Alien Worm

As I was half asleep on the couch last night - Jan came home and the baby decided to suddenly wriggle in my stomach - startling me and waking me up. It felt exactly like a snake moving under my skin - so freaky. Don´t worry - I usually have more maternal feelings, but baby, stop the slithering motions - better to deliver a nice kick. I think I told Jan something like - there´s an alien worm in my stomach - I am clearly very good at this bonding thing.

Windy Freiburg

Jan has been sucked into the student teaching world, so I have my afternoons at the apartment to myself these days. That means that I get sucked into the Internet - but I also get to try baking.

Tonight I am planning on making brownies for one of my classes after a day of much much much improved behavior. (Yes, I resort to bribery) But unsurprisingly my plans are on hold because they sell no peppermint extract or unsweetened chocolate at the supermarket I stopped by. There are surprisingly few baking supplies available in Germany (no brown sugar, no vanilla extract, no corn syrup, etc) at least at the more local chain stores. I will stop by Migros (giant Swiss store in the middle of the city) in hopes that the Information desk will help me out and I will be able to make these brownies tonight. Because they sound sooooooo good.

I would use creme de menthe but these are for my students - better not to give them alcohol regardless how small the quantitiy is. However valium...

In other news the wind is howling and a cold front is coming. Jane - bring your winter coat. Flurries and sub zero temperataures for the foreseeable future await you. Ok - not as bad as Boston, but you actually have to walk around and wait for trains and be outdoors around here :)

Week 31

This is the baby´s head and foot...the baby performed amazing gymnastics the entire ultrasound.



This is my giant stomach on Feb. 7th. No - there definitely are not twins in there. Just one big baby.

So I am 31 weeks pregnant...

As you can see, the baby has grown quite a bit. It weighs in at 1800 grams or 4 pounds and it has another 9 weeks to go. I am hoping that it decides to come a week or two early...towards the beginning of April. I am not sure if it will happen but I will do my best to encourage it.

I had a fairly rough week of work - the kids are restless and don´t do any better with cold, dark weather than the rest of us. We have two more weeks and then a two week vacation, which is entirely bearable. I plan to try to clean - get ready for the baby, do some painting for the baby´s room and maybe the rest of the apartment, and go walking. I spend a lot of time huffing and puffing these days and I pretend that I get enough exercise by walking everywhere and going up and down the 5 flights of stairs at my school - but it prob. isn´t true.

Then after the vacation just four more weeks (maybe) of teaching for me and I get a loooooooong vacation. It will be very nice and I am glad the I will be able to get to know the baby (and still know that I can go back to work in August).

Other goals include cleaning the apartment - after this blog post in fact I will fold clothes, put them away, and then attack the bathroom. (which needs attacking) We had hired somebody to do basic floor and surface washing for us but she has exams she needs to study for - I think we should rehire! Contrary to the blog name, I am not much of a hausfrau and I am constantly exhausted when I am home - not so conducive to cleaning. I am waiting for the nesting adrenaline surge to kick in though and hopefully I will become a cleaning addict for a week or two.

Jan started his student teaching and spent his first week in the school. He likes the other teachers and the students and is having a very positive experience so far. Luckily for him, his school is 5 minutes from our apartment! Not much of a commute, so he has been finished before me most days.

All in all, everything is going well. We are preparing for the birth and look forward to meeting the baby in about 2 months! Wow.