Does This Count as a Belly Pic?

Late Christmas
Originally uploaded by Steve Bremer

It's not the traditional pose, but here I am last week (around 30 weeks along) with my son in his Jolly Roger diaper celebrating our late Christmas.

You see, we were supposed to fly to Kansas City this year to spend Christmas with my grandparents and aunts and uncles, and my parents were flying out there to meet us. Well, as it turned out, Seattle was hit with the most snow it had seen in 10 or 20 years or something crazy like that. And it didn't just snow. It snowed and stayed cold and the snow stuck, and then it snowed more. And then it snowed some more. The poor Seattle airport just couldn't handle it. Our flight was canceled, and there wasn't anything to rebook us on until after the 25th, from Seattle or Portland. So we stayed in the snow.

Christmas was not a total loss, as we were able to use the barely-plowed freeway to travel south and stay with Steve's parents. So we weren't alone and desolate without a tree or anything.

So, this picture was taken after the New Year when all the gifts from KC made it up to us. For some reason, every single toy Ethan got from my side of the family (save for some clothing, a truck, and wooden blocks) makes noise. A lot of noise. Now Ethan loves music and pushing buttons and making noise so these toys are perfect for him, but I can't help but wonder if someone in my family is trying to slowly drive me insane from listening to Elmo say, "LET'S JAM!" repeatedly over the course of the day. I won't even talk about the Fridge DJ, because it scares me that I've sort of gotten to like the songs that it plays.

What else has been going on here? Well, I made preserves for the first time ever last week! Satsuma marmalade to be exact. My triumphs are that 1) all the jars sealed like they were supposed to and 2)it actually tastes like marmalade! It doesn't hurt that all the jars look really pretty too. Steve has ordered a batch of strawberry preserves for my next round of canning. Making homemade jam turned out to be super easy and exciting in that I-hope-one-of-these-glass-jars-doesn't-shatter-all-over-my-kitchen sort of way, and the I-hope-that-I-don't-burn-myself-with-this-really-really-really-hot-orange-puree sort of way. Fun!

I still have two months left on the pregnancy front and in some ways that doesn't seem long at all, and in other ways it seems very long indeed. I did manage to sort out Ethan's old newborn stuff and get a stash of newborn diapers ordered, so I feel pretty good about being ready in that sense. Being ready to go through labor again and then have two children under two? The jury is still out on that one. I am quite excited to meet this new little guy though, and looking forward to seeing brothers grow up together. It's strange for me to think that all I know about raising my children I learned from Ethan, and while basic day-to-day baby care will be pretty much the same, I will have to get to know this new little guy from scratch. A totally different person. The mind boggles. :)