Fetus coming soon

I went to the midwife's yesterday and had an internal exam. She can already feel the baby's head! She guesses that Fetus won't be here by next week, but it "might not be too long." I'm hoping Fetus lasts for at least another week, because you can't deliver in the birthing center until you're at least 37 weeks along.

When I got home, I was so excited that I couldn't go to sleep at my normal grandma hour and now I'm cleaning the house like a fiend. We still need to put the crib together, launder the new baby clothes and bedding, etc. etc. and here I am now, cleaning the toilet with baking soda. I get to meet Fetus soon!

In the world of work, J., our graphic designer, was inside the elevator with Goo Be Gone when I rode back up from my super-quick lunch break. As he scrubbed away at a Velcroed sign, he laughed and said, "I got two college degrees so I could clean elevators." As the elevator beeped and opened to my floor, I said, holding my nose from the chemical stench, "Yeah, and I got a 4.0 in college so I could make some labels." Wouldn't it be lovely to have a challenging job one day? I guess that's where Fetus comes in!

Word

"It isn't only our food is travelling great distances to reach us; we, too, have moved a great distance from our food. This most intimate nourishment, this stuff of life--where does it come from? Who produces it? How do they treat their soil, crops, animals? How do their choices--my choices--affect my neighbors and the air, land, and water that surround us? If I knew where my food and drink came from, would I still want to eat it? If even my daily bread has become a mystery, might that total disconnection be somehow linked to the niggling sense that at any moment the apocalyptic frogs might start falling from the sky?" -J.B. MacKinnon

Word

"Man is born free and everywhere is in chain stores." -Graffiti as quoted in The 100 Mile Diet by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon

Book recommendation

Over the weekend, I finished reading The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating by Alisa Smith and J. B. MacKinnon. The couple embarks on a year of eating only food within 100 miles from their urban apartment in Vancouver. And unlike many of those books where the real-life experiment sounds intriguing, this one is actually well written.

They give you the facts behind their decisions, like the popularly cited study from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, which reports the food we eat typically travels 1,500 to 3,000 miles from farm to plate. They also delve further into the facts -- that study is only including fresh produce: imagine how many miles all the various chemicals and ingredients thrown into our processed foods travels combined! It's incredibly baffling to read about how cheap oil has revolutionized the food industry to the point where you may have corn farmed in Iowa shipped to China to be canned, only to be shipped back to, say, New York to be put on a grocery store shelf.

The authors are really honest about their experiences, too, including the transition from convenience to planning for food (winter in Canada, anyone?) as well as their own personal evolutions. They emphasize food as a connection to place and community, something perhaps longed for yet often not fully realized on an individual level.

I highly recommend reading this book if you haven't yet. I've had it on my to-read list for nearly two years, and I'm so glad I finally did read it. It's the type of book that could change your actions, it's that inspiring. And now I really can't wait for the farmers markets to start up! Only three more weeks here in Boston!

What to name a baby boy

Dreamy just asked me about this in a comment ...

So I still can't think of a boy's name. We've had a girl's name in mind for years, so that's taken care of. Some people have suggested using the girl's name if it's a boy, too, but if you knew the name and the meaning behind it, you'd know that wouldn't work.

We want to name the boy something that has meaning for both of us ... maybe after a plant or something in nature, or after an artist or writer or a color. I like what Momma Val did, using an ancestor's name for her baby's first name. We looked through some family trees, though, and found nothing exciting.

Nothing we come up with fulfills the two basic criteria: it sounds good/we can imagine calling a child that and it means something. Off beat is good, off sound is bad. We're thinking shorter is better, since our last name is somewhat long.

I'm at a loss. Open to suggestions, too. I mean, really, at this point ... I asked the midwives during orientation night how quickly we had to have a name on the birth certificate. They laughed, but the good news is you have a few days. We just might need it if Fetus is a baby boy.

Did you have an imaginary friend when you were young?

I did! Bonnie and Shoe-shoe, and they were married. I think I was about seven. I was reading this article on children with imaginary friends and I couldn't help but smiling at my memories of saying goodnight to Bonnie and Shoe-shoe. Shoe-shoe actually was a stuffed animal when the stuffed animal was around, and imaginary when I was away from the stuffed animal (at school, a friend's house, and so on).

Did any of you all, my blogger friends, have imaginary friends?

Gray and full of wonder

Cold, gray rain again. The clouds in this town seem omniscient. I'm trying to think back to the sun of last week, the budding green trees that are now slightly mud colored ... hence the picture.

My sister is getting married today, in four and a half hours to be exact. She only has my parents there as witnesses. A judge, her fiance, and my parents gathered around a white gazebo in sunny Virginia. I never imagined being apart from her on her wedding day ... though I'm not sure I ever imagined her being married, either. They're planning to move to Texas at the end of the month. I'm not sure if they will, though. My sister is one of those people who spends a lot of time talking about how her life is going to change in dramatic ways, but it never materializes. She wants, but she doesn't do.

Week 35 of this Fetus life. I'm having some heartburn, which happens because your stomach is pushed so far up to your esophagus by your ever-expanding uterus. No real complaints, though. I will miss having this motion inside me, safe and warm. I feel comfortable knowing s/he is OK just by a kick or a nudge in my belly. It must be strange, to enter into motherhood and be introduced to this little being after nearly a year of having her/him growing inside you. I'm almost mourning the coming loss of being pregnant, though of course I'm excited to finally meet Fetus.

Hubby has finals this coming week. MIDI projects and mixing songs and math for acoustics class and all that good stuff. I can't believe he's been at Berklee for a year now, or that we've lived in Boston that long. People keep asking us what's next. Next is next, I suppose. We'll see where this wild road takes us.

The rain is drizzling down now, a slow soup on the sidewalks. So many worms, the birds are ignoring our feeders.

My little sister, getting married. She is doing today.