Have you ever experienced the phenomenon of learning a new word, concept, etc. only to discover how ubiquitous it is? Everywhere you turn, you see/hear/experience/think about this new word or concept? Before I was pregnant, I hardly ever noticed pregnant women. Now they’re popping out of the woodwork. Two other women in my office are pregnant and are due at about the same time I am. Last week, one of the attorneys announced that he and his wife are expecting their second child in November. I’ve also enjoyed following the progress of several expecting ladies in their blogs. It’s really a nice thing. I was afraid to go through this alone (Robert’s there for me, but he never has and never will be pregnant *lol*)–but I haven’t had to, because I could compare notes with so many others. We’ve been able to assuage each other’s fears and restore each other’s confidence. Best of all is the contagious nature of our joyfulness.

I especially want to thank Amy McKenzie for sharing the resources she found to be most helpful. Next time I’m in a book store, I’m going to take a look at The Pregnancy Book by William Sears and Understanding Pregnancy & Childbirth by Sheldon H. Cherry, M.D.

I can’t remember a time when I was truly bored. There are so many things that interest me, so many things that I want to try, that I really haven’t had a chance to be bored. But things are changing. It’s harder for me to do things because of the condition my body is in. I can’t walk very far like I used to. Going up a single flight of stairs leaves me out of breath. My body tells me that it would rather I gave up trying to DO things and just sleep. But sleeping isn’t easy anymore either. It leaves me with a sore back and a stuffy head. So, lately I have experienced boredom. Robert’s tried to stave it off by renting movies for me…but there are only so many movies you can watch before you get bored with that too. Books won’t do either. I grow tired of them far too easily. This is a sad state of affairs.

Yesterday, however, we did something fun. We drove to Kerry Park, where we had an unparalleled view of the Seattle skyline. Robert took the photo featured above (I enhanced it with Photoshop). Afterwards, we went to Capitol Hill and had lunch in a little bakery. What makes that significant is that we’ve never dined there before. We’ve been in a rut lately, going to the same restaurants over and over again. It was fun to try something new. We then drove up to Volunteer Park where we wandered through the conservatory, studying plants from around the world, and then ventured into the Asian Art Museum. By far the most interesting item we saw there was a shirt covered with microscopic Chinese calligraphy. Apparently it contained answers to standard essay questions posed on examinations. What a remarkable crib sheet. I wonder what the wearer would do if the answer he needed was on the back of the shirt…

This is not the most flattering photo I’ve ever had taken, but I’ve decided to brave possible snickering on your part (hormones make me do strange things). I’m 24 weeks along. Strange how quickly time goes by…