BELL-AYYYYYYYY

There is an added bonus to this whole pregnancy thing…Melissa’s belly.

Not only is it big enough to make watching her try to walk through doorways more hilarious than I had ever imagined, but it provides hours of entertainment. I mean, this is like The Jeffersons plus All In The Family plus The Beverly Hillbillies multiplied by The Big Bang Theory. With some Mork and Mindy thrown in for fun!

Maybe we'll name the baby Elly Mae...

I first learned of all the belly fun at Halloween. That’s when Alex, our local artiste, showed up and painted it up like a pumpkin. We then fit the nice, new pumpkin into a hole Melissa cut in a pair of overalls that were either laying around, or someone left here when they visited. Then she walked around all night looking like a farmer holding a pumpkin plucked fresh from her patch. Very fun! I, on the other hand, being un-pregnant, was forced to go as a flashing banana and rub my exposed banana-ness all over whoever happened to be standing in front of me. Luckily, it was girls most of the time.

Lesson No. 1: If you’re going to be pregnant, make sure you’re pretty far into it around Halloween. The farther, the better.

Another thing I’ve learned about big bellies is they’re just fun to look at.

Pumpkin on the left, Amber on the right

I’ll be in the kitchen, slaving over another hot gourmet dinner (anything to keep the mother of my child healthy and satisfied), when I’ll look over and watch her just stare at her belly. It’s not like there isn’t anything else going on. We have a backyard full of jumping fish, three cats that like to do stupid cat things and, most of the time, the TV is on. There’s usually some sort of crap on that she likes to watch, like Aces of Cakes, or Extreme Dresser Makeovers or Being In Jail With Crips and Bloods, but she just stares at her belly. It’s like she’s waiting for the exact moment her belly button pops so she doesn’t miss it. I would think the KER-THUNK that sucker is going to make when it goes would be enough, but she apparently wants to watch it happen.

I used to wonder what in the living hell she was doing, until one day I put down the spoon I was using to stir the Cup O’ Noodles and asked her what she was doing.

“Watching for when she kicks,” is what she said. “You can see it when she kicks.”

Well, first of all, no you can’t (at least at that point, which was around 23 weeks, you couldn’t). Second of all, I stood there for about 10 minutes and waited for her to kick which, apparently she did once or twice, just not in a visible manner. The entire time, thoughts like “a watched pot never boils” were running through my mind. Yes, the Cup O’ Noodles was in peril, but this was an important step in my pregnancy. So I thought. Turns out…it wasn’t. And the gourmet Cup O’ Noodle Casserole burned. Have I mentioned how much I like Big Apple Pizza?

Now that we’re around 28 weeks, you can see little, itty bitty thumps. If you watch real carefully and have had enough beer and have been staring straight into a 100 watt light bulb for 5 minutes.

Backyard jumpin' fish (I wish)

In any case, it’s fun to watch her be so mesmerized by her belly. It’s not like we have DirecTV in two rooms, or anything. Or an iPod. Or a Wii. Or a BACKYARD FULL OF JUMPING FISH.

Another favorite Melissa pastime is laying on her back and pretending her belly is Mt. Everest as she walks those little green Army men up, making them stop at different base camps so as to not get too sick. Okay, not really. What she really likes to do is rub that Burt’s Bees lotion on her belly so she doesn’t get stretch marks. CORRECTION: Turns out it’s Johnson’s Baby Creamy cocoa and shea butter she likes. I still like typing Burt’s Bees, so that part is staying in. And I just got to type it again!  I told her I think stretch marks are a sign of accomplishment. She says “no”. But, then again, she stares at her belly like it’s a drive-in with quadrophonic speakers. What does she know?



Looking for a sherpa



I also like to watch her try to roll over in bed. It takes about 10 minutes per roll and is accompanied with a fair amount of groaning, followed by a big, heavy sigh of relief.

My FAVORITE part of the whole belly thing is every morning I can wake up, put my hand over on some quadrant of her belly and feel Baby R kick. It’s sooooo cool. One day, I felt the baby kick on the right side, do some sort of somersault flip thing, and then start kicking on the left side. Very strange, but very cool. Especially for someone who had never felt a baby kick before.

It could be the best thing I do every day. And I can’t wait for it to get better and better as the baby grows.

Speaking of growth, here’s one of my favorite updates. According to one of those crazy baby information sites that Melissa has emailed to her by the thousands each day, the baby is now about 2 pounds (1 pound, 15 ounces, last I heard from a real, live person paid to talk to us in the place of a real, live doctor), which equivocates to the size of a…are you ready?...English hot house cucumber.

Really?? An English hot house cucumber? Can’t they just say a stick of pepperoni?

Scarier still: If you do a Google Image search for English Hot House Cucumber, you get a bunch of images of unborn babies.

Self explanatory