Woah Belly!

As you all know this entire pregnancy I have wanted to be huge...I am happy to report that I finally feel huge - YES! I love my prego belly...maybe borderline obsessive about it...here are a few things I obsess about:
~ In the past week my belly button has been in a different spot daily...so I am not really sure where the belly buttons final home will be after the baby makes its appearance.
~ NO stretch marks! My secret weapon has been 'Burts bees belly balm'...it is really greasy but so worth it.
~ ...to make a belly cast or to not make a belly cast? I would love to immortalize the belly, Z thinks it is weird...and I am pretty sure no one in Curry Land would understand why I had a cast made of my pregnant belly - wearing clothes that show my belly is taboo so I can not imagine the reaction to having a permanent belly fixture hanging on my wall.

rodents of a smaller size

One of the many good things about having Art living with us is that he is constantly teaching us more words and phrases in the language here.

One night in particular he was helping us with anatomy vocab...so I quickly grabbed some paper and a pencil and drew it all out so that I could reference and memorize later. Z doesn't do this however...he soaks in new words like a sponge. The only thing that is soaking into my brain lately is this memory blocking fog that I have recently contracted from pregnancy.

...anyways, back to the language lesson...so as you can see from my diagrams we were learning tons of important words and learning that they have words for things that we do not; i.e. there is a specific word for behind the ear, and the little thing that dangles in your throat...actually now that I think about it we may have a word for that dangly thing but the fog is encompassing my brain as we speak.

From the entire lesson Z had one take away...one word that is now his all time favorite...it is the word for boogers and it is literally translated 'nose mice'. When Art taught us this word Z started giggling during the language lesson...and then Z started to act out picking his nose and said 'look Art I'm hunting for mice'. Which then made Art laugh hysterically...I then quickly realized that I am surrounded by boys all day everyday - the impromptu lesson was over, I got up from the table and left them to their boyish ways. I really want a baby girl now.

have to share the cuteness

I've washed all the baby stuff that I think we will need and just had to stop and take a picture of all the cute little clothes.

I can't believe the baby will be here soon...and even more shocking - M and Dabby will be here soon as well...when we left America Land 2 and1/2 years ago they sort of led us to believe that they had no interest in visiting Curry Land. Now they are singing a different tune - haha! And boy am I happy, because M needs to teach me the ropes...I'm pretty sure she tried to teach me the ropes when I was little and had baby dolls aplenty but I was more interested in climbing trees at the time. 

What was I thinking!?!

I have a two friends here in Curry Land that are phenomenal quilters...their work is inspiring...so much so that I was inspired to make a quilt for the first time. I picked out an easy baby quilt pattern and fun Curry Land fabric and started the project. At the beginning of the project Z quickly reminded me that I did not have the tools to cut the fabric or a sewing machine to put the quilt together...at the time I wrote Z off as a Debbie downer...I am a perpetual optimist and not about to let things like 'no quilting tools' and 'no sewing machine' be my obstacles to making a baby quilt. So I improvised...

This is me cutting out the squares with Z's speed square from his tool bag...tool problem solved! It was at this point that my optimism started to wane mainly due to the fact that cutting out little quilting squares with a speed square was a time consuming process and not to mention frustrating. I then started to ask myself 'what was I thinking?' and Z's concerns started to make more sense.

Luckily one of my quilting friends stepped in...she did not know she was intervening and saving me from myself, she simply wanted to make baby b a quilt...she didn't know about the hours of frustration with a speed square in hand...but someone up above did and sent my friend as an angel! I excitedly handed off to her the fabrics I had picked out and cut knowing that it would come back as a piece of art. 

She made such a beautiful baby quilt! I am forever grateful for her time and talent. Thank you Mama M!

* I have learned a valuable lesson; I will not attempt quilting again until I have all the needed tools and equipment and can finally sew in a straight line.

when in doubt, google!

so lets say you are 36 weeks pregnant...and lets say you notice that your stool in a grayish white color...so what do you do??? you google it. And then you read all these medical articles about how white stool is an indicator of liver disease - WHAT! ...since you are not exhibiting any other symptoms that are in conjunction with liver disease, ie: high fever, abdominal pain, etc...you go on googling...and finally you find your answer - too many antacids. So FYI: when you eat curry and get major heartburn and then ingest 4-5 antacids in one day...you will have white stool.

The Yak effect

I think the elevation is getting to me here in Mt. Everest land...Every time I see the word 'Yak' or a picture of a yak I get the giggles. Z is barely putting up with me at this point of our trip. Here is my attempt at sharing the comedic chi of Yak.
~ Our first day we stepped into a small seven eleven type store to pick up some sugarless snacks...I eat around five times a day now so snacks are necessary. On the dairy aisle in its full glory was an assortment of Yak cheeses. We will be taking Yak cheese home with us to Curry Land.
~ The hotel we are staying at is super swank...it has a bar/lounge in it like all super swank hotels, except the bars' name is...'The Yak Bar' - I'm guessing the drinks are as strong as a Yak and you will be feeling it in the morning
~ Second day we went perusing through the tourist part of town...stores were littered with Yak paintings, Yak wool, Yak pillow covers, Yak books and finally my favorite Yak puzzles. Every time I saw something Yak in this market I pointed and giggled like a four year old. Consequently every time I pointed and giggled like a four year old the store keeper came up to Z thinking we were interested in purchasing the Yak paraphernalia...Z got pretty tired of explaining 'no we do not want the Yak (blank)please excuse my wife.' I really did want the Yak puzzle but by that time Z had had enough of my strange sense of humor.
~ Day three - we took a tour of the palace here, it's a lovely place chock full of great antiques and stories...my favorite piece in the entire collection - a mounted Yak head! It was smiling at us, possibly the most heartwarming taxidermy that I have ever seen.
~ Now we are on day four...Z and me are going to be adventurous today and try Yak butter tea, it's on my bucket list ya know :)
Still no signs of Yak rides...maybe we'll try the local zoo.

The Terminal

First off, if you’ve never seen the movie The Terminal go and rent it really quick before proceeding to read this.
Z and me were heading to Mt. Everest land…we had to wake up butt crack early to get to the airport and lately I don’t do butt crack early very well (ok honestly I’ve never done butt crack early well). We check in with our cheap Curry Land carrier, I hand over all medical paperwork that I knew I would need because I am 34 weeks pregnant. Bags go on the conveyor belt, boarding passes are in hand. We were just about to get in the immigration line and then suddenly check in guy from Curry Land carrier comes and gets us. He asks me to come back to the customer service desk (in Curry Land ‘customer service desk’ means someone has or is about to make you really angry). Needless to say after an hour of them calling people, looking over my medical records and back and forth arguments we are not allowed to board the plane. They gave us back our bags and money and wished us a happy journey with another carrier. From the broken English conversations that we had the only real reason they could give us why we were not allowed to fly with them was that if our child happened to be born on their flight then they would have to give our child free airfare for the rest of its life. In my mind that is the ONLY perk to giving birth while flying.
So we had to repurchase tickets with an international carrier that at least has reasonable policies posted on their fancy international website. The only drawback with flight #2 is that we had to wait ten hours in the airport till departure. Being the tired prego that I am I wanted to get from the check in counter of the airport to the terminals because Curry Land terminal is really nice. There are several international restaurants, moving sidewalks, and recliners…its dreamland compared to the sterile check in area with hard Formica benches. So we tried to check in early with International carrier…to no avail. So like Tom Hanks in The Terminal, I was barred from my desired destination by silly bureaucratic excuses and a sliding glass door.