2008-01-10 - 4:51 p.m.

...still incubating, still receiving baby goods, still organizing...

Whenever I call my mother I have to start the phone conversation with, "hello I'm not in labor." It's true. I'm not.

And I'm not allowed to go into labor until next week - because my doc is spending the weekend in NY. Hey, I don't begrudge her that one - she must work hellish hours, and deserves a holiday.

But the reports remain good.

I'm healthy - lost a pound. Ankles still reminding me of Aunt Bea from the Andy Griffith show...but my blood pressure is back down. Baby's heart rate - all good. So I left the doc's office and walked the mile-plus down to yoga, and got to be the prenatal yoga heroine of the week. If you are 39 weeks and still stretching, you become a prenatal role model. It felt good.

Err, until it was over and then it felt - painful. Back - OW OW OW - LOWER BACK! I'm not sure I'll be a 40-week prenatal role model...Mean yoga goes until the end of the month, so MAYBE I'll stop through on Saturday - but you really have to question why you are doing something when even NICE yoga is creating pain. I'll think about whether or not being a role model really means that much to me.

***

Got another box of baby clothes in the mail today. This time with a stack of Ueberpink stuff from my niece that still had the tags attached. GREAT! And then - ahem, when you look at the clothing, you understand why the tags are still attached. What, pray tell, is a 3-month-old baby going to do in a crenelin dress?? THREE of them. right. these aren't hand-me-downs. These are get-far-away-from-mes.

No, really there were some some cool useful things in the box as well, such as hooded towels, wash cloths, useful accoutrement for breastfeeding mothers on the go (details spared), and the topper: a LUVIE: a cute little brown baby blanket from my niece, shaped like a labrador puppy, with lovely silk ears, a silk heart, and silk edge for comfort.

This little guy is actually quite a cute gift coming from my 7-yr-old niece, because she still carries her "puppy" (a dalmatian that has had new eyes, ears, and paws sewn on) everywhere with her. Puppy is so much a part of my niece's life that he has his own opinions about activities, people, and movies... So it must have seemed just downright natural to her that her baby cousin would HAVE to have a puppy of her own.

I find the whole puppy concept rather cool. I grew up with a baby blanket - Little Yellow (guess what color it was) - that I took with me everywhere. I even took it to college (although at that point I just left Yellow in the dresser drawer). In fact, Yellow still holds a special place on a shelf across the room.

Little Yellow has been sewn and re-sewn about a thousand times. I remember being small enough that my dad would tuck it all around me when I couldn't sleep at night. He would tuck me under little yellow on the sofa and sing "I don't wanna work on Maggie's farm no more" from Bob Dylan, or "Have you seen the little piggies" from the Beatles, or my favorite: "England Swings" by Roger Miller:

"England swings like a pendulum do
Bobbies on bicycles, two by two
Westminster Abbey, the tower of Big Ben
The rosy red cheeks of the little children."

My dad had a beautiful voice, and he looked just like Roger Miller on the old LP jacket (or so I thought). And when he sung the part about the rosy red cheeks, he would reach down and gently touch both of mine.

My brother had Duckie (who was, not surprisingly, a stuffed duck). I really don't know if Duckie still lives. The last time I saw Duckie, he didn't have any eyes, his beak was half gone with the stuffing knocked out, and the fuzz was starting to fray a bit. I don't imagine my brother being the sentimental type to hold on to Duckie (and also, it is quite likely that my wicked stepmother threw Duckie away when she married my father and threw out most of our childhood toys.)

K had a steiff bear named "Teddy" (detecting a theme with baby toys here) that was loved into baldness. I think that he is trying to get his mother to send it to him now. (ahem, I think perhaps we could actually afford to get our kid a new steiff bear that still has fur...but I don't want to stifle - steiffle? - K's enthusiasm for bringing over things from his childhood - we're still working on the German children's books, y'know.)

Blighty's son Ben was the only child I ever knew who had a security vacuum cleaner (okay - a security hoover)...I don't know if he had another, softer item that played a more important role in his life - but I remember his needing to bring that little plastic hoover with him wherever he went. I'll bet he called it "Hoover" - which come to think of it would be a great name for a dog, if not the head of the FBI or something..

Anyway, so that was today's excitement - more laundry, more organizing, more work on the proposal...and lots of thinking about beloved security items.