Letter to the Sesame Seed - Week 39

Hello pookie!

Just when I think you couldn't possibly get any bigger, you stretch my belly out another centimeter! You're probably close to the average newborn weight and size now--about 7 lbs and 20 inches, but you'll keep padding on the fat until you decide to join the world. You've been moving around like crazy the past two days, and I've been imagining a little disco ball and the sound of the BeeGees keeping you company.

I've been doing some interesting reading this week. First is a book about how the brain develops from conception through age five called What's Going on in There?. It's a little a more technical than I usually read, but very interesting. One of the coolest things I've learned is that it's actually chemicals in your brain and hormones in your body which activate labor. So I can take walks and eat spicy foods to my heart's content, but you're just going to show up when you darn well please.

The other reading that has occupied much of my time this week are the forums at Mothering.com. Your dad stumbled across this website while doing research on a pediatrician and I've been hooked ever since. Mothering is the parenting magazine for hippies, and it's pretty much a perfect fit for your father and I. The more we think about how we want to raise you--researching current methods of discipline, diapering, feeding, and sleeping--the more we realize how far outside the mainstream our beliefs are. It's great to have a resource like this website to connect with like-minded parents and experts.

Lest your grandparents worry that we might move to a commune, refuse to bathe, and raise you fruitarian, there are limits to our hippiness. For instance, we went to see a pediatrician recommended by one of my midwives' clients and discovered that we are just not wacky enough to think a woman who fervently believes in homeopathy and refuses to give vaccinations is right for us. I'm hoping our next interview with the transgendered doctor yields better results.

I actually left the house yesterday--a rare and amazing feat!--and went shopping for nursing clothes. It was challenging to imagine what my body might look like in a shirt without the bowling ball belly underneath, but I think I did okay. I managed to get through Macy's and Borders, but the idea of walking all the way across the mall to H&M was just too taxing. It's really kind of sad when walking the equivalent of one city block feels like climbing a mountain.

My mission today is to pick up the glider for your nursery that I have been anxiously awaiting! When I ordered it they said it would be ready in early April, so I had resigned myself to not having it until after you were born. But YEA! it's ready! Now your room really will be complete. I have to drive about forty minutes away to get it, so I'm taking your aunt Crystal with me since she's afraid I'll go into labor on the road. Probably not a bad idea.

Well, it's only one more week until your granny Ostlund arrives, so you might consider hanging out until then (as much as I would LOVE to see you sooner).

Hope you're feeling good and enjoying your disco dancing--
Mommy