out of the mouth of babes....

A Conversation from the Car...

Faiyaz: "Okay, Anjali, that's your last piece of candy for a while. You've had too much sugar."

Anjali: "It's sugar, it's good. I love it."

Olivia: "I know it tastes good, sweety, but it's not good for your body."

Anjali: "It's my body."

Olivia: "Yes, and you have to take care of it, it has to last you your whole life."

Anjali: "It's my life."

At this point, of course, Faiyaz and I just cracked up laughing. Yes, Anjali really said all that, she's two and a half. No idea where she got that from, we monitor her TV viewing really closely too. We're in serious trouble when she gets to be a teenager...

You get the idea, I'm sure. The fun part was the baby loved the rubbing, she kicked the whole time!

I'm trying to glory in my pregnant belly. When I just look down, it doesn't look so pretty, and when I'm walking/waddling, I feel very large. But seeing pictures of it helps me realize how beautiful this belly really is.

And what belly wouldn't be beautiful with Anjali's art on it?

Changes

This morning the air outside is decidedly chill here in Virginia. Inside I'm feeling restless. There is change coming. Today I'm pacing around the house, doing little things, playing with Anjali. I don't really feel like going anywhere, but inside is getting dull. Maybe after nap time we'll go to a park or something. Ironically, I don't feel lonely here until it's me and Anjali on a playground with no one else around, so I've been avoiding it. But change is coming, and the part of me that spent almost every waking hour of childhood out of doors is finding it hard to sit at home while things are going on in the world. I think tomorrow I will try to convince Fai for us to go to a near by state park and go down the walking trails, and watch the world get ready for winter. Maybe we'll take Langston too, and he can scare the squirrels as they forage. It's October. For Halloween, I'm going to wear black tights and an orange shirt with a jack-o-lantern face on it. I want to find something cute for Anjali, she will most likely want to be a princess. We've got to find out where to go trick-or-treating here. I think there's something very poetic about being pregnant in the fall. As all the world gets ready to celebrate the harvest, I'm about to experience a very different harvest. I love the descriptive words that go along with pregnancy, words like fertility and ripe. I think of large, round things, things like pumpkins, gourds and squash. Of statues of round, fat women, fertility goddesses. In a way, I am glad that a woman's worth is no longer dependent on her ability to have children, but at the same time I think we've lost some of our reverence for the process of growing a child. The more science has explained it away, the less mystical it seems. I feel like a fat fertility goddess. I'm tired of pregnant women talking about weight gain and how much dieting they're going to have to do to fit into their old clothes. I'm also tired of women complimenting me on not gaining a lot of weight (most of them don't know I've lost weight) I WANT to gain weight, I want to fill out nicely, not just my belly. My belly is too small, I want it round and full like a giant pumpkin. Skinny is over rated. No one buys the skinny pumpkin in the store. I want to dress in reds, oranges, and browns. I want to fill my house with leaves and pine cones. I want pumpkin-scented candles, and pumpkin pie, and a large pumpkin to carve. I'm going to look up my recipe for gingerbread, and if I have everything for it, I'm going to make a million ginger bread pumpkins. Remember last year, Marquesas, when we tried to make gingerbread houses at girl's night, and they wouldn't stand up, so we ate gingerbread cover in cream cheese frosting and sprinkles? And all the Halloween candy? I wish I could fill up on candy corn, but I know it will only make me sick. There is change in the air today, summer is over and fall is coming. I don't often think of fall as a season, usually it's just there as a brief interlude before winter, but this year I am a fertility goddess preparing to celebrate the season of the harvest.