2001-10-31
Happy Hallowe'en. Quite a few people I work with dress up for the holiday. One of them took me to task for not doing so. I pleasantly said, "It's not my thing." She persisted. I pleasantly said, "It's not my thing." Finally, she went away.
Anyway.... We love our house. I realized the other day that I have not had one moment's regret, not one small twinge of nostalgia for our old house. The move, so far, seems to be 100 percent positive. Except for all the remaining crap we must remove from the attic of the old house. But we generally feel incredibly lucky and amazed.
I tend to be a bit of a self-depriver, distinguishing between wants and needs and usually concluding that I can do without. I thought our old house, though cramped, was adequate. And it was, but our new house is so much more. This is one of the positive ways B has influenced me and I'm grateful.
Have I mentioned that we now have a hot tub? I find this mildly amusing. I haven't had much experience with them, but can generally take or leave them. They are not supposed to be a very good idea for pregnant women; they raise your core body temperature which I gather is not something you want. (I did a web search on "pregnancy hot tub" and found a the pregnancy journal of a British woman who joked about the boil-in-bag-chicken effect--presumably the baby is the chicken and I would be the bag.) But I have slipped in for a few minutes a couple of times, at night, under the stars (the hot tub is on the deck). I have to say it is pretty nice.
Tonight is the first of our childbirth education classes. This should be some experience. Being the critical consumer I am, I found an independent teacher, by which I mean one not affiliated with the hospital, for I've learned that hospital-endorsed and affiliated teachers tend to prepare you primarily to be a docile patient. I've learned that the Lamaze business with the nutty breathing patterns, which with we're all familiar from its display in popular culture, is pretty passe. The wiser approaches seem to be ones that are informed by the birth behavior of other mammals; you don't think they're out there in the wild going "ha-ha-hee," do you?
Speaking of wildlife, our lake has seen the arrival of what our neighbors seem to think are Canadian geese. Lots of them. We were talking to the neighbors over the weekend and the guy said he'd seen 106 that morning. He had counted them. I think it takes a certain kind of person to count that many geese; it would not occur me to in a million years to do so.
I've never been that huge a fan of nature. I don't have anything against it, it just doesn't hold my attention for that long. But I'm finding it really relaxing and pleasant--the leaves changing color, the geese, the stars at night, the enormous moon that actually cast a shadow last night as we sat by the lake in our new Adirondack chairs. And I think it will be good for the kid, having all this stuff to explore and learn about, all this first-hand experience. I think it will be very cool.
�
�