Week 37!

Roasty is now "full term" so he can come out whenever he wants (I'm ready).  He's over 6 pounds and is the length of a stalk of swiss chard.  We're very curious to see what color eyes Roasty will have.  Leighton has light eyes, my dad has blue eyes, my brother has hazel, so could we have a black haired, blue eyed baby?

The stoop

We went to Chamakome last weekend to help with Eleanor and Sam's wedding preparation. Yuki and Betsy planted the whole vegetable garden, Karl, Lance, Leighton and DJ built a stoop for the study, Susie and I made tandoori chicken, naan, raita and two delicious fruit tarts to feed all of the hard workers. We stopped at Valley Ford Market on the way up on Karl's suggestion to get oysters.  They were HUGE!  Even big mouth Leighton couldn't suck them down in one bite.

The veggie garden

We're still really struggling with a first name.  Leighton likes all the proper English names so common in Jamaica--Douglas, Duncan, Russell--I seem to like religious names--Elijah (but it's climbing up the popularity chart, no good for us). I think we should name him Kingston.  It's strong and is an homage to the homeland.  Leighton claims the Jamaican family will think it's way too weird--thoughts?

We have the baby room pretty much complete.  We're already getting rid of stuff that we have acquired.  We're desperately trying to keep it simple.  Lance and Susie bought us an Ikea rocking chair which I love.  Lance built us a book shelf for all of our new baby books.  And I convinced Leighton to get rid of most of his old textbooks and notebooks!  This means a whole shelf has been cleared!

I'm still working.  School ends on June 17th, I'm due on the 14th. I've arranged my schedule, with the help of my amazingly supportive colleagues, so that I get a lot of extra time off.  So far, so good.  My school doesn't give grades, instead we write these very details "progress reports" that outline all of the strengths and challenges of each child.  They take about 45 minutes each and I have 50 students.  Usually, we work on these the week after school gets out, but because I may have a baby, I'm trying to get them done ahead of time.  I'm making good progress, but it is a stressful obligation to to have hanging over my head.

We met with Michelle, our doula, again and practiced labor and birthing positions.  She kept commenting on how strong I am and how helpful that will be as we move around.  She had more bad news about Oakland Kaiser.  The new batch of OBs are being very anal about a lot of obnoxious rules--no cameras, no positions except on your back, no unstrapping the baby heart monitor (which means limited mobility), no outside food (even for dad), no personal clothing (must wear the horrible hospital gowns)...The good news is that Michelle knows all of the doctors and nurses and so she knows who are the less strict ones that we can request.  She also knows all of our rights and how to advocate for what we want in a way that won't piss them off (clearly, I won't be talking).

Yuki and Momoca go to a Tsunami fundraiser

Also, as we get closer to the birthday we're thinking about how to let everyone know.  Leighton is going to try and write an email for the majority of the family and friends, but we'll also post the news on this blog.  Make sure you are signed up to get an email notification when the blog is updated.  You can do that by typing your email address in the box on the right that says "follow by email". Then hit submit.  Feel free to call or text either of us to check in.  We'll get back to you if we can!

Bike shed progress--roofing.