Tadpole Diaries #4

July 21
Who knew that the men were allowed to attend the breastfeeding class? I went alone and was surprised to see the seats filled with couples. Oops. Eric would have loved an entire class about breasts - what man wouldn't? Ha. I feel like I deprived him of the coup d'etat in the parenting series.

The class was 2.5 hours long and the instructor bore a resemblance to Mrs. Doubtfire. She had several stuffed felt breasts that she used for demonstration purposes. The couple next to me got the giggles early on during the session and all I wanted to do was laugh along with them.
At one point, the teacher passed out the realistic looking babies that we were to use to try in various holds. They actually name these "holds," The football hold, the cradle hold...etc.
The fake baby that I was handed was Asian in appearance. An Asian couple sat in front of me and they were given a very pale, blue-eyed child.

We all tried to pretend that it was no big deal but kept glancing at each others "dolls" and wondered if we should just make a hasty exchange.

July 22
I went to get into the car this AM and couldn't. I generally have the car for work and when I park our SUV in our VERY small garage, I have to move it far over to the left in order to get in and out . Even being ALL the way over to the left, so that the mirror touches the garage wall, the right hand drivers door only opens about halfway.

Yesterday evening, Eric drove the car and Eric parked the car. My flat bellied hubby could get in and out of the car but I turned sideways and had to scrape my belly against the wall and behind against the car. My coat has streak marks from the scrape.
Ummm, sweetie, do you think you could park the car WAYYYYYY over next time????

Aug 13
Someone from my work resigned today. We are seriously short-staffed and now we have lost a person. She was hired a year ago and was struggling to understand the material. She had difficulties in a few surgeries and when we sent her back to training, it became too much and she submitted her resignation today.

I feel bad for everyone on my team and the increased work load. Whether they like it or not, in five weeks time (or less), I'm taking leave. I'm taking my well deserved, love my baby, enjoy my time, stay up all night, be sleep deprived, worry about things, live in baby world time OFF!!!! Yippee.

When I think about all the times I've had to cut a vacation short or not take it at all due to work constraints, I feel like it's a normal part of my job. I've flown back from tiny airports at wee hours of the night just to cover cases. I've driven through blizzards and been snowbound in cities (Grand Forks) for two days. I've checked patients at 3 am just so I could get to the next place in time for a morning session. I was locked between two sliding doors for a good part of a Thanksgiving morning (that doesn't really fit in here, but it is a funny story). I had to trade call weekends and pick up extra days just so that we could get in our honeymoon last summer. I always panicked about things being covered and things going smoothly in my absence. I kept my cell phone on. I kept my blackberry on. I answered calls from my boss and called hospitals while hiking, camping, and skiing.

This time is different. I cannot postpone due to the inconvenience of anyone else. I will turn off my phone when I am sleeping. I will still return calls, but I can't be at the beck and call of work during this time.

That brings me joy and relief that I haven't felt since I started this crazy profession 6 1/2 years ago.

August 14
Many years ago, when Tofte was still a puppy, I had an interaction that I never forgot. It was a hot summer day, I was driving my little VW bug convertible and Tofte the puppy was sitting in the passenger seat. I was stopped at the intersection of Grand and Lexington when a woman in a minivan next to me rolled down her window and yelled, "You have my former life!" She went on to say that they used to have a convertible but sold it when she had her kids. She and her husband also had a golden retriever but they had just put it down. She paused for a bit and then laughed and said, "Look how the years change things." She was a perfectly joyful woman seated in a beat up minivan with the sounds of yelling children coming from the back seat.

At that moment, I loved my life.

Eric and I have friends here that have in many ways lived a parallel existence to us for the last year. They are an American couple that married just a few weeks before we did, and they moved to Melbourne a week before us. They came here with a transfer for her job and he had a bit of trouble finding work.
There are many similarities among the four of us, but one primary difference, they are ten years our juniors and like the woman in the minivan, THEY have our former lives!
They are busy all the time and travel almost every weekend. They go downhill skiing, take trips all over Australia, and fore-go sleep so that they can take in an extra day somewhere and get back on a red eye flight just in time for work on Monday.

I'm ready for baby and this is a whole new adventure, but I must admit that watching them and witnessing their freedom makes me a bit jealous. I don't know all the joys that this next adventure will bring, so I can only look back longingly and know what I'm leaving behind.
Bye for now last-minute-travel and dodgy accommodations, hello new life.

August 16
Our landlord put a new dresser in our apartment when we were away in the US. We were very happy about it as we now had a place to put all the new baby clothing. All the outfits were carefully washed and dried at my mom's before returning to AU and when we got here, they were divided by size and stored safely away in the dresser.

Something happened.

The dresser drawers are made with some sort of compressed resin/sawdust/formaldehyde material that began off-gassing. All of our cleaned and new baby clothes smelled toxic. I mean really really toxic. Like Rat-poison toxic.

Since we don't have a dryer and our itsy bitsy washing machine takes about 2 hours for a load, we made a trip to the laundromat.

For some reason the laundromat trip was a weekend highlight. I can't explain why. Was it the volume of baby clothing that we hauled with us? Was it watching all of these tiny little things going round and round in industrial size dryers? Was it the glances of those around us as Eric and I giggled while folding these tiny clothes? Was it the fact that even baby socks go missing in a dryer?

Anyway, all our little tots clothing is now safely cleaned and resting comfortably in the crib. The toxic dresser has been moved to the living room where it contains office supplies and various papers.

August 20
Most women in Australia finish up work between 32 and 34 weeks of pregnancy. I'm 35 weeks along and you should hear the comments. I think I'm the biggest and most unusual thing anyone has ever seen in the workplace. I'm all belly. Most people describe if they are carrying High or Low. Eric says I'm carrying the child "external".

We've been watching the Olympics (LOVE THEM!!!) and the commentators make references to the body types of the athletes. "Well, now, isn't she a chubby gymnast" and "He doesn't look like your typical diver...quite old looking." It cracks us up. Maybe it's an Australian thing. They feel rather free to comment on body shapes.

So, with that in mind, I would like to share my list of things that a person should and should not say to a pregnant woman.

Let's start with the Should's...
1. "Good luck" or "Best Wishes"
2. "You look so tiny"
3. "My friend so and so was so much bigger at that stage..."
4. "Congratulations"
5. "How are you feeling?"
6. "Are you sleeping alright?"
7. "You look radiant."
8. "What a cute outfit."
9. "When are you due?"
10. "Do you know the gender?" and a considerate "Are you telling?"
11. "Where are you having the baby?"
12. "What are you most excited about?"


And the things that it would be best to REFRAIN from saying...
1. "My goodness, you're huge."
2. "You look pale."
3. Any horror stories about baby delivery.
4. The word "Tear"
5. "Is it twins?" and then further insistence that perhaps it is twins and "maybe the doctor just hasn't told you."
6. Asking gender is fine, following it up with, "but what are you hoping for?" is not.
7. "When are you due, yesterday?"
8. Any comment that includes the word "waddling."
9. Remarks about how much smaller someone else was at that stage.

And the all too personal series...
10. "Will you be delivering vaginally?"
11. "Will you be breastfeeding?"

and the doomsday favorite...
12. "Life as you know it is about to be over, are you sure you want this?"

August 23
Names.
What a quandary.
What a major decision.
alright, I open up the floor for suggestions.

We already have a girl name all picked out. In fact, we had about 5 girl names that we really loved, but one came naturally and we are about 98% certain of it.

However, since we don't know the gender...we need a boy name.

That is SO much more difficult.
I don't know why, but it seems that there is much less creativity in the boys names and I go back and forth between something traditional and something more "out there."

However, the risk with a boys name seems just that much greater.

We have about 6 baby name books. Most have titles like, "600,000 names for babies or the much more creative "401,000 baby names." We also bought a survey book that lists people's opinions of certain names and another book titled, "Cool names for babies."

If we went with something purely Australian, we'd end up with one of the rather odd names like "Hamish or Lochlan". Don't fret, those two aren't in the running.
Alistair is out as well.

There is, however, an Aussie Olympian swimmer with a certain interesting name that we are considering.

Eric has a couple of favorites and so do I. Unfortunately we are having a hard time meeting in the middle on them.

So...post your (serious) suggestions and all will be considered.

August 24
This is the day that we left Minnesota last year. One year ago today. At times I think "Is that all? and at other times I realize how much can change in just one year.

For Eric, he's just wondering who the chick in our wedding photos is...

We can never move to the UK

When mild mannered Eric manages to anger people into leaving a dinner party early, we know we are in trouble.

Last night we attended a party with a mix of Brits and Australians. It was an awkward beginning for the eight of us in attendance. There were introductions of names only and we all found ourselves standing around a kitchen counter hovering over an appetizer platter. There were moments of silence interrupted by the occasional inquiry. "So, where do you work." Nothing really seemed to engage anyone and conversations fell flat.

However, one person had arrived with a very professional looking set of poker chips and we knew that the silence between people couldn't last forever.

When dinner was finished and the table was cleared, the game carrying guest began to take out the poker chips.

In retrospect, that's when the we should have left.

The chips were distributed by color! "OK, you be the blue chips, you are the red chips, you two are the white chips." AGRRGGGHHHH. Values people, chips have values. One must respect these chips!

Over the course of the evening, any number of serious grievances that would have gotten us shot in Vegas began to occur. Hands were mis-dealt and then simply amended rather than re-dealt, people folded and then reentered the game whenever they felt like it, there were too many out of turn raises to be counted, one person declared a flush with a set of four, someone else declared a straight with a card missing from the middle. I began to feel like a rule keeper.

Halfway through the game, most of the chips sat at the end of the table between Eric and myself. When I returned from getting a water and a taking trip to the bathroom, I found that the chips had been "redistributed" as people were "running out."

I quickly and purposefully lost my remaining chips so that I could just become permanent dealer. Eric's pile of chips came and went as the person next to him gave him handouts. Finally, he missed out on a massive winning in the middle of the table because no one understood the concept of splitting the pot. Apparently in this off-label game, there was only one winner each time. HUH? Suddenly it was not a five card game, but a seven card game in those instances.

OK, we aren't poker gurus, but we know enough not to be completely dim about the game. This abomination of Texas Hold-em was too much for us, especially Eric.

With us both eliminated from the game, we watched as another person was about to become robbed of a huge win in a same 'split-pot' scenario. Eric, the defender of the innocent quiet ones, got a bit aggressive and HAD to point out the error of their ways and demand that they give some chips to a relatively quiet woman at the end of the table. Eric was outraged that they couldn't see that she had ALSO won. Mild mannered Eric was standing, rather loud and trying to manage the reorganization of the chips.

That was it. The British sensitivities couldn't handle any more. Suddenly the two Brits at the end of the table declared, "This is no longer fun and we are leaving." They were gone within about 3 minutes.

We left about 5 minutes after them and when I got to the car, I couldn't stop laughing.
The only thing I could say to Eric was, "Well, we can NEVER move to the UK."

What a Difference a Year Makes

One year ago we started something new. Now look, everything is different. We are happy and look forward to the next adventure that will be coming in a few months.
We decided to take a trip for our anniversary, besides it won’t be too long before Beth is not allowed to fly. There were already some apprehensive looks on the part of the cabin crew as we boarded our flight. Somehow they must have known in advance that we will be parents soon because they put us in the “family” section, babies and toddlers all around, and for good measure bratty teenagers behind us. We picked up on some parenting techniques, good and bad. We can only hope that our new one will travel well.

Tasmania was beautiful. We had found accommodation through the Lonely Planet guide, and they did not steer us wrong. Cute little theme cottages that are within walking distance of the center of Launceston. Ours was the “Welsh” cottage complete with a large tub and chamber pot. The tub is for use, the pot for decor. Beth pretended to sit in the parlor waiting for gentleman callers whilst I sipped tea in the kitchen.

Some friends had told us about Freycinet National Park and the excellent hiking there. I was a bit dubious about the hiking, but Beth reassured me that she is “pregnant, not an invalid”, and she is always up for that sort of thing. I love that about her. After the park ranger eyed the bump under Beth ’s jacket she told us that it is a three hour strenuous hike….it didn’t matter as we wanted to see the famous wineglass bay. The beach at wineglass bay was ranked by Outside magazine as one of the top ten most beautiful beaches in the world. Apparently since that ranking, many a tourist and family have shown up at the park headquarters and asked for directions to drive to the beach. The only problem is that the beach is only attainable through a strenuous 1.5 hour one way trip. There is no road. Showing up in beach gear with flip flops isn’t going to get a person very far. Maybe the difficult hike is what keeps the beach so beautiful.

The beach definitely was worth the trip. However, we both admit that we missed a GREAT photo opportunity. Last year at our wedding, Beth posed on the rocks at Lutsen with the blue waters of Lake Superior stretched out behind her. Now, I’ll include that photo, but I’ll also include a photo of the rocks at Wineglass bay. Why, oh why, didn’t we put Beth and her rounded belly up on the rocks and reenact the same photo. Exact title of this missing shot would be “One year later”.

In addition to the hike at Freycinet, we toured the natural beauty of Launceston and enjoyed a great lunch in a restaurant that was fashioned out of an old barn. Tasmania is green and lush and beautiful. It’s a bit like Portland , Oregon meets Alaskan fishing village. It’s only a short flight from Melbourne , but its island setting makes the climate completely different. It’s cooler, but more temperate year round and rainy. Launceston is the second largest city, but it felt more like a bustling little town. No traffic, no large buildings, a complete 180 from our mini New York setting where we now reside.

We are home now, and tucked in to our new city awaiting the arrival of our wee one. No airline will take Beth as a passenger from this point on and any travel we do will be by car. We are living vicariously through the travel stories of our other expat friends who seem to be flying everywhere.

For us….we have reached the milestone of one year of marriage and so much has happened so fast in our lives. Let the nesting begin.

Tadpole Diaries #3

June 12 :
Eric and I returned to Melbourne on another epic 22 hour flight. It’s nice to have each other on the flight and the selection of movies comes in very very handy. I can highly recommend the movie “Lars and the Real Girl”. Seriously. It’s a horrid premise, but the movie is about acceptance and dealing with difference and we both enjoyed it a great deal. It definitely was better than my other selection, “The Other Boleyn.” Two thumbs down for that one

I remained as awake as possible on the flight so that I would remember to walk around, drink lots of water, and exercise the legs whenever possible. (Pregnant women are prone to blood clots)
I wasn’t uncomfortable…it was just strange to be up when everyone around me was sleeping.

We arrived bright and early on a Monday morning but two of our bags didn’t. You just know it instantly when the carousel goes around and around and you spot some of your bags grouped closely together, but the others don’t appear in the next two rotations. It turns out one bag was sent to Brisbane and the other remained in LA.

We had to wait at the counter and describe the bags. One was, of course, the bag that contained almost ALL our new stuff for baby and us as well as some electronic goods that we probably should have carried on but didn’t have the room. Murphy’s’ law dictates that would be the bag that goes missing.

The other bag was our new baby car seat. The folks working at the baggage office looked distraught when we told them about the car seat. They explained how stringent the laws were in Australia and told us they would need to organize to get us a carrier for our use to get home. Eric just smiled at them and declared, “Oh, No worries, the baby is still in the carry-on stage” and he patted my belly. The baggage people then looked down at the rest of me and began to laugh. Then they assured us the car seat would arrive sometime in the next three months.

In case you are wondering, the bag of everything else arrived late that night and we were relieved to see it. The car seat arrived a few days later. Apparently it got a bit lost in LA. Hmmm…I’m picturing the car seat on a Hollywood tour….

Well, our lives have returned to the slower cadence of life in Australia and we certainly talk a great deal about the fun we had in Minnesota. It was two weeks of fast paced, filled days and fun with family and friends. Sigh. It’s always that fun there, isn’t it?

As Eric explained in his last entry, our return to AU wasn’t exactly glorious with him losing his job and me taking a rather impressive fall on our very first day back. I’m still nursing a bruised knee and elbow and Eric is madly searching for employment. Despite all of this, we remain incredibly happy. These pregnancy hormones are working wonders for my mood and Eric never really feels sorry for himself over anything. It’s a lovely quality that I admire in him.


June 18:
Today we went to visit our very first daycare center. We were met at the door by a very peppy teacher as well as the director of the center. They spilled over about the good attributes of the place and took us on a tour of the rooms. The rooms all have one way mirrors and we could watch without being seen. It was like a zoo tour with children at the center. The director emphasized the “natural” environment, lack of plastic in the place, fantastic outdoor facilities, and the vegetarian meal plan. They both talked about how they redirect rather than discipline children. They went on and on and we ate it all up. The place was like the organic food market of day care centers and we loved it instantly. Bring on the natural children we say!

All we need is someone to hold our little baby and to love it, and feed it, and pick it up when it cries. Who really cares about a natural environment? We are such Suckers!
Alas, we put our names on the waiting list anyway. The waiting list is apparently about a year’s wait. How can this be?

June 21:
I’m beginning to hate the “waiting list” for daycares. Three tours in and we still don’t have a place. We are starting to move farther and farther from our apartment.

One that we went to yesterday had a large sign on the door that read "There have been SEVERAL cases of head lice lately...please check your children". The word SEVERAL was all capitals and underlined many times.

When we left there my head itched all over. I couldn't help it.

Eric says "There will be no lice in our house...all children who get lice will have their head shaved and that's final."

However, at this point, we are even hoping the house of lice calls us with an opening for daycare.


June 28
Our first parenting class! Hooray. We were so excited about this class all week and we looked forward to the possibility of meeting other soon-to-be-parents. However, when it came down to the organization of the day, we completely blew it! We had planned our day out well…wake up, go to the gym, eat lunch, go to parenting class and then go straight to our friend Lou’s birthday party. It was to be a brilliant day.
However, I slept in due to bouncing baby keeping me up all night, Eric got into a very long skype chat with a friend, and we decided to blow off the gym. Neither of us ever looked at the time and we read the paper online, put away laundry and took leisurely showers. Suddenly, Eric yelled, “We have 20 minutes to get there!” It became a mad dash to get out of the house and to the hospital. The instructions strictly stated, “DON”T BE LATE as our doors close 30 minutes after the start of the session.” We arrived at 15 minutes late for class and the doors to the building were locked! We had to ring the room and have the instructor come down to get us. She was less than pleased with these tardy American expats.

We had to parade through the room and take our seats in the front. Eric’s chair had a real looking baby on it and he, along with all the other men in the room, had to hold the baby on his lap for the first hour of class. Everyone else’s baby was sort of cute and cuddly and ours had an odd grimace on its face and unnaturally blue eyes.

We watched video after video and heard graphic details about delivery and breastfeeding. I’m glad the days when men wait in the lobby and the baby comes to them all spic and clean is a thing of the past. But today they tell you so much information you feel like it could be a college major. Also, the amount of "what if's" are terribly frightening.
There must be a happy medium somewhere.

One of the other pregnant women next to us let out a big sigh during a “how to settle your baby” video. It garnered a few laughs from the room, but scorn from the teacher.
I suddenly didn’t feel so bad about being late – the teacher was rather stern about everything.

Eric and I both thought the class was to be 1.5 hours long, but apparently is was 3.5 hours long. We were now going to be late for the afternoon party. At the break during class, Eric went to call our friends but realized he had forgotten his phone. I didn’t have their number and they are not listed. So, to just keep this comedy of errors going for the whole day, we whisked out of class as soon as it was over, didn’t have time to stop at home and change out of our jeans, and we showed up two hours late for an intimate and rather dressy dinner party.

Can I just wake up and do this day all over again?

June 29
Got on the scale at the gym today. Thank goodness they measure me in kilos because I don’t really want to see this number in pounds. In case inquiring minds want to know…its 11 kilo’s. (or 1.7 stone) ugh.
I sat on Eric’s lap the other day and he let out a grunt. I guess the idea of throwing myself into his arms wouldn’t be such a good idea right now.

June 30
I’m reading the literature from the parenting class. Some essentials for our new bub include:

LOTS of bunny rugs,
Dummies,
Chubba chums for delivery
Nappies,
A cot
A good pram
Barley sugars (also for delivery)

Time to pull out the Australian/English dictionary.

July 2
One of my coworkers who is on maternity leave rung me tonight to see how I was doing. Just as she called, her dog started barking wildly in the background. “No worries,” she declared, “he’ll settle down, he just spotted a magpie.” The dog never settled down. Then, her 3 year old son began making loud car noises in the background. “Finn’s just being silly and he loves to be near me when I’m on the phone…I’ll just speak up.” Suddenly she was yelling to be heard over loud car sounds and frantically barking dog. At last, her 3 month old began to scream and she just kept talking. I couldn’t hear her anymore and found myself yelling into the phone as well. “Oh, hang on a minute, let me get my baby settled on the breast and we can keep talking.” About 15 seconds passed and she just picked up where she left off. Finally, over loud baby cooing, car sounds of a three year old and a now madly crazed barking dog, I stated, “Do you need to go and tend to things? We can continue this conversation later.” “Oh, no,” she said, “things are great right now and they get wild later, this is a really good time to have a chat.”

Really? That was a good time? REALLY????????

July 3
Last night I went to dinner with several coworkers. I have been comfortable up to this point, but last night I had something (a foot, a hand?) crammed up under my lower right rib. I couldn’t lean over to eat properly and I longed to tilt back my chair. Instead I sat bolt upright and tried to work the foot or hand or knee or whatever it was out of my rib. Today the foot was gone, but tonight it is back again. I still have 12 more weeks. Will this body part remain under my rib for the rest of these weeks? Ouch.

July 3 (later)
Citizenship. One would think that having a child in Australia would entitle said child to an Aussie passport. We assume this because we are American’s, and in the US, we give out citizenship at birth. Did you know that this is not the case in the majority of the world? In fact, according to my internet search, there are 5 countries that give out citizenship by birth alone. They are….(drum roll)….Canada, the US, Panama, Ireland, and France. Get us to France! Our child could then work in the EU! (Maybe this is what Brad and Angelina are thinking). Some countries only honor the nationality of the mother, some only the nationality of the father. It’s all very interesting.

I was hoping to give the gift of dual citizenship, but alas, it shall not be granted. At dinner last night, my coworkers were coming up with all sorts of schemes for citizenship. Some even offered to put their partners/husbands on the birth certificate in the spot where Eric’s name should be….

Don’t worry, Eric thought it was funny too. You can have a laugh about it.

Right now, I’m actually a hostage in Australia. I can not leave the country until late November at the earliest. I have health insurance only for AU and no company will give me travel insurance after 26 weeks of pregnancy. Then, I can’t leave with the baby until I have a valid US passport for the child. (Can’t you just see THAT little passport photo!) I’m an Australian hostage. Trapped on a large island.
That’s ok. I don’t know where I’d go anyway and I’m content to stay. This foot/rib thing wouldn’t bode well in an airplane seat anyway.


July 4
Happy Fourth of July everyone!
Or as the Australians say,”Happy day of your nations independence.” This, from a country where we celebrate the Queen’s birthday…how far away is mother England anyway?

Home and back again

I looked back at the blog and noticed that we have not been there for awhile. I suppose that it is time that we do that again.

First thing is our trip back home. We had such a great time. We felt like minor celebrities. Everyone seemed happy to see us and there were parties galore. We sneaked in a cabin trip, played poker, spent time with family in Red Wing, had a couple of baby showers, and attended a party for Beth’s nephew Sam who joined the Army. The problem with this is we feel like that is what is happening all the time and that we are missing out. To contrast, we come back to Melbourne and the phone never rings. I guess we will have to survive on the memory of the fun filled two weeks that we had home. Thank you again everybody.

We are back into winter now. It is not the cold that is a problem here, (I am sure that Beth might argue that) but it is the lack of daylight. The sun doesn’t really come up until about 8AM and the shadows in the afternoon start to get long about 3pm. It makes for really short days and lots of TV time in the evenings. Now that the winter solstice (remember we are in the southern hemisphere) has come and gone we can look forward to the days getting longer.

It was a rough first week back. On Tuesday I found out that the company that I was working for lost a big contract. So we had a big meeting about that. On Wed Beth took a fall while in the operating room. Normally it wouldn't be so bad she is pretty tough and can take it but:
1. She is pregnant.
2. She is wearing double lead suits to protect the child from radiation (I am still not comfortable with this, it may come out glowing).

She banged up her knee and elbow, broke the computer, and snapped a pen in half. To top it all off she was like the "help I've fallen and I can't get up" lady. There was too much weight for her to get up by herself, so people had to peal the lead off of her in front of the patient. The person having heart surgery even asked if she was OK. I think that it was probably more embarrassing than anything else. It was traumatic for her but she is still in amazingly good spirits. Go pregnancy hormones.

After she relayed this tale to me, it was my turn to tell her my news....I got laid off.

It wasn’t unexpected. I was the last one to start and I was working on a casual contract basis. Now it is back to the job search, and the whole banging your head trying to think, "what should I do"?

Any thoughts?

It has now also fallen to me to get day care sorted out. Day care here is governed by city councils. Even though we live in Toorak which is an inner city suburb of Melbourne, the city council is Stonnington. Huh? I have received the child services literature and have started calling and visiting different day care centers. We are looking for part time care for a four month old then full time a month after that. The problem is there is a two year waiting list for some of these places. I am trying to reason through that math. Did I need to get on a list last year for my four month old next year? If I take my spaceship and slingshot around the sun with enough speed can I still get on the list?

In filling out the paper work at one of the centers there are certain ways to get bumped up the waiting list:

1. Already having a child at the centre.
2. being of aboriginal descent

There were many others. Somewhere around 15 was “socially isolated”.

We are not sure what this means or what it does for us but Beth checked it anyway. We figured without friends and family around we fit into this category.

We have both been reading baby books and are starting to get prepared for the new arrival in a few months. It can all be very confusing. We have the pram… do we really need a cot?.... and what is a baby capsule? The good part is I think that I have figured out what “nesting” is, it is Beth making chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.

Crying Fools

Her Turn:

Mothers Day almost came and went without a word from Eric. I’m not a mom (or mum over here) yet and we agreed not to do anything for either mum’s or dad’s day. Still, it felt a little weird that we managed to go out to breakfast, see lots of babies, and walk through the flower market and have Eric not utter a word about what’s going on in our lives. He was noticeably silent regarding the implications of the day and I actually started to feel a bit bad about it.
I really tried to let it go. After all, I was the one who said I didn’t need any attention that day and I couldn’t give him a hard time for my own oversight regarding my feelings. My mom called late in the afternoon to wish me a happy day. She asked what Eric had done for me and I had to sneak out of the room with the phone and explain that he hadn’t said a word all day. She tried to be bright and sunny about it, but I think even she believed it to be a bit atypical of Eric.
Finally, when the day was over and I decided to hit the hay around 11 pm, I peeled down the covers to find a good American magazine (Oprah) and a card. The Mum’s day card was written as if it was the kid talking and it said how happy it was to meet me. OK, so sappy…but I burst into an unexpected flood of tears. I didn’t even know I was that emotional. I thought I was a bit blue, but nothing of the magnitude required to cause this strong outpouring of feelings.
Apparently the card and mag had been there all day long. Eric kept thinking I would take a nap at some point and discover it.
I think I cried for a solid 20 minutes. I was laughing and crying and sobbing all while Eric threw Kleenex at me and laughed with me.

His Turn:

Last Sunday we met some friends for breakfast and they presented us with a wrapped up gift. We opened it up to find a little white onesie for the baby. It was our first-ever-baby-item. I was looking at it and pulled it out to have a good gaze at how small it was when I was started to hear Eric choke up. We had all been focused on looking at the onesie and when we directed our attention to Eric, he just waved us away and said, “I’m a little overwhelmed…it’s all so real…stop looking at me.” He had wet eyes and couldn’t face us. Luckily, he was trapped on the inside of the booth and so he couldn’t ignore us. He just kept choking up and admitting to being “touched, overwhelmed, and happy.”
Gotcha sweetie! Want a tissue?

Tadpole Diaries #2

April 2
Whatever happened in the last week to my belly? It popped. I thought that I wouldn't be really "showing" until week 20. I'm at 15 and after the experience of post Bali gastro, I thought my stomach would be flat for several more weeks. But, no...overnight it grew. I woke up in the morning and my skin felt stretched out and taught across my abdomen. I took one look in the mirror and couldn't believe the overnight change.
I walked out to the kitchen and said, "Hey, Eric, look," and I revealed my abdomen. The widening of his eyes let me know that this clearly wasn't my imagination.

April 5
We had dinner plans tonight with some of our expat friends and I encountered a wardrobe crisis. We were going out to eat and I didn't want to be as uncomfortable as the night before when I wore my regular jeans to a comedy show. So...I pulled out my one and only pair of MATERNITY Pants! ARRHHHGGGG. You know, the very hip kind with the big soft stretchy band across the front. I then pulled on a long shirt and piled on a jeans jacket to hide the band as best I could. After eating a big bowl of Tom Yum soup, I couldn't have been happier to be in those pants. Those things are a godsend. I should have bought a pair of them years ago.

April 6
Today we ran some errands and ended up at the big American-looking mall searching for some maternity clothing for me to get through the work week. The two big department stores do NOT have maternity departments. Weird, eh? When I asked where the maternity section was, they looked at me as if I was diseased. "Oh, we don't have THOSE clothes" one of the young, well dressed, snobby girls stated.
We ended up in some upscale shop in our neighborhood and I got a pair of pants and a shirt. That should be good.

7 April
We visited a store called "kid central" on our shopping excursion and Eric found his way to the "pram" section of the store. When I came upon him, he was chatting with the sales clerk about a particular type of stroller. Eric had the thing on the ground and practically disassembled at that point. The saleslady was trying to discuss color choices, but Eric was checking out the "Manly" wheels and the independent front suspension. He was taking that thing around the store and trying a couple of quick turns and wheelies to check it's response. By the time I returned from trying on a pair of maternity jeans (SO UGLY!), Eric had selected to skip the parasol addition but definitely go with the attachable cup holder accessory.
Throughout the rest of the afternoon, Eric pointed out just about every stroller in the mall or on the street and made comments about it's "wimpy wheels, lack of apparent maneuverability, and absence of manly characteristics." Finally he spotted his desired stroller and I had to drive around the block twice so that Eric could get a better look of the thing in action. A guy was pushing it, so that probably gave it further credit.

I think we have a stroller picked out. I think I had nothing to do with it.

8 April
Had my 16 week OB appointment today. Awkwardly, Eric and I ended up on the same slow elevator with my OB on the way to his office. The elevator is one of those junior size ones - like the kind in Europe, or a really old building in New York City. Anyway, by the time we made it up to his office and plunked down in the waiting room, I had to confess to Eric that I was nervous about this man delivering my baby. My OB is very shy. Painfully shy - almost mousy. He slouches when he talks to me and can't look me in the eyes. After riding silently in an elevator with him for about 10 minutes I wondered what the hell he'd say to me when I was screaming in pain.
Eric's only comeback was, "I'm sure he's a lot better in his professional role."
Lord, let's hope so.

After the appointment, Eric and I walked to the coffee shop across the street where we shared a sugary muffin and enjoyed a coffee and chai while watching pregnant women pop in and out of the OB building and women's hospital across the street. Every belly was a different shape and size. The only thing that was evident is that pregnant women look really weird! It's a look that gave us both the giggles after a while and I decided that I should probably just embrace my own odd shape during this time as I'm sure to get laughed in the very near future by complete strangers watching me from coffee shops.

April 12
There was an open house for an apartment that we were going to look at today to possibly rent, but we forgot about it and missed it. It is easy to do as the rental open houses are only 15 minutes long. That's standard here.

If you want to buy a house, the open house lasts just 30 minutes. People don't have Realtors to purchase a home, only to sell a home. So, if you miss the open house, good luck ever getting in to see it.

Today Eric and I went to an open house and auction with our friend Natasha who is trying to buy an apartment. Her hubby was playing golf with friends and she thought handling the auction and her 2 year old daughter at the same time would be too much. So, we stepped in to help. What an experience to go to a home auction....an auctioneer stands on the street with a microphone and takes bids for the home. Housing is crazy here and the prices are through the roof. Most standard 3 bedroom, 2 bath homes in the city are no less than a cool million. This was an apartment...a small 700 foot, 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom, no laundry, small kitchen on a busy street and it went for the asking price of 430K. Wow! " Do I hear 440? Going once, going twice..,." The majority of homes and apartments are sold by auction just like this.

After the bidding ended and Natasha had bowed out at the 390K mark, we went out for coffee. In our lives, coffee is a quick experience where one breezes in, orders, reads the paper while sipping coffee, and then leaves. In this world with a two year old, it's about taking the sugar packets in and out of their containers over and over without getting tired of that boring activity, pulling out various things from the diaper bag and flinging them to the ground while watching mom and company pick them up. Then the activity turns to wanting desperately to hold on to everyone Else's spoon and flinging spoon about madly while accidentally stabbing oneself in the eye with said utensil. With subsequent tears, crying and cooing to follow spoon incident, our two year old companion feels that wandering around the patio area and staring at other diners sounds like a good plan. Gentle coaxing child to return to table results in her grabbing the umbrella stand near us and shaking vigorously. Whatever leaves and such were on said umbrella are now raining down on various diners in immediate vicinity. Our table remains happily sheltered under the umbrella. Looks are thrown at us.
While walking out, the two year old hits her head on a table. More tears and holding. A Count Dracula stuffed figurine on counter provides adequate distraction from crying but child does not want to give stuffed Dracula back to coffee shop.
The 2 block walk to the car takes 20 minutes as we stop to look at every leaf and piece of paper on ground. Preventative measures are taken on two occasions as child attempts to run into street. Getting child into car seat is another 5 minute interval.
Total time elapsed for coffee: 1 hour, 15 minutes.

I'm beginning to think we should have just gotten a dog.

April 17
Tax day came and went in the US and we didn' t have to do anything except fill out an extension. Taxes will be a pain come July when we can process our Australian ones, but I'm happy to put it off until then.

Sitting on the couch last night, watching yet another episode of West Wing, the baby decided to make itself known. Eric likes to sit next to me on the couch and put his hand on my belly. He will sit like that for hours if I'd let him. But, as it would happen, the babies first kick happened when Eric's hand was on my belly. So, WE felt the first kick. Awwwwww.

I called Eric at work this morning and he was proud to tell me that everyone in his office now knows about the kick. Is this really the news that we've resorted to telling people? Apparently so.

April 19
Dreamed last night that I had the baby. It wasn't September, it was right now. Yes, I had a baby at 18 weeks and it was fine. It weighed 1.81 kilos, which is 3.99 pounds. But in my dream, I did the math conversion and came up with 3lbs, 43 oz. I know that doesn't make sense. Did I mention that I was sleeping when I did this conversion?
We named the baby Dell. Yes, Dell.
Perhaps I am spending too much time on the computer.

April 20
I have cried 5 times today - once when I heard some sad news from a friend, once when I got really frustrated with something at work (I hid in my car), once when reading a sad story in the on line startribune, once during the evening news, and once during an episode of the west wing. I could cry right now just thinking about it all. Hormone torment.

April 21
18 weeks along...
Spent part of yesterday on a wonderful bike ride through the city. There are gorgeous trails near our house and we have done an inadequate job of exploring them...until yesterday. It was a warm fall day, a perfect 65 degrees, and we rode through falling leaves along the shore of the Yarra river. This is one of those times when you kick yourself for not doing something sooner. Why did we wait so long to find that trail? I remember last summer in MN when I rode with Christine almost every weekend and it was like I was seeing Minneapolis for the first time. I had no idea we had all those beautiful trails in MN, and then I move away within one short summer of finding them. Now I discover this beautiful bike path near my home and I probably shouldn't even be on a bike.
Eric kicked my butt on the bike ride by the way. I was a huffing and puffing ball of goo who looked somewhat ridiculous in her bike shorts. I tend to be somewhat competitive and it did hurt my ego a bit when I had to say, "I'm tired, and I think I need to turn around and go home now." Whaaaaa.

April 22
Mother's Day is around the bend and if my card is going to make it to the US on time, I had better get it in the mail.
This gets me thinking about that particular day....
Mother's Day has been a strange holiday for me for the past several years. It's been a little bittersweet actually and I'm not sure I can explain it well, but I'm sure there are others out there who feel the way that I do. Surely I can't be alone here.
Mother's Day is a celebration of my own wonderful relationship with my mother - yet it is also a time when restaurants are filled with children and parents and grandparents. For the past several years, I felt like it was a holiday where I was somehow displaced...somehow "missing out". It wasn't self-pity so much as self-loathing. Where was my life going? Would I ever have children? Would I ever be a mom? I would look around at these happy but tired looking moms and their smiling (or crying) kids and get a tinge of jealousy. Certainly I would never have felt this feeling if I'd had kids in my 20's.
I get this feeling twice a year - Mother's Day and the day that I read about an event my high school throws for the alumni moms and their kids.... "Breakfast with Santa."

For many years, I have longed to be a full participant in these two days.

April 24
It's 9:30 at night and I am madly craving spice cake. Spice cake with cream cheese frosting. I want it so badly that I can taste it. How I miss the US and the 24 hour grocery stores!

April 28
In the middle of my work day, in the middle of a pacemaker surgery, at a time when it was impossible to leave for any reason, I desperately wanted saltines with cream cheese and kalamata olives.

April 29
The baby kicks a lot and it tickles and I love it. Generally it kicks whenever I strap on the lead suit that I have to wear in the cath lab. I pull it tight across my abdomen, double the layer with a second heavy lead over the belly and then pull on the lead vest. It's heavy and it hurts my back, but based on the scare that I had earlier, I figure I don't have any "points" left and I must wear all this gear to protect the kid. However, I think it squashes the kids living room and it kicks at the lead shield during the procedure. It provides entertainment when I am bored during a surgery. Mainly it seems to kick when we are using the radiation..how does it know? This scares me every time and I begin to wonder if I should quit tomorrow and stay out of that damn cath lab. During one particularly long surgery when I was clad in every sort of protective garment imaginable due to the patient having Hep C and HIV, I began to make a list of all the jobs that I could have that would be worse for me at this time in my life.
1. Worker in a Nuclear Power Plant
2. Flight attendant
3. Scuba Diver
4. Surgeon
5. Interventional Cardiologist
6. Jockey
7. Radiation Technologist
8. Interventional Radiologist
9. Astronaut
10. Firefighter
11. Policewoman
12. Paramedic

There are probably more, but that is the list so far. I made it to make myself feel better, but it didn't really work.

May 1
Eric and I are flying home for a visit on May 23rd. yippee. I've never started packing so early. We can hardly wait and have begun the countdown calendar.
In order to travel back to the US on Qantas airlines, I needed to get a letter of approval from my OB and we had to get travel insurance for all THREE of us. Weird.
Unlike our US health insurance, Australia insurance only covers us when we are within Australia or in New Zealand. Anywhere else we go, we need travel insurance. The Aussies don't understand why we need to get insurance to travel to our own country. "Aren't you Americans though?" They are perplexed. After having lived in this system for a few months, I can see how confusing it is for them. "We don't have public health care, " I have to explain, "All insurance is private." Thus begins a long line of questioning about what we do when someone doesn't have insurance...ahhh....the debate goes on. Are we the only country in the world like that? I feel like I'm in a Michael Moore movie.
So...I had to fill out some forms, guarantee that we would be back before I was 26 weeks along in my pregnancy since that is the limit for most travel insurance, and then pay a fee schedule for US travel.
Now my doc will be putting me on some sort of low dose heparin (blood thinner) and then I get to wear those sexy thigh high compression stocking for the 30 hour flight. Comfy, eh? I know that you are all jealous.
Forgive me if I'm a little cranky when we deplane in St. Paul.
Oh, and yes, the flight is 30 hours. The only ticket we could get takes us from Melbourne to New Zealand, to LAX and then on to MSP. It makes a person wonder if going the other way around the world would be faster.

May 2
Eric called from the grocery store. "Want anything special," he asked. "Gummy anything, " I replied. He came home with gummy dinosaurs and sour gummy snakes. Now I don't want anything gummy anymore.

May 3
My belly button used to look like a small upright oval, now it looks like a giant cheerio.

May 4
I Want OLIVES! NOW!

May 6
I'm klutzy and forgetful. I tried to do a nice presentation to a doctor this morning after seeing a patient and I ended up dropping all the papers on the floor...twice. The patient printout is a giant roll of information and the thing capsized out onto the floor like a giant roll of toilet paper. I tried to compose myself, but when it happened the second time, I just stated, "Sorry, I must have taken my awkward pill this morning." It got a chuckle, but I think the man just felt sorry for me.

May 7
20 Weeks! Halfway baby. We went to our official baby ultrasound scan today. It's like going to the premier of the best movie ever. We were seriously giddy and excited beyond reason. The kid was sleeping and laying on one arm while waving the other one. One foot was out, the other was tucked back. It sleeps like me. We got to see the fingers and toes, heart, brain, bladder, bones, and face. On close inspection of the feet, the kid had a giant big toe just like Eric. I asked Eric if he had endured a lifetime of ridicule due to his enormous toes. He stated that I was the only one to ever even notice it and he sounded mildly offended. Maybe that should be the last time I tease him about it.... Naw....

May 8
My coworkers want to know if it is a boy or a girl. When I told them that we didn't find out, there was mild disappointment. Then my coworker Donna declared that she had a magic crystal that would determine the sex of the child. She opened a silk bag and pulled out a pendant that she then rubbed on my belly and waved over me. (Yes, this was at work). She asked questions of the crystal and after serious deliberation, it was declared that I was having a boy.
Just for the record, crystal-totin' Donna says it's a boy.

May 10
It's Saturday. It's beautiful here with the leaves changing color for fall. Eric and I are excited for our trip home and even more excited for this baby. Despite the hormones, the cravings, and the general tubbiness, I'm really really happy. Ahh....second trimester bliss. Love IT!!!!

Life cycle of a scooter

I am not sure if I expressed enough how much items cost here. When we first moved, we of course had to buy a car. We were pretty specific about our needs because of all the stuff that Beth has to carry. We had decided on the Honda CRV. Since we had driven it before and almost bought one previously. We bought a used one and you would have thought that it was brand new, just because of the sticker. Basically two sold cars in the states equal one used car in Australia.

We had driven this car for awhile and it needed the 50,000 Kilometer check. I brought it into the dealer that we bought it from to have the check up down. I went down on an early Saturday morning dropped it off and was told that it would be down in about an hour and that I would go get some brekky (breakfast). I went to one of my favorite spots, had my coffee, eggs, bloody Mary…etc. About 45 minutes later I got a call telling me that the car was ready. I walked back to the dealership and started looking over the statement of what they had done, and how much that it cost. The statement read something like: changed oil, changed oil filter, checked fluids, visually inspected tyres (tires), tyres didn’t need rotating….on and on. I looked at the price at the bottom of the sheet and saw that it was about $150. My thought was that everything is expensive here and that I should just deal with it. What I was mistaken about was that is the bill just for the parts. When I turned the page I saw the rest of the bill….total of $278.25. Most of you know that it takes awhile to get me riled up, when I saw that price tag I blew a gasket. I literally started yelling at the guy, and pointing to the sheet showing that the only thing that they really did was change the oil. No tyre rotation, no car wash, no transmission fluid change….I could go on and on. I kept pointing these things out and asked how it was possible that they could have my car for 45 minutes and charge me that much. The guy mistakenly told me that it took two technicians to do all the work. I told him that I have worked on a car or two in my life and that there was no way that he could justify this bill. He just kept saying sorry, that was what it cost. I argued with him for about 20 minutes. I called him a liar, a cheat, and a criminal. I mentioned that I liked the look of the brand new garage facility, but didn’t think that it was fair that I had to pay for the whole thing. As you can probably guess, I failed at getting the price reduced. I even went back to the salesman that I bought the car from and complained to him, his co-workers, his manager, and nothing.

Since cars cost so much Beth and I decided that we would only have one, and that I should use “alternative” transportation. The public system here is pretty good. There are trams, trains, and buses. Getting around is pretty easy. The draw back is that is takes awhile. My commute to work was taking me about an hour, which is fine but I have only so many “This American Life” pod casts to listen to, besides I could use a little more freedom. The solution to this was for me to buy a scooter. It took me a few months to get used to the idea, and I had to take the motorcycle class. I hunted around several places for my new “bike”. Again everything was a little expensive but I could certainly handle these prices over a car. After my research as to what kind of scooter I wanted, I came to the conclusion that a Honda would be best. A four stroke Honda Lead 100cc would get me where I wanted to go. It would not be fast enough to take on the highway system, but it would be an excellent commuter vehicle. Where should I buy it? Hmmm. I went to the closest Honda dealer. Unfortunately it is the same dealership that ripped me off on the oil change. I was only going to look, what can that hurt. When I test drove the Lead I fell in love with it and wanted it. I negotiated with the dealer and got them to take quite a bit off. After we came to an agreement I told him that he could have a deal that day if he took off another $278.25. I am very proud of myself for getting back at the big evil dealership.

With my new scooter the commute to work is about twenty minutes, and I have the luxury of running errands. Traffic and parking are a huge issue in Melbourne. With the scooter you can split traffic (drive between cars) and park basically wherever you want, even on the side walks. I also calculated that it is cheaper for me to drive the scooter than it is for me to take public transportation. Scooter is about $1 a day public transport is $2.80 a ride. Scooter wins hands down. Life is good.

After about 15 weeks of commuting to work, zipping off to the video store to get our daily dose of the West Wing, and volunteering to run up to the store for groceries, I am feeling really good about my purchase. Beth likes it too because the last thing that she wants is to get into the car after a day of work. On April the 10^th I was on my way to work and enjoying my ride when someone turned from the other side of the road to go on a side street. I had no time to stop and hit the door of his car. I ended up sprawled out in the middle of the street, still unsure of what happened. The other driver jumped out of his car and said that he didn’t see me. That is the downside of owning this kind of transportation. We exchanged information, he made sure that I was fine, and I got the name and phone number of witnesses. No worries I am fine. The scooter has seen better days though the front end is smashed and there are scrapes all over the sides. I continued to work and progressed through the day. My neck started to feel sore, other than that I was fine. I made the appropriate phone calls to the insurance agent and got that all squared away. There is a place that can do the repair that is just a little ways away and I could get it there for the price quote. I brought it in the next day and it was looked over by the mechanic. I was told that I could drive it home if I felt comfortable doing so. I am not afraid to say that I had some apprehension….. get back up on the horse right? The assessor from the insurance company would not be able to get to the bike shop until the following Friday and asked if I could have the scooter there by that time. As they say here “no worries”. Thursday after work I was driving to the repair shop. I slowed down at a traffic light because it is a six way stop and I was not sure what the traffic was going to do. For the second time within a week I found myself flat on my back in the middle of traffic wondering what happened. This time I was rear ended by a cab driver. Since I had not been run over yet I knew that traffic was stopped. I decided to just stay there and reflect for a moment. Am I a bad driver? Am I doing something wrong in my life that this is happening? Does God hate me? It didn’t take long before I was surrounded by a bunch of people asking if I was alright. A quick check revealed no broken bones or blood; I was just more surprised than anything else. I figured that I must be doing something right since I have now been in these two accidents and no significant injuries. Once again I gathered information on the other driver and witnesses to the accident.

I have learned today that the scooter is “beyond an economical repair” in other words they totaled the thing.

I really enjoyed my scooter, but maybe I should stick to the trains, trams, and a bicycle.

Veggie Overload

My friend Amy wrote a blog about becoming "slap happy." In honor of that story, I give you this:

A couple weeks back, I decided to branch out of my cooking routine and try my hand at cabbage borscht. This was partly brought on due to my recent lack of vegetables in my diet (fear of listeria - more pregnancy junk) and fueled by the fact that Eric said he had never eaten borscht.

How could that be? In my German and Irish family, we practically grew up on the stuff. Cabbage is about the one food the two countries agree on completely. Cook it...cook it well...cook it until its done done done.

The only cabbage that the store had in stock just happened to be a purple variety. When I was cutting and chopping the purple onions, purple beets and purple cabbage it all seemed very surreal. I was busy chopping away when Eric came home from work so I greeted him with a cheery, "Go Minnesota Vikings". We had a good chuckle.

After about a half hour, everything was in the pot and boiling away. If you think beets are purple when they are in their natural state, they become an even darker shade in the water. Suddenly the water coming out of the boiling pot was coloring everything around it. My hands were stained, the rags that I used to clean the kitchen was stained and the marble counter tops were an odd hue.

Eric had run off to the store to pick up a few more West Wing episodes for us to watch when he called to say that Blockbuster was missing the ones we wanted. He wanted to know if I wanted to watch "The Color Purple" instead. That began a series of us firing back at each other with movie titles like "Purple Rain," anything with "Barney" or "The Purple Rose of Cairo".

Finally he returned home with some Russian mob movie featuring Vigo Mortenson and Naomi Watts.

At that time, we discovered that the borscht had magically grown in the pot and was enough to feed about 30 hungry Germans. We would be eating this stuff for weeks.

We sat dangerously on our very white couch eating giant bowls of very dark purple borscht while watching the mob movie. As fate would have it, there was a scene in the movie where the Ukrainian Grandma makes a giant pot of Borscht to feed the entire mob.

At this point we lost it.

I don't think either of us really liked my attempt at Borscht, and now it was a thing of mockery. Whether it just wasn't very filling or because we had a years supply of it on the stove, we both managed to down two bowls of the stuff. My ancestors would be proud.

They should really post a label on the stuff though - this is not a good pregnancy food.
Within minutes, my abdomen swelled to about double its size. The laughter didn't help the pain at all. I had to put on emergency sweatpants and let my bowling ball size belly have some space.
Eric and I have been chronicling my pregnancy through weekly photos of my belly. We toyed with the idea of doing a series of "pre-borscht" and "post-borscht" photos to add to that series.

Let that be a warning to all pregnant women out there. Skip the borscht!
Oh, and to everyone else...use GREEN cabbage.

Bali Unplugged

KP comes to visit in Australia and decides that she wants to take a "side" trip to Bali. It's a bit like saying, "Since I'm visiting the US, I may as well see France." But oh-well, I'm game for it and she's the one doing the many travel hours on planes, so it's off to Bali we go.

It is lovely in Bali - opposite of dry Melbourne. Very very green. Ireland Green. Green like St. Patrick's Day green. Green like a jungle. It is hot, muggy and I am sweating with reckless abandon.
Our hotel looks like something out of a Travel and Leisure magazine and I am grateful that KP picked it out. I tend to make trips harder than they are...see too much...travel to too many places...stay in cheap hotels to cut costs. This is luxury and it's good to be along on someone else's style vacation. I always need a rest when I come home from my trips - this one I'll actually get to lay by the pool and sip drinks with umbrellas and such.

Our resort has this gorgeous open air restaurant where we enjoy breakfast every morning. The monkeys swing from the trees nearby and the sounds of the water in the canyon below us echo up as we enjoy fresh fruit, pancakes, yogurt, and tea and coffee. We are in Shangri-La.

According to KP, it's Shangri-La only if the monkeys go away. They have a mutual dislike going on. I think it's because she is blond and her head looks like a big banana to them. This causes no end to their frustration. We ended up at something called the Monkey Jungle and people were sitting with the monkeys. However, Kathy walked in and a whole tribe of vicious, teeth barring monkeys took off after her. She screamed and threw bananas at the beasts as she ran in terror through the park. All we brown haired people in the park thought it was hilarious.

Since that time, the monkeys have her number. They are on our porch at night...they run around our roof in the morning...and they chase her through the fields at our hotel. She lives in constant fear of these limber tree dwellers.

The town that we stayed in is called Ubud. It is in the mountains of Bali and absolutely beautiful. I did take a day trip to some of the beaches in the south and they were not nice. I hear the area to the north and east of us is quite gorgeous but the southern area is like a big Australian party zone and if this is the only place I ever went in Bali, I think I would hate it. There are people there tying to lure you into their shops, poverty is everywhere and you get the general feeling that things are a bit unsafe. As soon as I arrived, I wanted to leave.

Ubud is the artists area of Bali and famous for its textiles, jewelry, woodcarving and dance theaters. The people are smiley and happy and very willing to help. Yes, they still want the best price for things and everyone says that they can get you a deal, etc. etc. But generally we have found happiness in Ubud and love the people and the surroundings. We are enjoying good food, exploring the temples and palaces, purchasing beautiful sarongs and actually wearing them, and walking the rice fields and countryside.

One evening we went to one of the dances in the palace and watched the performers prance around with odd postures and flexing arms and legs. They learn these dances when they are kids and it is an honorable thing to be good and a well respected performer. Most remarkable is what they do with their eyes. I swear they are in a trance - eyes flickering at rapid pace. The dance was exotic and interesting. There was one part of the dance where there were about six women on stage...they were all dressed alike and had the same makeup and hair. There movements were coordinated and it was eerie. We called it the Balinese Robert Palmer girls.

Wanting to reach out a bit from Ubud, Kathy and I hired a driver for the day and went on a countryside tour. The natural surroundings are stunningly beautiful but it's most amazing to see how the people live. The houses are actually compounds. They have a wall and then several huts and temples within the grounds. It looks like they all live in the Minneapolis sculpture garden. There is a cooking hut, a sleeping hut, a prayer hut, etc. We saw some of those magical terraced rice fields and followed one of the many temple celebrations through the streets for a couple miles. We felt like we were in the parade. We stopped in a couple of towns and wandered about with some local guides and our driver just waited for us. Actually, he did some shopping of his own because we somehow ended up with a caged rooster in the back of our van. The thing flapped around like mad. Feathers were flying, and at one point, the rooster began to crow. Eventually KP clucked it to rest. Fearful monkey girl is actually a chicken whisperer.

It is hot hot hot here and muggy beyond belief. We intended to go on a hike at one point today, but bailed out when it was too warm and we were without any sort of food or water. It was about hour 6 into our day trip. We were overheated, sick of being in the car and ready to get back to the hotel pool. KP got the giggles and kept repeating "nacho mama" to the point where I told her to shut up. Then she started repeating the annoyingAustralian "YEEEEAHHH" and I told her to go back tosaying "nacho mama." Our van driver got into the nacho mamapart as well and suddenly we were a car of crazed people repeating "nacho mama" over and over for no known reason. Road trip madness.

Just in the nick of time, we stopped at an outdoor market where we bought some fruit I had never seen in my life. One type was bitter but had the texture of an apple. I didn't like it. The other one was fleshy and when we cracked it open it looked like a white clementine. It was slimy but tart and I liked it. I was famished and consumed about three of them before I had the fear that I may be severely allergic and not know it. One hour later there was no swollen throat.

Very strange to eat new and exotic fruit - I wonder how many others there are in the world that I haven't yet tried.

However, the lack of foods, places to use a toilet, and crazy country roads did make me want to heave. Nacho mama.

The next day we stayed in town, took a cooking class and ate our spicy creations. Our class was a fun group of people from places all around the world. However, there were two exceptionally annoying women from California in the group that everyone grew tired of as the day progressed. Why did they have to be from America?

We were taught to make ceremonial Balinese food and created about 6 different flavorful dishes with each tasting better than the next. It was a whole day of cooking and the afternoon heat was suppressed as the rain poured down around our thatched roof cooking space. Don't ask me to make any Balinese food at home. Even though I have the recipes, I don't think I could ever find the ingredients. Candle nut anyone? Fresh Palm sugar?

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Bali is famous for massage and our hotel is no exception as there is a spa retreat located on the campus. Our room comes with two complimentary massages and so we booked in for each of our treatments around the same time. That way we could head into town for the evening and have dinner and see one of the dancing shows.

However, as we waited for our individual massages, it became clear to us that they were putting us in the same room. Apparently, it was a 'couples' massage. For the next two days, every time KP would ask me what my favorite part of Bali was, I would gaze at her lovingly and reply "the couple's massage". We had a total of 4 treatments at our hotel and even though we asked for separate rooms, they always put us together. By the end of the week, we were to have enjoyed couples massage, couples reflexology, couples pedicure, and couples facials.

It turns out massage was to be a big part of this holiday. It's such a luxury and in Bali, it is wonderful and VERY inexpensive. One day, after exploring the markets and having a filling curry lunch for about 3 dollars, we saw some relaxed people coming out of a nearby courtyard. There was a spa located just behind the gates and the people were happy to tell us about how great it was. They were all Europeans and began to tell us about the 90 minute treatments that we could have for 14 US dollars. We checked it out, there were appointment times available, and we signed up. The list included all sorts of treatment and I signed up for something with a soak massage and some sort of yogurt treatment

Now, as I write this, part of me can't believe I'm going to put in up on the blog. No doubt, when you are finished reading it you will think exactly what I thought - that KP and I just paid someone 14 dollars to molest us. We preferred to think of it as "Attack of the massage therapists."

For the first time, I was lead into a "private" room. That's where the "private" part ended. At our nice hotel, the massage therapists do a very American style massage where they keep all areas covered unless they are being treated. Such was not the case with the very authentic Balinese massage.

The private room was surrounded by brick and thatched walls, it contained a tub filled with local flowers, a tile floor, a fountain (which, by the way is torture to the bladder of a pregnant woman) a small shower, and a single bed in a raised area of the room. The bed was very wide and had just a plastic mat with a sheet over it. There was also a coat rack in the room. My massage therapist was a 4 foot 8 Balinese woman who pointed to the coat rack and told me to undress. She just stood there in front of me. About 2 feet in front of me. I gave her a look and then thought, "Oh well,” and proceeded to get naked. She had me get up on the bed which now felt like it was mounted in the sky. There was no sheet to cover me. As I began to wonder how this tiny woman would massage me as I lay somewhere close to the thatched rooftop, my answer became quite clear. Suddenly this woman was on top of me and straddling me as she rubbed my back and arms. Now, I must admit that the massage was pretty great, but my own insecurities took over and I was tense for the majority of the rub down. I began to think that the people leaving the place had deceived us but I quickly came to the realization that they were European and probably don't have my American Anti-Naked sentiments.

Just as I began to relax, the woman told me to flip over on my back. I wanted to die. I kept my eyes firmly shut and started my mantra of "find your happy place...find your happy place..." The woman began to rub almost all of me. As I lay there feeling more naked and more exposed than I ever have in my life, I wondered if this was some sort of glorious joke. Was I the only one having this sort of treatment? Was KP going through the same thing in her room? Was there a camera in the room and later I would come across this on youtube? If it were to be on youtube, how many stars would this get?

My thoughts were interrupted by the sudden food application. The "yogurt" treatment that I had signed on for, involved a series of edible things. I was given a coconut and papaya scrub, then salt was applied, and finally coconut milk and yogurt were applied to my body. I was tingling and itchy and I began to wonder if baby living inside me was aware that we were now becoming a dessert. At long last, I was helped to the shower where my massage therapist ladled water over me and threw more yogurt at me. At this point she paid close attention to my belly and rubbed yogurt all over it and talked to the baby in Balinese. What did she say?

When all the foods were finally rinsed off me, I stepped into the flower filled tub. Now, it looks nice to have a bath filled with flowers, but what they don't tell you is that the petals float and the stems have a tendency to go toward the bottom of the tub. 'Enough said bout that.

After 90 long minutes, I was dressed and exiting my private room. I paid for our massages and waited for KP. When she came out of the room, she didn't look at me. In fact, the next 30 minutes were spent in subdued silence. Finally, she uttered the phrase, "So...were you wondering if it that massage was going to have a happy ending?"