I know... I know... I've been a lame blogger. I can't help it. It's the sluggishness of pregnancy.

When I was pregnant with Raelin, I assumed that my mere fertility would have me spouting deep, inspired prose in my journal day after day...relishing in the life growing witthin me.

Not.

I think i journalled maybe twice. And I have been a voracious journaller most of my life. As in, i have a box that contains my journals dating back easily to 5th grade. So, I was kind of disappointed in my lack of creativity and drive to document such an important life event. And it appears that it's happening again... an important life event that i am less than motivated to record. And this being our second child... well, lets just say the ultrasound pictures were left in the car for over a week. I mean, who has the time?

Has the baby shows signs of life today? check. ok, now, onto dinner plans.....

I don't mean to sound so cavalier as to give off the impression that i am not invested or excited about this baby. Indeed, I am. We are. But second time around it's just... different. You'd think I'd have done this at least a dozen times before given my lack of real focused attention on this. At this point in my pregnancy with Raelin, I could have told you what specific cells were developing this week, so entrenched in baby growing literature i was.

And this time? well, if i can remember what week i'm at exactly, i could fathom a guess simply from memory, but not because i have actually cracked any kind of pregnancy book.

This pregnancy is all about understanding the reality of bringing another *person* into our home, complete with its own personality, quirks, and charms that will change our lives and family dynamic. With Raelin well... lets just say that once i got over the shock that indeed i had given birth to a live baby- *then* reality set in. Before that I was rather fixated on my ballooning midsection and the inevitablity of fitting a small person through my quite a bit smaller yoni.

So, yeah, we're a bit wiser this time around. Which is one reason why I was really hoping that we could discover the gender at our ultrasound- i wanna know who's moving in, dammit! But, no dice, as many of you have discovered from reading kevmos' update. This baby had legs locked up tight and was giving nothing away. Darn thing picked up on our indecision and went with it!! They are too smart, even in utero.

But on with other news.

I am now 30. Yes, that's right. Passed through the ole 30 gate with flying colors. Had a smashing party with kids and adults of all ages, mostly sprawled out on our floor, gnoshing on homemade yummies and appropriately oooohhing and ahhhing over the lovely cakes (yes! 2!) kevin made for me. It was a perfect way to pass into the new decade, and i was so touched that so many of our new friends came because really, we don't know these people all that well! I mean, we know them, but its not like we've been hanging out for years. Some of them are friendships only a few months old, so it was a great testament to the building of our community. and the ability of our house to host a party.

and now its into the belly of winter. no doubt, like last year, i will manage to summon the motivation to bitch and kvetch in about 5 or 6 weeks about how going through winter is like climbing a mountain with false peaks and blah, blah, blah and you can feel free to skip it. or, i'll just say "see archive" and you can read last year's kvetch and it will more or less cover the current state. But as winter as more or less just started, i'm willing and ready for some snow and a few walks on the ice that has yet to freeze over yet. I got a baby to grow and winter is as good a time as any to do it. When I planted our tulip bulbs in the fall, i thought that when we see the little green shoots, our little nutkin will be about ready to break hibernation. It's a nice thing to look forward to... even if my yoni will be stretched to all hell.