19 Days

until the Baby arrives...

And we are sooooooooooooooooooo excited. (One "o" for every day of waiting.)

It is so fun to speculate "what might be": What will this baby look like? Boy or girl? What in the world should we write on that birth certificate? How's the personality? How will Luke react? Will it be a rough c-section again with Bethany sewn up "too tight"? Will the nose turn up into a little button? How much hair? Long and skinny at birth like the first Armstrong newborn stringbean? Which relatives will he/she resemble? What does the baby's low heart rate (in the 120s) mean? (Mellow, we hope?) Questions galore. 19 days: some answers.

We are also curious what size the kidneys will be. Last check, when the enlarged kidney should have returned to normal size, it was still too chubby. This could be caused by any number of things, but it is never ideal, and it could even mean surgery. We are not excited by that option. Anesthesia? "No da dum." We have been praying many times each day that God would shrink that chubby little thing! Join us in bombarding God with this request, if you please. Mostly, we are praying that whatever this baby brings us, we would have strength, peace, and joy no matter what. We learned when dealing with the scary virus during Bethany's pregnancy with Luke that all kids will have "their things"; that if we want to worry, we will always find something to worry about; and that even if a baby is born 100% healthy, that is no guarantee of a trouble-free 18 years. Life happens, with its share of stinkiness, and we have to learn to trust the Creator of these little critters, or else we will go crazy!

Speaking of going crazy... This baby, despite a very low heart beat (Bethany's was very low, so the rumor goes, and she was reportedly the easiest baby in the world, so we are hoping these traits are correlated), is extremely wild. More than we remember Luke being. There is not one time when people want to feel Baby move that they put their hand on The Belly and cannot feel movement within about five seconds. Does this child ever sleep? Lots of commotion in there, and curious if it will be a Wild Thing or just a Happy Thing, or maybe neither of the above. It is fun to speculate.

This baby also gets loooots of hiccups. Several episodes each day.

And he/she loves to make a big gallump of a hump right up into Bethany's right ribcage. Luke did the same thing. Must be cozy in there. The left side of Bethany's belly seems to be reserved for all the non-baby stuff. Go Right or Bust, says Baby.

Fun pastime: Playing chase. You find the baby's foot, or elbow, or some other unidentifiable body part; and you press it; you feel the baby swim away; then you find that little limb again and press it again, and Baby runs like the wind.

Simple pleasures. There is a lot about pregnancy that is so much fun.

Nevertheless, Bethany generally feels ready to get this baby OUT! You can get inflated only so much before you feel like you will pop, and your body can only gain so much weight before it feels like you are an achy 100-year-old whale.

Luke still seems very excited about Baby. Yesterday, when talking with Richie about the baby and what we should name the little one, Luke kept saying, "Baby, TUM!" ("COME!") Undecided on names, we will bring a list of some of our favorite options. We have screened them by Luke to see what he thinks. One of the boy's names on the list is Deet, and one of the girl's is Hah-Tee (a.k.a. Hottie). That's in Luke language (which is so encoded that you will never know).

Until January 8th, that is.

And to close this much-too-long intro: A few quotes recently about Baby.

Feeling The Belly and its wild upheavals, Richie admitted: "I don't know how you get anything done. Or how you don't just vomit."

As we (tried to) hug, Richie laughed and said: "I'm pretty far away from you now!"

In another (attempt to) hug, Richie confessed: "See, this baby is already getting in between us."

When Baby decided to nuzzle up into Bethany's right ribcage and leave the entire left side of her torso vacant, Bethany explained in precise medical vocabulary: "I have a bad case of The Lump."

Feeling Baby move around during last night's evening Cosby session, Richie declared: "That baby's incredible. You should sell tickets."

Then he continued with: "I mean, I've never felt another belly and I never want to, but..."

:)

And then an end to the evening, revealing the realities of parenting, and the exhaustion it can bring:

"Do you ever find that on Fridays you don't mind going to bed late?"

(Note: It is only 9 PM, and we're already getting ready for bed.)

Then we laughed.

"I mean, LATE! Like 9:30 or 10!"

More laughter.

"A little different than when we were dating..."

Ya think?

Life now:

Trucks, tractors, trains, and eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeearly bedtimes. (19 of those "e"s, as well. Did anybody count?)


Here is The Triumphant Babywarrior in a significant moment of Initiation into Boyhood: The metal, scale-model truck Grandpa Tony bought him last year was finally taken down and opened. Luke, we decided, is now at a safe age for toys like these; he is a big fan of trucks, and rarely puts things besides dirt clods into his mouth. So he finally got the Trans X truck from Grandpa Tony as his very own, a real model of the one Grandpa drives. (He calls him Topie, by the way.)


And Luke gave us a sneer of happiness. Welcome to Boyhood, Little Man.


By the way, he is in love with this toy. He woke up at 4:45 the morning after his Initiation exclaiming, "Vroom, vroom!" because he wanted to play with his new truck. Maybe we should put it back on the shelf so he (we) can get some sleep!


The weather these days is cooooold (for Davis, that is; let's not talk about Winnipeg, where Richie spent 24 of his winters). Time for the scarf Haley made Luke! He felt proud of himself and kept it on the entire hour in Sunday School. Must impress his ladyfriends, you know. (The toothbrush is a good look too, don't you think?)


After-church fun with Dut-Dut.


More excitement in Luke's life: goodbye, crib; hello, bed! We just took off the crib rail, but now it is a bed--and WOW, he can even play trains on it. Does life get much better?


Nope.


Nope.


Nope.


What is this? It's our baby, of course! Bethany's friend Kelly, with the trickery help of Bethany's mom, hosted a surprise baby shower last week. In addition to being treated to foot spas and other spoilages by cousin Kristen, the guests got the opportunity to draw the new Armstrong baby on a paper plate perched atop their heads. The results were intriguing. This one, for example, which Bethany is ashamed to claim, sports quite the mangled look. At least there's one strand of cute curly hair... Bethany's job was to decide on her favorite "baby."


Here's one with a charming detached leg.


And this, Bethany just knew was her mom's. You know you know someone well when you can identify the artwork she does sightless with paper on top of her head.


Wow, a smiley torso!


If judging were based on accuracy, this one would have taken the prize. How fetal is this?!? (Kudos to Gracie.)


But the prize for cutest went to Auntie Robin. What is so cute about this one, anyway? It's all relative. (Not to dis your artistry skills, Aunt Robin...)


Girly things aside, here are the menfolk enjoying a surf video together. Richie's dream come true: someone excited to watch surfing footage with him.


Bethany must admit, this game of hide-and-seek is really getting old. Luke hides in the curtains every time. But on this occasion, Bethany had a bit more fun "trying" to find Luke, because he was joined by his father and his baby...


Wow, Richie, that was tricky!


The cousins. Stoic Siena, Luke sporting his classic handsome (?) smile...


Oh Sienabug, how CUTE you are!!!!


Time to get festive! We opted not to buy a tree this year, seeing as 500 square feet that are already full cannot host a proper Christmas tree. So out came the one-foot fake one from Bethany's bachelorette days. You know your tree is pathetic when your one-year-old can haul it around.


A staple of Christmas in the Sorbello house was the candle-powered angel chime Mom always put out for us to adore. Last year she bought us our own, and this year Luke was enamored. He plays with it each night at dinner. It's kind of like having our own band serenading us over a candlelight supper (only veeeeery different).


And here Luke helps us get out the ornaments, finding the nativity scene particularly intriguing.

The night after decorating our apartment ("decorating" = unfolding the cramped-up branches of a one-foot fake tree, safety-pinning stockings to our curtain, taping up white lights around the living room with packing tape) (hee hee), we were awaken by the oddest loud crinkling sounds. What on earth?!

Slowly, tape piece by tape piece, loud crinkle every minute or two, the Christmas lights were falling down all over the room. So at 3 AM, we finally got up and ripped them all down, with a good laugh.

Hey, we tried.

(And the stockings we hung were actually homemade by Bethany, who stubbornly refused advice so that she, like a proper two-year-old, could say she did them "all by herself.")

So yes, we have tried with our most valiant efforts.

And now to help adorn our little abode, a Lukey-and-Mama-made-paper-chain graces the living room wall--to the right of the safety-pinned stockings, above the one-foot-tall fake tree.

We rip a link off the chain each morning.

But it's not a countdown to Christmas.

In fact, there are 19 links left this morning.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

(That was 19 "m"s, by the way.)