So we are 30 weeks along now in the pregnancy, and the baby is beginning to really kick and move around. The other day we were about to get out of the car, and the top quadrant of Steph's belly ("Big Belly, Big Belly!!" as I now always refer to it) was pulsing up and down. Yeah, all Alien-like. But according to all the ultrasounds, we are not in fact having a chest burster for a daughter.

And her legs have caught up to the rest of her body. We were quite concerned that she would have short legs like her dad, but no. Other ultrasound revelations have not been so comforting.

One disconcerting moment occurred a couple of months ago when we got a good look at her face. I made a comment, perhaps a sentimental tidbit or perhaps a witty retort--who can be sure? Right afterward the little girl yawned. Bored of me already, eh?

So there are 10 weeks left until the due date. The other day out of nowhere I blurted out, "Steph, we're going to have a baby." It was matter of fact. It was informative. It was absurd. Steph assured me that she had already checked out all the appropriate books on the subject, and many of the salient passages had already been marked. It was as if she knew that my Oprah moment was coming, that great cosmic "Aha!" in which we come into contact with pure experience, the ground of being, the source of all, and suddenly the obvious becomes as obvious as it really is.

I have heard that the Aztecs did not see the Conquistador ships even as they grew larger and larger on the horizon. They had no way of conceiving of something like those ships; no analog to connect what their senses told them with what they knew to be possible. But suddenly someone entirely new and foreign set foot on shore and their world was forever changed.

Just to be clear, I don't think our daughter is going to take over my land, infect me with strange diseases, and steal my wife. That might be considered over-extending the metaphor.

Hi everyone,

Sorry I didn't post yesterday. I was kind of busy decorating someone's cubicle to look like a Mini Mammoth made of tissue paper:

Staff are coming from all over to check it out, as if I didn't do the same thing last year to someone else, only with different colored tissue paper!

I was also busy going to lunch with the gang:

Over the weekend I had a lot of good times. On Friday, Erika was in town for a wedding, so she met up with all her friends at Mimi's. We had a meal, then went to Starbucks for a while, and then I had her over to see our condo. We hung out until midnight, then I had to drop her off. We ended up chasing around a stray dog at 12:15 in the morning for a while until we gave up try to save it.

Saturday I got some sleep, and was lucky that Ric ended up not having to work like he though he would. So he called my sister and had her bring my mom to meet us at the movie theater to see Prince Caspian. We ran a lot of errands after that, and then we got a free pizza (a reward for signing up for Charter cable, which we only had for a few months while we lived at the rental house) and had Jenny over. She bought Mario Kart for the Wii (which is awesome and I can't stop playing) and we pretty much spent the whole night playing video games.

Sunday we made it to church and were reminded yet again that we're in the right church with the right pastor. It was good to be back after having missed a few weeks. We had a Panera lunch and I spent the afternoon reading, then finally pepped up and started working around the house. I did dishes, cleaned, did laundry, organized a lot of stuff I need to sell, and did finances. Ric and I went out and got Chipotle for dinner (kind of overpriced for plain eaters) and started watching Wedding Crashers. We made a spur-of-the-moment trip to the grocery store for some snacks and watched some tv for a while.

All in all, a pretty good weekend. Last night we did more around the house as well as watching tv, and tonight we're hanging out with Josh if plans go smoothly. We've been having a mini vacation from working on the condo over the past week. I think my back needed it. And this week, we're taking a mini vacation from work too! We're both taking off Thursday and Friday, so we've got a 5-day weekend ahead of us. Only one more work day to go!