Perhaps 37.5 weeks pregnant is not the best time to try to write a coherent blog post. But lack of blood flow to my brain be darned, here I go. When has incoherence stopped me before?
So yeah, we've reached the "any day now" phase of pregnancy and all of its accompanying emotions and physical discomforts. I've ranged from moments of wide-eyed terror at the thought of, "Oh yeah, this thing in my belly has to come OUT," to lovely serene moments of imagining myself gracefully and quietly taking care of Sofia while simultaneously having a five-minute, pain-free birth and cooking a delicious dinner. Ha. These swings are pretty unusual for me after a very even-keeled pregnancy, and definitely indicate that it's about time for Nico to get here.
Are we ready for another human being here at Casa Da Caselli? Who knows? That's like asking me right now if we're going to have more kids. Um, really? Check back with me in about a year when I've conveniently forgotten what it feels like to have a skull jammed into my tailbone. But all the little details that we can control are organized and ready to go, so I guess we're about as ready as we can be.
Bottom line is, I'm excited to meet this little booger who's been squishing my bladder for the last couple months. I can't wait for that feeling when his skin first touches mine. To see what he looks like, to see his Daddy's face when they first meet. And oh my, to watch Sofia and her baby brother!
A while back, we treated Sofia to a large lollipop from the fabulous Pix Patisserie. For whatever reason, she suddenly remembered this the other night and started asking very sweetly for another giant sucker.
Trying to put her off, we asked her where in the world she thought we were going to get a giant sucker from.
Pause. Toddler head tilt. Way-too-teenage-like gaze at the ignorant parents.
Three separate things recently came together into a wonderful convergence.
1) The troupe I dance in, Nagamani Dance Company, got a performance spot in the Massive Spectacular, a professional dance production in Las Vegas.
2) John's sister was planning on getting married in Vegas.
3) I decided that no matter what, we were taking a family vacation before Nico was born.
To make thing oh-so-neat and easy, Toni scheduled her wedding two days after the dance show, allowing our whole family to make one trip together so we could do both things. Then we booked a teeny tiny little beach house in Mission Beach, San Diego, starting the day after the wedding. Win!
The show went off without a hitch, and I can't even describe how cool it was to share a stage and dressing room packed with the bellydance stars whom I've been following all googley eyed via the web for the last 10 years or so. Wow. Hugs and kisses from Mira Betz, Rachel Brice, Heather Stants and Unmata's Amy Sigil and Shelley, sharing glitter and giggles with Deb Rubin and Aradia and rubbing shoulders with Zoe Jakes, Mardi Love, Kami Liddle and others all in the span of a few hours? Who would've thunk?
But then the glitter and glam was washed off and packed away, and we went back to enjoying our wonderful Vegas family. We pet and fed the animals at Bonnie Springs, including the wild donkeys who stuck their heads right into our car, jumped on Aunt Lisa's trampoline, and generally hung out and relaxed.
Toni's wedding was simple and beautiful -- it couldn't have been any better! We're so happy for her and Sofia's new Uncle Keith. May they, and Toni's dogs, enjoy many years together!
Ah, and then San Diego! Despite the fact that we arrived to RAIN (what?!), the weather quickly shaped up and we had a great vacation. A visit to the zoo was our only "real" excursion, otherwise we walked the boardwalk, buried Sof in the sand and rode our beach cruisers around. It really couldn't have been better, except if we had stayed another week. The highlight (for me, at least) was on our last day. We were sitting on the beach right before sunset with my great friend Emily, who drove down for the day from Santa Monica. Just as the sky was getting set to change colors, we spotted a group of dolphins playing just beyond the waves. We got to watch them swim and jump all the way across the horizon. Magic!
Enjoy the pics (there are even more on facebook), which are more or less arranged in the order in which they occurred:
It's fairly safe to assume that if you're reading this blog this is old news, but it just dawned on me that this item has received no press whatsoever! Gasp!
Without further adieu, I'd like to introduce Nicholas "Nico" James Caselli, the 28-week-old ninja-kicking-soccer-playing-tap-dancing-rockin'-rollin' little dude in my belly.
Nico is already an amazing blessing to our family. He came about in the most surprising way -- just when I thought there was no humanly possible way that I could be pregnant, hello!, two pink lines appeared!
Since that wonderful little surprise discovery six months ago, time has shot by like a newly licensed 16-year-old driving alone for the first time. But just like when I was carrying Sofia, I'm truly enjoying my time as two souls instead of one. I may moan and groan when I can't get comfortable, or when Nico keeps me awake at night by thumping on my bladder, but whatever. I love it.
And I'm not the only one. Upon hearing the news that Nico was indeed a boy, I don't know if I've ever seen John so totally thrilled. And Sofia is gearing up to be an amazing older sister, making sure I take my vitamins for the baby, and even voluntarily sharing her favorite snacks with me to make sure Nico gets some. She's already planning what toys she wants to show Nico when he gets here...after HER birthday, of course.
Here's 3/4 of the fam enjoying the beach in San Diego (more vacation pics to come):
*Crossing fingers that it's not a bad idea to use the word "overdue" in reference to Nico...
Listening to Sofia talk has quickly become one of my favorite things in the world. It's not just her sweet munchkin voice or her earnest facial expressions, it's that she really has something to say in her beautiful little toddler English. Not to mention she's turning into quite the little joker (taking after Dad, it would seem!).
Case in point -- she's known for a while what constellations are and loves looking at stars, her solar system placemat and the stars on her ceiling cast by her little constellation turtle lamp. Of course the first and easiest one to teach her was Orion's Belt, and she likes to point it out to us. The other day we were looking at the stars and she says, "Look Daddy, it's Orion's...diaper." Insert sly little grin and sidewise glance at Daddy to see if he got the joke.
So despite *obviously* being a genius with her language skills (she told Daddy he looked dapper the other day when he was getting dressed for work), she still has her own peculiar little toddler pronunciations. Gernilla and ephalent are the only ones I can think of at the moment (gorilla and elephant, just in case anyone missed that).
She has also starting singing mostly unintelligible songs, usually while wearing a crown. Every once in a while a few recognizable phrases pop up, but mostly only she knows what she's talking about. After recently seeing "Tangled," a reinvention of Rapunzel, her song was "I have magic hair that glows when I sing." Oh, to have that on video! Here's a little general video...not her finest material, but at least something got documented:
As always, watching the day-by-day development of a human being is astonishing. She's progressed from jerky scribbling to now drawing distinct eyes, noses and mouths. She's perfected the art of stalling. She's using my parenting catch phrases against me, i.e. "Not right now, Mommy, I'm busy."
Her imagination is running wild. Every morning at breakfast we're visited by a friendly dinosaur, whose visits are announced by his knocking -- which is Sofia knocking underneath the table. Her stuffed animals and toy dinosaurs are taking on lives of their own, and we spend hours "talking" with the animals. She even does the voices. T-rex is her current favorite toy, and she sleeps with it every night, waking up each morning with T-rex clutched in her tiny hand.
Speaking of sleeping, our bedtime prayers are yet another source of sweet imagination. I ask her each night what she wants to thank Jesus for and so far the list includes, but is not limited to: Daddy, ceilings, butterflies, T-rex, lights, triangles, legs, waterfalls, puppies, goggles, OMSI, flowers, and so on.
What can I say? I love my daughter and I am treasuring our last few months alone together.
Two homes. I can finally say that I have two homes. When we arrived in Alaska for Christmas, I was overwhelmed by the sense of, well, home. I even thought about how nice it could be to move back. Imagine my relief when after a tremendous eight snowy days, it felt good to be back in Portland. What a welcome blessing to finally truly feel that home is bigger than Alaska.
So, the trip, the trip. Lots of cousin, aunt, uncle, and grandparent time. Much of this was spent spinning the kiddos in various chairs and receiving exams from Dr. Sofia.
Sofia decorated Grandma's Christmas tree. It's kind of hard to see just how much she managed to get into the tree, so I'm also including a shot of the grand pile once the tree was defrocked:
We reconnected with lots of friends, although those pictures currently reside on their cameras. Sof came home with about a million renewed friendships, warming my heart!
After John took his early leave to get back to work in PDX, I got to be part of the NYE Fire & Ice show, one of my favorite shows we ever did in AK, and rang in the new year with a bunch of my dear dance buddies at Aksana's. While this was going on, Sof and Gma and Gpa were ringing in the new year with popcorn, firework viewing and apparently quite a bit of gas. Hence the new family terms fartworks and burpworks.
Despite Sof and I only getting five hours of sleep, we made it back to Portland tantrum free, tired, and so happy to see Daddy!
Here are a few more pics to round things out -- major thanks to Photography by Grandparents for taking and sending, since we forgot our camera...
This fall has been a whirlwind of great things! I'll try to hit the main points:
We enjoyed a fantastic visit from G&G Oldfield, which included a couple nights out in Newport. Beach time a-plenty, sunshine, aquarium visit and sea lion watching. AND, this year we didn't get into any car accidents! Hooray! In no particular order, here are pics from that week (the first shot is Sof in her lobster costume showing off her guns):
Next up, Halloween! Since Sof was actually cognizant of the holiday this year, I spent a little time making her a custom bumblebee costume. Frankly, I'm not sure who had more fun with that. Buzzzzz! Tonight, two weeks after Halloween, Sof decided that it's again Halloween. We dressed up in full bumblebee regalia and proceeded to tromp up and down the street to see if there were any trick-or-treaters out. Um, there weren't. Anyway, it was sweetly heartbreaking to see my little earnest, hopeful bumblebee set straight on a course for disappointment. Sigh. We remedied that with the big treat of watching the Bumblebee Movie whilst still in costume.
We also managed to find a window of nice weather to get in a little hiking. Too bad I can't remember where we went! Somewhere in the Columbia Gorge...
That brings us to this weekend, I believe. We dug up all the snow gear yesterday and trekked up to Mt. Hood in search of snow. Just like last year, our hopes of snowshoeing down glorious white trails were dashed, but we did find piles of snow at Timberline Lodge to play in. We built a snowfort, a snowman and pulled Sof around in a sled. Of course, now she asks to go sledding all the time!
In the midst of all that and much more that I'm forgetting, I performed again at Bellydance Uncorked and have started taking weekly classes, something that's been a long time coming. Some highlights of things to look forward to? A date night with Hanna at Le Serpent Rouge (a show I've hoped to see for years and a friend with whom I don't spend nearly enough time), working with troupe Nagamani to prepare for our show in VEGAS, a Thanksgiving trip to Vegas and a Christmas trip to Alaska. Phew.
