a confession: birth

when i was in seventh grade health/science class, we watched the miracle of life.

it scarred me. SCARRED, i tell you . . . me and and all the other four hundred seventh graders forced to watch it. for years we'd joke about the miracle of life, and it was synonymous with gross, terrifying, the supreme evil of sierra vista middle school, etc.

well, when i saw it at the library in santa monica this summer, i checked it out. i figured it was about time to confront those inbred fears, you know?

turns out, the movie is 59 minutes long. and the first 55 minutes involve nothing more than pictures of cells moving across the screen. the first 11/12 of the movie is totally and completely boring, actually. it's just the last four minutes that so totally terrified all of us SVMS students back in the day: where they show a birthing scene.

and guess what? it still grossed me out and terrified me. here i am, a decade older and wiser and just a few weeks away from giving birth myself, and it still makes me shudder to watch a birth scene and to contemplate doing that myself.

also, on a related note: when we went to a childbirth class in santa monica, the lady showed us a quick and relatively not-terrifying birth video. and while we were walking home, tommy said, in a voice of total seriousness: "i don't know why anyone would ever want to be an OB-GYN after watching that video."

i laughed so hard. . . . because i knew EXACTLY where he was coming from.

i sure hope, for both of our sakes, that the baby takes it easy on us when he does decide to come out.

summer, baby, and cupcakes

today, we move out of our nice little apartment here in santa monica. we'll spend a few days down in irvine (with tommy commuting back up here for two more days of work) and then tommy and dallin start the drive across the country. and i fly back to NC on wednesday. there is so much to do once we get back there, but i feel like we're stuck in limbo until then. i could (and maybe should) be feeling panicky about the upcoming month(s), but i'm not. just yet.

i am totally in denial that baby boy is almost here (the due date is just 5 weeks away) (! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ahhhhh!). i feel MUCH more prepared than i did at the beginning of this summer, thanks to the ample free time i've had to read and learn everything i could about childbirth, etc., but it still doesn't feel like he's really coming. also, i've forgotten what it's like to NOT be pregnant . . . it seems like it would be weird to have a flat stomach now. i wonder if i'll miss being pregnant, miss feeling him moving around inside me all the time. because i sure do like that part of pregnancy, as uncomfortable as it can be at times.

this morning was the first time i've ever been woken up by his movements. at about 5 in the morning (i'm guessing by the little bit of light coming through the window), i woke up because he was digging his heels into my ribs. that only started happening this week, so i guess he really IS getting bigger to be able to reach all the way up there. i had a doctor's appointment and ultrasound last week, and she said that he was measuring two weeks big and has a ton of hair. taking after his mama, that boy.

in other news, we've done a ton lately: a trip up to utah to visit the leiningers and go to the murphy family reunion at aspen grove, more sightseeing around LA, a concert at the hollywood bowl, and a pre-anniversary celebration weekend up in solvang and santa barbara, but i'm too lazy and tired to upload the pictures from all of these things right now. here's one of tommy at the famous sprinkles cupcakes ATM in beverly hills (we just bought them from inside, but had to pose with the machine). their raspberry cupcake was probably THE BEST THING I'VE EVER HAD. aloha, sprinkles.

also, the sprinkles is only a block away from rodeo drive. we were standing under the rodeo drive sign and the guy taking our picture didn't include it in the picture . . . so you'll just have to take my word for it that we were there. tommy said, "i only recognize about 1/4 of the stores on this street", haha. we're definitely not the rodeo drive type.

and, that's all folks. stay tuned for more exciting news on the leininger front!

the year of the dragon

i went on a walk with my dear friend emilie wong while i was in irvine last week. she said, "i'm so excited that you're having a dragon baby! if i were married i would totally be having a baby this year too!" and the wongs are definitely the coolest chinese people i know.

the year of the dragon is the luckiest of all the chinese lunar years. it's the best year to be born in, so chinese folks all around the world want to join in our good fortune. dragons are the strongest, smartest, and luckiest. i'm not even making this up.

and would you guess what? i am a dragon along with our baby. that has to be doubly lucky. (poor tommy--he's the year of the rat.)

according to yearofthedragon.org, dragons usually have these characteristics:

-innovative
-enterprising
-quick-tempered
-tactless
-self-assured
-brave
-passionate
-conceited
-flexible
-scrutinizing
-unanticipated

although i can't decide whether to be pleased or offended, it also says that dragons are "usually very successful" and "free-spirited creatures" who are "always ready to lend a helping hand to those who need it." so i'll take it as an all-around pretty good year to be born in--and it definitely sounds cooler than the year of the pig.

good-bye, june!

i can't believe june is over. i can't believe our summer is close to half over. i can't believe 2012 IS half over. TIME IS MOVING SO FAST.

this week, tommy went gallivanting across the world to japan for the week (he went to a statistics conference there) and i went to irvine. yes, our trips were pretty much the same in coolness. he went to shrines; i went to church. he went to japanese gardens in japan; i went to a japanese garden at the huntington library in pasadena. he saw monkeys; i hung out with my little brother and cousin who acted like monkeys. it was pretty much the same. he's just landed at the airport and is on his way back AS I TYPE THIS. yes, i am very excited to see him.

the only useful thing i did this week was working on the quilt i'm making for baby boy. i shouldn't spoil the surprise for all of you avid readers, since it's not officially done, but i'm too proud of it to NOT share. CHECK IT OUT! I AM THE QUEEN BEE QUILTER OF THE WORLD! (seriously, i am so excited about it. maybe i've found my calling in life.)

the most awesome thing about the quilt is that i made SO MANY MISTAKES and you can't see any of them once you sew the thing up! so no worries. it's definitely a beginner's quilt. 

i'll post some more pictures of the week later. the world traveler is almost home! 

like and dislike

LIKE:

i am in love. IN LOVE. with the santa monica farmer's market. it has such good produce there, and it's helping to satisfy my sudden cravings for ALL THE FRESH FRUIT IN THE WORLD. all i want to eat is fruit, all day long. i am chris farley in the french fries skit, only with nectarines.

unfortunately, i just am not a fan of the "fruit" they are selling at albertson's. (yeah, check out that sarcasm i loaded in those punctuation marks. take that, albie's!) i mean, how hard is it to get a good nectarine at the grocery store? VERY HARD, apparently. this is where the farmer's market saves me. i bought about 20 nectarines yesterday, and they are already gone. now i have to wait until next week's farmer's market.

DISLIKE:

does anyone have a BB gun that they might let me borrow? i'm going to use it to shoot the crow-like bird that camps out outside our apartment and squawks like a run-over jack-in-the-box all. day. long. it's not regular crow cawing--it is infinitely worse, punctuated about once a minute with a prolonged squeak. getting the BB gun was even tommy's suggestion.

baby updates

everyone was very interested in seeing baby boy move the whole weekend.

a quick pregnancy question: how come nobody ever told me how CRAZY it is to feel and SEE the baby move around? i for some reason had no idea that you could see the baby moving at such an early stage in your pregnancy. i knew that you could see it when the baby is huge and about to come out, but i've been able to see little baby kicking around for about two months now. people really need to share these things with first-time pregnant women.

sometimes it's like he's having a fun little solo dance party in there, he's moving around so much. i LOVE watching it. i could sit and watch him move around for hours and still be entertained and surprised every time my stomach rolls and pops. last night, while tommy was reading, i just sat and watched this very antsy baby for probably half an hour as he apparently learned jiu jitsu. it has not yet ceased to amaze me.

but anyways, everything's going well, pregnancy-wise. baby boy's apparently around a pound and a half right now. my own weight gain is picking up speed and i'm eating all. the. time. (but that's not really anything new, right?) i feel great during the day, but i crash at around 8:30 every night, when i'm tired enough to go to bed. i have to find a new doctor in santa monica and go have some check-ups, but i haven't gotten around to it yet--that will be one of my jobs for today (hopefully). my big problem is finding things to do to exercise every day, so i'm off to work on that problem right now.

random good things

i taught my last class of english 101 ever last night. technically, i CANCELED my last class of english 101 ever, because it's supposed to be tomorrow, but i wanted to give them extra time on their final papers. therefore, i'm done teaching AND my students LOVE ME for extending their deadline and canceling class. win win all around.

*****

i went to my second-to-last class of grad school ever last night. while we were walking out the door, one of the girls in the class, who i'd never really talked to before, told me, "i just wanted to tell you that i've thought all semester--you're extremely beautiful!"

wow, what an ego booster right there! i didn't know what to say, other than thanks and returning the compliment. we ended up chatting for a while about being pregnant (she had a baby the third week of the semester and was back at school the next week--wowza).

*****

we went in to renew our apartment contract this morning, and as we were signing the endless pages, we chatted with the two ever-so-friendly employees who we've gotten to know over the last two years of living here. we told them we were moving to santa monica for the summer, and one was practically screaming in excitement because of her undying love for santa monica. we then told them i was graduating, and they were so excited again. and THEN we told them we were having a baby in the fall, and they were both practically jumping for joy and shouting all over the office. it was pretty fantastic--and nice to have random acquaintances so happy for all of our good news.

*****

i took a bath last night and while i stared at my bare stomach, i could actually see the baby kicking and moving my skin, over and over again. i don't care what you say (is it too early?), it REALLY WAS. and it was pretty freaking amazing. baby pele the kicker.

*****

the big wedding is in 9 days. my graduation is in 17 days. we leave to drive across the country in 19 days (and we are planning on hitting up graceland and the grand canyon on our way there).

we are so lucky!

it's a...

at the ultrasound yesterday:


ultrasound lady: so, do we have any guesses from the two of you for what you think it is?
me: we both kind of think it's a girl. 
tommy: yep, a girl. 
ultrasound lady: ...
...
...
...
well, looks like you're both wrong. 




yep, it's a boy!


and for your viewing pleasure, a shot of the six-inch little man himself. 

and now, back to the drawing board for baby names. 

finding out

i have a very vivid memory of february 27, 2001. i was at the seventh grade play--george m. cohen (ugh, don't ask--the worst decision of my life was to do musical theater as my elective in 7th grade)--and kate patton drove me home. when we got back to my house, i asked her, "don't you want to know what it was? come on!" and ran up to the door with her behind me.

my grandma myres came to the door, and i asked, "WHAT WAS IT!?"

and she said, "it's a boy!"

and i just stood there, saying, "a boy! a boy! i can't believe it!"

that's when baby cole was born. our littlest brother, the last baby in our family.

(p.s. this is unrelated to the point of this blog post, but i was apparently inseparable from baby cole. the only pictures that exist of me from this time period involve me holding cole. want some proof?)

i remember the absolute thrill it was to FINALLY find out what it was--if we had a baby sister or brother. we'd spend months betting on it and guessing and coming up with names (both boy and girl). i particularly remember fighting about names for the baby who became dallin--i wanted ezra or elizabeth. austin, who was only two, wanted to name the baby scar (like the lion king). or hat. we loved the surprise of not knowing who was joining our family until after he or she came out.

my parents never found out what they were having--not for all six of their kids. since we ended up like the brady bunch--three of each--it worked out pretty well.

and i always said that i wanted to do the same thing.

until i got pregnant.

who was i kidding? i'm the person who reads the end to EVERY book before i actually get to it--even when i already know the end (i just did it with gone with the wind last week). i pause movies when they're halfway done and beg tommy to tell me what's going to happen. i try to open birthday presents from our families that come in the mail the day they come--why bother waiting until my actual birthDAY? i always give tommy his presents early and beg him to open them so that i don't have to wait to see his face. i get grumpy when we're late to anything and count down the days for any date of consequence.

i'm not good at waiting. for much of anything.

and i'm ready to know what this baby is inside of me. i'm tired of calling it "it" and dreaming about baby names that might not even apply. i'm spending every spare minute of this week thinking about "it" and calculating the hours until the appointment.

the ultrasound is on friday. and we will be finding out.

(gender guesses are accepted!)

fooooooooooooooooooooooooooood

about two days into the whole morning sickness thing, i figured out that the way to stave off the nausea (haha, AS IF THAT WERE POSSIBLE) is to always be eating and never let myself get hungry. this is difficult, because i'm usually spending full days in my cubicle at school. so i've had to get used to bringing loads of food with me, which means i have to carry whole grocery sacks that i eat throughout the day.

B.P. (before pregnancy), my lunch would consist of:

-sandwich

-banana

today, i brought the following food to campus:

-sandwich

-banana

-applesauce

-can of peaches (too lazy to put it into a tupperware)

-chocolate pudding

-leftover chicken from dinner last night

-bag of goldfish

-yogurt

to be fair, i am going to be here until 9 p.m. tonight.

but still. it's kind of ridiculous.

baby pictures

my mom sent us a few home videos from when i was a baby, and we watched them late into the night last night and all morning before conference. i was really, really cute. and it was fun to see my parents acting goo-goo over baby me.

and of course it made me think about what our baby's going to look like. can you guess which pictures are of tommy and which are of me? IT'S SO HARD TO TELL!

weirdly enough, tommy was the one with the curls when we were babies. i didn't actually get mine till i went through puberty. but i did have the thickest, blackest head of hair right out of the womb. oh, genetics. we'll see what our baby is going to get!

since i've been pregnant...

i've vomited in public about five times now. always in a bathroom, but a public bathroom.

it's really gross--don't try it.

but at least tonight, at the restaurant we were eating dinner at, a nice lady told me she'd be praying for me as i washed my mouth out at the sink. it felt good to get some condolences, even from a stranger. i said thank you.

somebody call the wambulance--or not

i apologize for all of you who have suffered through reading my blog over the last year. because i KNOW it has been unnecessarily focused on my whining about and hating on school. i know i have complained constantly about it--i try my best to keep it just to tommy, but it slips out whenever anyone asks "how's school going?" or "what are your plans for when you graduate?" i can't help but tell them how much i hate it and how much i can't wait for it to be done. i don't want to be a debbie downer, so i always back it up with a "but it's great!", but by then the damage is done.

so, sorry about that.

but it seems to be all i can do right now to make it through this last year of school. i know so many people would love to have this opportunity--to go to graduate school, with funding, at the same time as their husband, blah blah blah. but i haven't been able to be as grateful as i should be because of how absolutely miserable i have been doing it.

i know that sounds like an exaggeration. MISERABLE. but that is really the only word for it. i enjoy spurts of it, but on the whole, i have spent the last seven months just making it through every day. every day is "just two more days till the weekend" or "one more week down, X more to go." i feel like crying every sunday night, knowing that i have to go back to school on monday morning. (seriously--just ask tommy.)

i have NEVER lived life like this--i have generally loved school, loved learning, loved having things to write and teachers to talk to and deep concepts to grapple with. but something snapped in me and has let me know that i reached the end of my rope--i am DONE with this whole full-time school thing and i NEED to get out, for my sanity and for my happiness. not that i want to stop learning, but i need to stop learning in this way.

it makes me feel for people who work at jobs they hate all the time, without an end in sight. the ONLY way i've done it is by knowing there's light at the end of the tunnel--and that end is now only two months away.

but hey! this post is NOT meant to be taken as a complaining post--just an explaining one. i have been whining a lot, and this is why, in case you've been wondering. yes, i have my trial of school, it's been hard, but it will be over SO soon and there are lots of things for me to look forward to and LOTS of things for me to be grateful for.

like:

• sarah-alec's wedding and austin's mission farewell (in may)
• graduating and doing NOTHING. nothing, i tell you! all summer long! it sounds like heaven!
• moving somewhere for tommy's internship this summer (STILL UNDECIDED! but STILL EXCITED!)

and

• a baby, coming september 2012.

i don't think there's room for anything more than just a smiley face to finish off this post. (as much as i hate emoticons . . .)

:)