked “What is Nick like? Describe Nick.”

I thought I'd make a blog entry for you Katie, and anyone else who cares to get to know Nick Empey a little bit better:

Nick MP

(I'll get the cheesy-ness out of the way here and now and say that this smile was a
huge culprit in my falling in love with this kid. Okay I'm done, no more smooze.)

Well, to start off, today I came out to the front room to join Nick for breakfast where I found him sitting at the table in front of a heaping bowl of cereal and I heard him saying quietly (and rather seriously) to his frosted flakes “frosted stake claimers.”

Nick reads his scriptures at breakfast.

Nick can hear just about any song once and be able to recreate the guitar line in a few moments. He also has mad rhythm and can play the drum line of just about anything too. At a Rock Band party we had here where 40+ year olds were wandering around dressed up as famous rockers, Nick played the drums on expert and scored 100%. Nick didn’t have to dress up. He wore the usual, and looked like a member of an indie rocker band. (Combine that with our friend who sang 100% on “What You Want” by the Beastie Boys and we swept the competition.)

Right now as I’m writing this I’m listening to the Weakerthan’s Night Windows and Nick has stopped reading his “catalytic strategies of self cleaving ribozymes” essay and is currently beating out the drum line on his air drums. His hair is a little crazy right now too, he hasn’t showered yet. Check out his website, here.

Nick rarely ever complains. I mean, I could honestly say that he never complains, but I'll avoid extremes.

Nick crochets.

Nick holds babies in style:

Nick break dances.

(couldn't find a picture, but let me tell you -- he does.)

Nick is an amiable sort of fellow. Completely genuine -- the only kind I could fall in love with. He's non-confrontational, but sure of his beliefs. He doesn't get upset very often. And I joke that when he's stressed out no one knows, sometimes he doesn't even know. Life goes on like normal, but he might stay up until 5 or 6 in the morning finishing something rather than staying up until 2 or 3 (his usual bedtime). That's when you can tell...maybe.

He's clever and makes me laugh often. For a science kid he has an excellent vocabulary. But I taught him defenestrate.

Nick always helps me with dinner.

Nick loves the game Risk. I don't.

I've also noticed uploading these pictures that Nick always wears the same shirt. =) He is thrifty and enjoys an adventure out to the local thrift shop. But he also has no problem making big purchases if the item is necessary and he's researched a lot about it.

Nick loves nature.

He likes to go on walks, insists on going outside on nice days, and gets excited about bugs like a little kid would. I've often had to slow up while he stoops over and prods at a random insect he's seen. It's endearing. He likes to play frisbee.

One time Nick grew out a beard.

Nick is so so so patient. Being a not so patient person myself I have learned a lot from him. He's patient with people, but also with things. He will spend hours looking on-line for fixes to problems that I've given up on hours ago. He will untie the craziest knots for me and never gets frustrated. ( I have this problem of getting my pant drawstrings tied in knots and going a little crazy when I have to go to the bathroom and can't get my pants, um... you know, ...down...ANYWAY...)

Nick is socially capable but does not require a whole lot of attention. He invites people over to dinner. He communicates well and cares how people feel but doesn't obsess over how they feel. Nick likes Swedish Fish.

Well, I'm sure I could say more, but that's a good beginning.

Nick rocks.

my first 'pregnant notice' from a stranger:

I love Target, and therefore I go to Target. My shopper-savvy-sister-in-law alerted me to a great deal on cribs there, so I went to check the scene. Whilst browsing amongst the not entirely satisfactory boys baby bedding I was approached by a random woman:

"Are there any Target employees working today?" she says sarcastically.

"Most likely," I reply "though I haven't been looking for one."

"Are you pregnant?" she asks.

I guess by this point I'm pretty obviously pregnant, so I'm not offended by the question and reply "Yes, I am."

"Oh." she says. "I just saw you looking at the baby stuff. My daughter's friend was pregnant. Yeah, she carried all the way thru the pregnancy, everything was just hunky-dory and then she delivered and the baby just up and died, right there in the delivery room."

I had heard that people would do this sort of thing to me, but I secretly believed that no one would be so socially unaware and unfeeling as to actually do it. I stared for a moment, I could tell my face was turning red in surprised and shocked stupor and then I replied: "I don't think that's the kind of thing you tell random pregnant ladies."

"Well I'm just saying that that's how it is sometimes!" She defensively snaps, "I mean, the baby just turned blue as a corpse right there and just died."

"Well I'm very sorry to hear that, but I don't think you should go out of your way to tell pregnant strangers about it anymore." I start edging away.

She continued to talk to me, completely stopped in the middle of the aisle, like she wasn't finished with our conversation, going on complaining about Target's customer service. I however called out "have a nice day" over her chatter and walked away. It was awkward, and I felt like a bit of a punk, but at the same time, I just didn't feel like she had warranted a sympathetic listener out of me at that point.

So there you have it. My first random stranger "are you pregnant?"query ended with tidings of the possibility that my baby could die in the delivery room. I am so glad I didn't mention that I was having twins, who knows what would have happened then.

Luckily for her I wasn't too upset by it. I was more angry that she felt it socially acceptable to do something like that. I mean, you never know what people have been through. What if I had already lost a child in a similar manner? Anyway. When I told my friend Al about it she said: "You should have replied 'yeah, i knew a lady walking around in Target talking to strangers, and then she died."