Measuring 'big'

Well, the OB confirmed what strangers all over L.A. have been saying: My belly is bigger than usual for 32 weeks.

Of course, I have big babies, so she was not upset in any way.

Otherwise, things continue to look great: My total weight gain is only 20 pounds. With any luck, I'll get to stay under 200 pounds for the first time in any of my pregnancies. My blood pressure is low.

I'm going to get to go for another fancy ultrasound with the high-risk OB -- not that there are any indications that anything is wrong, just because he had seen some incidences of structural issues with the babies turning up later in pregnancy and he's trying to help avoid surprises.

I'm not on the "ultrasounds are evil" kick that I think I was for at least one of my pregnancies. I find with this baby that I just don't care all that much about all the natural mama stuff. I just want the baby out and healthy. I've had all my drug-free births; this time I feel the need to just make sure he gets out as healthy as possible.

There's no question that life experience has changed me on that front. I've had two friends who have lost babies in homebirths; my sister had a baby die when she was 26 weeks pregnant. It's not that I don't lean crunchy anymore; it's that my natural-is-always-better perspective has been altered from a little Too Much Life.

Being 'cute'

For the first time in my life -- well, maybe since I was a baby -- I am "cute."

At least that's what the women I run into say.

This is definitely the "smallest" I've been as a pregnant woman -- but the belly is still pretty out there, hence the "cute" description.

Movie review: Moneyball

Part of my problem with "Moneyball" has to be with my expectations.

I love that book. One of the reasons I love it is that I grew up around professional baseball. More than any other baseball book I've read, Michael Lewis captures the vocabulary and rhythm of the language of the baseball men. It makes me remember my father, who died in 2001.

But, because I love the book so much, I really wanted to love the movie, too.

Unfortunately, it didn't do it for me. There was no baseball "feeling" in the movie. It was basically a made-for-TV-style movie loosely based on the book. Brad Pitt did a decent-enough acting job in it, but I'm not a huge Pitt fan. He's a good actor, but I don't get the fussing over his looks and all that. (Of course, because I married a light-haired and light-eyed man, it is generally dark-haired and dark-eyed ones who intrigue me more. I once told my brother about my irrational fondness for Keanu Reeves. His response: "So you like guys who look really stupid?" Maybe that's another contrast-to-Paul thing.)

Anyway, the plot never really went as deep as I would've liked. Paul had a similar reaction to the whole thing; he has even less tolerance for schmaltz than I do.

Another review: The sanitized, broadcast TV version of "He's Just Not That Into You" was a similar disappointment to me. I also thought that the book version was pretty much brilliant, but the movie -- although enjoyable enough to watch -- ended with a fairy-tale conclusion that was nowhere near true to the book.

Funny comments

People say the silliest things. At least, with the pregnancy, the silly things don't bother me. The stuff is easier to dismiss.

Here's the latest incident:

I was buying the 15-year-old a CD at the used record store when the clerk (guy around my age) got all friendly.

"How much time do you have left?"

Oh, about eight weeks.

"It looks like you could go any time. My wife never got that big."

Oh, I have big babies. They're always over nine or 10 pounds.

"Are you sure you don't have two in there?"

For some reason, remarks about the size of my belly don't really concern me, nowhere near like the pick-up lines I used to get, which did used to mess with me. I told Paul the story, and he asked if it bothered me.

Then he says, "Well, but you're not particularly thin-skinned, which is a good thing, since you're married to me, Mr. Sensitivity."  Even Mr. Sensitivity understands that talking about how big a pregnant woman is isn't the classiest move.

Shrinking

We've been trying to figure out how tall the kids are going to get. The 15-year-old boy is 5-10, and the 13-year-old girl is 5-8. I'm only 5-6, but Paul hit a top height of just a bit under 6-3. Whenever the 13-year-old lords it over me for being taller, I tell her that the only reason she's taller than me is that I chose a tall father for her.

I've been looking at him lately and realizing that he's just not there anymore. Today, we put him against the wall and measured him, and he's down to about 6-1, more than an inch shorter than when we first met. Of course, that's an inevitable shift; I'll be going down that road eventually as well. Still, for guesstimations of the kids' future heights, I still use the 6-3 figure.

Community property

One thing a lot of pregnant women complain about is the fact that people want to touch their bellies.

Now, I am one of the least "touchy" people I know. I am not a "hugger," although I do do it and like it when I know and trust the person -- or if there are social expectations. But I'm not the type who routinely greets friends with hugs.

Despite this, I really don't mind it when people touch my belly. For some odd reason, it doesn't feel like "me." If people were touching my belly when I wasn't pregnant, I would have a definite problem. At eight months along, it is totally fine with me.