Now I remember...

My little G3 (my personal pet name for my boy or girl to-be) has been very wiggly today. All tiny kicks and bumps as I sit at my desk working on headlines for a new hydronic products campaign. And with every little nudge I remember that this is what I love about being pregnant.

Once your baby is born it belongs to the world. It truly does take a village to raise your children and, once out of the womb, you are sharing that sweet little life with a host of siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors and people on the street who can't resist the siren call of a baby in a snuggli.

But before it's born? Well, for that short time it's just the two of you.

Your baby listens to the echo of your voice as you sing to the radio, talk on the phone, laugh at your sister and cry over Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. He or she comes along wherever you go, a silent companion that you can't help but think about every minute of every day. You are never alone, but you don't mind because you have your own delicious secret - the dynamic and busy life of your baby inside. When you are resting, they are awake, wiggling and poking and sometimes hiccuping their way through your Oprah magazine reading or movie watching. As you cruise the grocery aisles or vacuum the living room, they are quiet, lulled by your movement and the white noise of the outside environment.

But no matter what, they are there. You feel them and they feel you. You know each other completely and, for a while, that baby is yours and yours alone.

It's like magic and to me it's just about the only proof I can come up with that there is a higher power laying a hand down upon us.

But the rest of pregnancy sucks.

Phew!

When you grow up with a doctor for a dad you pick up a lot of weird medical knowledge that is not terribly useful and grossly incomplete. You'd probably think that would turn you into a hypochondriac, but in my case it's turned me into someone who feels fairly sure I can make a diagnosis with only limited information.

So yesterday I took a long walk during lunch. It was lovely to get the fresh air and the part where I stuck my feet in the lake was divine. But it was freakin' hot on the way back and I could feel a "glow" taking over my already-expanding body. And then I started to think I smelled like fruit.

That doesn't seem too bad, right? You sweat and it smells like fruit. Could be way worse.

Except in my annals of useless and incomplete information is this: if you find yourself smelling like fruit for no apparent reason you are probably an undiagnosed diabetic.

I spent all afternoon alternately sniffing my armpits and wondering if it was just gestational diabetes (which I've never had before) or something more permanent and infinitely more of a pain in the ass.

At bedtime I opened the drawer to get my toothpaste out and noticed that my new deodorant is scented Tropical Fruit.

So I guess it works.

I guess I really shouldn't complain.

Things I hate about summer:
- Working when I'd rather be at the beach
- Listening to my children fight as they re-acclimate to being together 24/7
- Mosquitos
- Yard work

Things I love about summer:
- Not having to get everyone out of the house by 7:40 am
- Sunsets
- Sunshine when I wake up in the morning
- Going to the beach after work
- Being able to walk to the beach over my lunch break
- Date night on the boat
- Campfires and s'mores with the neighbors
- the 4th of July
- my brother home from California for three weeks
- sun-kissed children in soggy suits with little wet otter heads and sand in their hair
- sweet corn and fantastic tomatoes
- farmer's markets
- neighborhood-wide garage sales
- no coats, no boots, no hats, no mittens
- the sound of the waves at night when I'm lying in bed

It all kinda outweighs the whining of the kids, which was really getting to me this morning. Now I have a little persepctive. And a lot of blessings.

BFFs really are.

Whenever I go on a trip I always have this little moment on the first night where I think I want to go home.

It doesn't matter if the trip is guaranteed to be fun, or if it's a place I've always wanted to visit or even if my entire family is with me. It's just that I have a little part of my brain that fears the unknown and, even if only for a moment, longs for the security and comfort of home and its routines. And I had this moment the first night in Las Vegas with my two BFFs.

We haven't been together in, literally, 20 years. During that time our lives have followed their own separate paths, spreading us out across the country and away from one another. The magic of the internet has brought us back together and we've been planning this trip to Las Vegas for at least six months. I have been giddy with excitement and antsy for the big weekend to get here, but yet I lay in my ultra-comfortable hotel room bed last Thursday night and there it was, that flash of thought flittering across my consciousness. I want to go home.

But the magic of BFFs is that they really are. My little fluttering thought lasted for barely a nanosecond, and then I was left marveling at how easily it all comes back. The late night chatting before falling asleep. The easy way of deciding what we want to do, where we want to go, what snacks we need to have. The absolute lack of judgment about our bodies, our wardrobes, our hair styles, our taste in food and our tolerance for movies based on juvenile, scatalogical humor. It was as if no time has passed, but instead has bonded us even deeper as we share the experiences of being wives and mothers, daughters to aging and ever more eccentric parents, and just plain friends having a great time together even if we're doing exactly nothing.

Same time next year, right ladies?

Whaddya mean there's no pasta?

We have these friends who are vegetarians and we've gone with them to a lot of banquet-style functions where you have to choose your meal ahead of time. Inevitably I find myself feeling a little jealous of their fettucine alfredo or delicious-looking ravioli while I am working my way through a somewhat taste-free piece of chicken or an overcooked steak. And why do they always put the steak on top of the potatoes, then cover it with sauce so that your potatoes look like they're covered in liquid rust?

These friends and their delicious vegetarian dinners came back to me several weeks ago when I had to choose my entree for an upcoming wedding. At the time I was still in the throes of ongoing nausea and feeling fairly meat-averse. So I picked the filet for Chad and I chose the vegetarian dinner, looking forward to a lovely plate of pasta on the big day.

Here's what I got: a mound of brick-like mashed potatoes in the center of the plate, surrounded by asparagus (hate it - gave it to Chad), broccoli (hate it more - gave it to Heidi), cauliflower (kind of blends in with the potatoes) and zucchini/squash (had potential).

It was a plate of side dishes.

No pasta.

Heidi and Chad shared their steaks with me. They were delicious.