We are still on our trip. It has been a nice adventure. I’ve held up in the car better than I expected. We have seen a lot of interesting things and been to some beautiful places, and we still have 3 days left.
One thing that has been fun is that we have bought a few things for baby Bird this trip. At one national park, we got an adorable stuffed animal goat. At another, we got a stuffed possum. It is cute and ugly and awesome all at the same time. Today, we were walking up a decent hill to get to one site, and I was going rather slow. It was partly because it was on slippery pine needles, partly because I can’t take very big steps (being so off balance and all), and partly because my lungs are awfully compressed and I get winded easily. S looked over at me and said “I wish I could hold the baby for you for a while so that walking would be easier.” Then he got a big smile on his face and said “I guess that will happen soon enough though!”
We can see movement from the outside now. At first I think it kinda creeped S out. We were at a stop light and I said “ooh, look at my belly now” and sure enough there was a series of waves, ripples and thumps. It looks like there’s an alien in there. Now I think he is used to it. He’s touching my belly more lately, which is nice, because for a long time he didn’t seem too terribly interested in waiting to feel movements.
I feel like this trip has been a nice time for us to spend with each other before life changes dramatically, but there hasn’t been much talking about things. I’ve tried to get him to talk a bit about his childhood, his parents, and about parenting in general, but as usual, it’s like pulling teeth. He has never been good about talking about feelings, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Sometimes it kind of hurts my feelings that he is so closed up about things, but other times I can be rational and understand that he just doesn’t work that way. He is a person of action, not talking.
He has been very thoughtful and mindful of my comfort on this trip. Last night he told me that he had been kind of dreading this trip because he was afraid I would be miserable, but that I’ve been surprisingly easy to travel with still. I am glad that I am not an unpleasant travel companion.
I think the hardest part for me is lack of sleep. Last night I got up every 90 minutes to pee. I know that it is nature’s way of preparing you in advance for caring for a newborn, but I don’t like it. Every morning I get up feeling tired and resentful that I need to take the first shower because it takes me longer to get ready and pack up. But I do it, because S is doing all of the driving, and I take little cat naps here and there in the car.


