Bad mom

So I have been waiting to write this post for a long time. My entire pregnancy, in fact. When I was pregnant, I would read these online message boards filled with paranoid pregnant ladies ("Can I cause brain damage to my child if I rest my laptop on my stomach?!?") and they seemed to be avoiding everything.

So it seems I did a lot of taboo things during my pregnancy. But I figured it would probably be wisest to wait until the baby was born and I could say "See, and he turned out just fine!" Because if he hadn't turned out alright, I would just be keeping all this information to myself!

So, here are some of the bad things I did as a pregnant woman. (And he turned out just fine!)

• I ate raw cookie dough. Lots of it. When Jorge made me stop licking the brownie bowl, I would sneak a few more finger-fulls as I walked the bowl to the sink.
• I had sushi. But the fish was cooked! I don't know why this is a taboo in the first place!
• Caffeine? Pshaw.
• I electrocuted myself. This was an accident of course - a hazard of staying in crappy Malawian hotels. I foolishly tried to get the TV to work and got badly zapped by an exposed power cable. Yikes. Milo does not seem to be showing any signs of superpowers or shooting sparks from his fingers yet, though.
• I drank wine. Not a lot of it, but hey, a glass here and there has never been scientifically, empirically linked to any adverse effects in children. And what are you going to do if you visit South African wine country?
• I changed car tires. (Got some help, but still.)
• I flew in the first, second, and third trimesters.
• I rode the roller coasters at Disneyland. All of 'em.
• Soaked in the hot tub (I turned the temperature down first, though!)
• Took OTC drugs. I'm sorry, I do not suffer through colds and headaches quietly.
• Oh, and yes, I rested my laptop on my stomach. ;-)

As evidence that no lasting harm was done, here are some more pictures of my perfect little boy:

Profiling

Poor Jorge, he just keeps getting targeted out here in the Northwest. Today he went to the gym, and took a spinning class. He wears a "buff" around his wrist, which can be used as a headband, towel, sunshade...As he was leaving the class, he took the buff off, and the woman walking nect to him said, "Oh I thought you had a tattoo. Are you in a gang?"

Well, that's how my husband heard it. But he has a tendency to get things wrong. He spent a year going to high school in the U.S. as an exchange student when he was younger. There were only two other hispanic kids in the whole school. One day, one of these guys came to him and asked Jorge if he wanted to be in a gang. Jorge asked "What is the name of the gang?" "The Lion Kings," the boy told him. Jorge laughed and said, what kind of stupid gang is that? Do you sit around and sing Disney songs?"

This mystery wasn't solved until about 8 years later, when Jorge told this story to his brother and me, and we looked at him, puzzled, and said "Do you mean the Latin Kings?"

"Ohhhh, " Jorge said. "That makes sense. I guess that explains why that guy never spoke to me again."

The post you've all been waiting for

It's a boy!

And after much deliberation and procrastination (and some nagging from the nurses), he finally has a name: Milo Edgardo.

Milo was born just after midnight on Tuesday, April 15th. He's lucky we didn't decide to name him HR Block. I won't go into details, but labor was long, but manageable. My contractions actually started a week earlier, and continued off and on for 5 sleepless nights. Milo got so low down that he completely blocked off my bladder and kidneys, resulting in some horrible pain towards the end. But the actual labor wasn't so bad.

And he's so totally worth it. Jorge and I both think that Milo's about one of the cutest babies we've seen in a long time. And we were both fully prepared to admit it if our kid ended up goofy-looking. Because, let's face it, there are a lot of genetic mishaps that could have occurred - his ears, my skinny lips, his neanderthal brow, my chipmunk cheeks. Instead, he managed to look unlike either of us, and has dimples of unknown origin. Everyone tells us how adorable he is, but we know that they have to say that, so we sent photos to Jorge's sister, who would not lie about such an important matter, for verification of his cuteness.

Still figuring out this whole motherhood thing, and expect to be doing so for, oh...ever. But I'm lucky that both Jorge and I don't have much in the way of responsibility of any kind. While I haven't slept much at night, when Milo is an eating machine, we both manage to catch up in the form of naps during the day so far.

With his proud auntie:

Still a bit small for "newborn" clothes, we thought he looked like a baby pope. That is, if the pope wore hats with monkeys on them (and why shouldn't he?).