Week 22: Channeling my inner "Pooh"

So far this week I got stuck on the couch and balanced a bowl on my tummy.
The other day I was telling Seth a story and he kept looking at my belly and smirking. I was trying to ignore it and continue with my story but my curiosity eventually won. When I asked him what he was smirking at he quickly apologized, let out a suppressed laugh and pointed at my tummy saying it was so cute he couldn’t help it. I looked down to find that my shirt was in a “Winnie the Pooh” situation where it had gotten stuck on the top part of my belly and couldn’t go all the way down! Thank goodness we weren’t out in public! That shirt might have to go in the ‘post-pregnancy’ pile.

Also, if you look up a picture of Pooh you will notice he is without a belly button. I used to have a pretty impressive “inny” bellybutton. Now it’s just a tiny little dip across my tummy. It’s starting to look like Pooh’s completely non-existent one. My baby hijacked my belly button! However on the bright side, pretty soon I’m going to have the classic preggo belly button that sticks out!

Even when Seth and I were dating we had already talked about baby names. We learned from the very beginning that we have dramatically different tastes in names! Ever since we got pregnant we have been just a little obsessed with figuring out what our child’s name will be. At the heart of it we believe God will ultimately reveal to us our child's name. Nonetheless, we’ve played ridiculous games such as, “You have to pick a boy and girl baby name from a Disney movie” or “If our child had to have a superhero name it would be…” Amidst all our frantic searching and silly games I completely neglected to realize our baby won’t be the only one getting a name that day. I’ve had quite a few different names and titles in my life: Shan, wife, babe, daughter…In a few months I’m going to be named mom and Seth will be dad! Just like any name or title, part of your identity can be found in it. It's crazy cool to think about how much our identities will be changing. I will be Mom: the soother of nightmares. Seth will turn into Dad: the ultimate fort builder!

Thankfully, getting this new name has been a life-long ambition of mine. I’ve been looking forward to being a mom since I was in high school. My senior year I had to fill out a questionnaire that was read to the entire school. One of the questions asked what I want to do with my life. At the age of 17 I wrote down that I was planning on getting a degree in Elementary Education but I really just wanted to be a mom someday. Is that what a normal 17 year-old says?

Not too long ago I came across an old journal entry from 2008 that made me smile. I was 22 at the time and still had the same feelings about one day becoming a mom.

Today in class one of my students nonchalantly called me mom by mistake. I was surprised as to how good it felt. In all my years of working with young children I have never once been mistakenly called mom: the term given to the ultimate female caregiver. Maybe I'm taking this a bit too seriously...but it really felt good. Then I realized why hearing that name made my heart swell up like a giant balloon. Someday, I will be mom to someone. How exciting.

“Someday” is now only four months away! I'm ready to be this little one's mom.

To those of you who have been reading this blog every week, I’d like to thank you for allowing my inner-monologue to have a voice. It's been really fun.

On the right side I added a poll to see if people think little one is a boy or a girl! So far 95% of people have been verbally telling me the same guess. What do you think?

I also added a tool on the right to make it easy to share my blog with your friends on Facebook and Twitter!

Blessings,
Shantastic