Irish lass belly

My goodness, my Guiness! The scale tells me I've put on another pound, so make that three so far. Still, with the majority of it going to my chest, I'm not yet obviously pregnant. My father quipped, "It just looks like you're a girl who enjoys a few beers every now and then." Of course, now a delicious pint is likely to be orange juice, chocolate soy milk, or perhaps cherry limeade if I'm feeling particularly punchy.

I've turned into what my dear husband has always called the Corn-Fed Girl: looks farm-raised and healthy with pleasing softness; female who doesn't perceive food as an enemy.

Fetus food

What is so hard about visualizing half an inch, two inches, etc.? The fetal development section in nearly every "your pregnancy week by week" guide I've read describes the size of the fetus in terms of food. First a grain of rice, then two, then a raisin, a grape, a strawberry, a lemon, an orange, etc.

My father watched some hour-long TLC or Discovery documentary he called "0 to 60 in Nine Months." "Fascinating stuff," he said. I think the Opa-in-training is trying to understand what his daughter is going through. I suppose after 30 years, his recollection of my mother's pregnancy has faded. Or maybe it's because of the exponential leaps and bounds in medical technology that allows us to see so much of life's early development.

At any rate, the show's size analogies, for a change, were not food-related. For a solid two weeks, Dad asked me, "How's my mouse? Are you taking good care of my mouse?" I was picturing Ralph, the Mouse on the Motorcycle, but it was the wireless optical kind. The first is cuddlier and more endearing, I think. Apparently I'm now toting around a softball. That's what he told me this week, although he said he still wants to call it The Mouse until a better analogy comes along.

Rescue me from Don Johnson

Today is the day we may hear Cletus's heartbeat at the OB/GYN appointment. Growing up in the 80s has come back to haunt me in a big way. For some sinister reason, Don Johnson's song "Heartbeat" has burst out of the memory lockbox for which I threw away the key. Maybe it's because Colin Farrell is such an adorable Irish bad boy and is starring as Crockett in the new film version of "Miami Vice." Why must I be suffer so? I'm afraid to ask for another song to distract me.

The last time I had a "can't get it out of my head" episode was months ago when--dare I even utter its name?--"Bananaphone" as sung by dancing badgers was stuck in my head. I attempted to pass it along to someone else, but my friend Paul cursed me back with "Tom's Diner," so I had a mental soundtrack of "da da duh da da da duh da duh da da duh da duh da duh" for days on end. It was maddening.

Hopefully, tonight's They Might Be Giants concert at Lebowski Fest will provide some relief from the Curse of Don. At least those are the sorts of infectious music and movie quotes I want in my head.

Lost breasts found

Okay, so this is my first attempt to describe the whole pregnancy and motherhood thing from a first-person perspective. Wow...you can read others' experiences, but it is nothing until you are going through it. First of all, I have breasts again. Hooray for boobies! I went up a full cup and band size in about 4 weeks. I guess it's a good excuse to shop for pretty new bras. It's great for now, because as of nearly 13.5 weeks of this preganancy thing, I don't really have any sort of belly; I've only gained about 2 pounds, half of which I'm convinced is from the breasts. I have set Webhamster on task to photograph the belly growth week-by-week, because I'm sure I will eventually get quite large, and I want to remember how I looked in the beginning. Once we have a few, maybe we'll set up a time lapse series and post it.