"A boy?"

I was tempted with this pregnancy to wait until the birth to find out the gender.  I've heard it's just a really special surprise, and parents who wait never seem to regret waiting.   Plus, we already have baby stuff, much of it gender neutral, so there wasn't the pressure to know in advance for the purpose of purchasing gear.  So I'd have been game for waiting, just to see what it's like.
But Sean was pretty set on finding out ahead of time.  Plus, we have trouble picking out names so it definitely helps to cut our choices in half.  In the end, we went ahead and found out.

Turns out it's a good thing we did.

After living in Astoria for a while, we would have known anyway.  Women up here are VERY vocal about letting you know what gender your unborn child is.  A grand total of TWO have actually asked me if I'm having a boy OR girl.  EVERYONE else-- and it has to be at least 25 perfect strangers by now-- has framed the question, "You're having a boy?" ... and it barely sounds like a question.  It's a rare day that passes when I am not told by some friendly woman that I'm having a boy.  One made a point of telling me she's actually psychic and has never been wrong; the others don't offer any clues about how they know.

At first I wondered if they were just guessing a boy because they would see Josephine with me and assume I would be wanting a boy next-- sort of wishful suggesting, or something.  Then, because so many of my informers were middle-aged or older Mediterranean and Asian women, I wondered about cultural differences and whether it was an old-fashioned assumption that every family ought to have a boy, so perhaps it was the way they asked in their culture-- naming the traditionally "preferred" gender.

But by now, I've had informers of all sorts of cultural backgrounds, and I've reached a level of near exasperation with how they ALL seem to know.  I have found myself looking down at my stomach after someone says it, as though I'm searching for some sign that obviously betrays the gender.  And I've started returning their question with my own: "How does EVERYONE know????"  But that is only met with chuckles or something entirely unhelpful like, "I have x-ray vision."

So, all I can figure is that the reason they know is something rather unflattering, and they're just too kind to tell me.  Something like, "It's your whale-sized appearance.  The fact that it appears you're carrying unborn children in each thigh.  Everyone knows that's a dead give away-- definitely a boy."

:-/

I've tried searching for old-wives' tales to see if I can find out what they're looking at.  I found things about footballs and basketballs and high vs. low.  I probably do look like I'm carrying low and long, but  that's only because I have a long torso.  I suppose I didn't look much different with Josephine, I just wasn't surrounded by all these vocal old women when I was in Austin with that pregnancy.  In fact, with her, I don't remember anyone guessing one way or the other.  But here in Astoria, you can tell the women almost see it as a personal challenge to be right about the gender.  The question/statement "A boy?" seems less about me than them, as though they take great pride in accumulating experience at guessing and at being right.  They all look very satisfied with themselves when I affirm their statement.  You can tell they've been analyzing pregnant bodies all their lives, have acquired endless anecdotal evidence as to how different genders appear in utero, and have reached a point of developing a sixth sense regarding a woman's gestational appearance.  A sixth sense that demands to be vocalized and affirmed so it can continue to develop.

It certainly seems to be every woman's favorite game up here.  And I admit, it's fairly amusing BECAUSE I already knew the gender.  I suppose I'd be highly annoyed if I were trying to wait to find out, and everyone under the sun was telling me it's a boy.

Speaking of old wives' tales, I have my own theories about this one having a full head of hair.  Isn't that supposed to be proportionate to heartburn?  Josephine gave me a little, wee bit of heartburn.  She had some hair when she was born, though it all fell out, and she remained follically-challenged for nearly two years.  This little guy, though, might come out part chimp.

In fact, at the growth scan I went in for on Tuesday, the ultrasound technician did say she saw hair on his head-- little spikes.  :-)  All else checked out fine in that visit.  He's still about 58th percentile from their weight and size estimates... they're saying he's about 5 pounds now.  (They also admit their estimate carries a 20% margin of error, so they could be off by a pound in either direction).  But at his 20 week scan, the tech also measured him at about 60th percentile, so it sounds like he's carrying on along the same trajectory.

I'm 34 weeks now.  According to babycenter, his lungs are strong by now, and babies born after this point tend to not have any difficulties, really, so that is comforting.  I'll be heading back to Texas in a week and a half.  Sean will be arriving a couple weeks before the due date; so Junior has instructions to hold out until then.  He's already a strong little booger, though.  Won't be surprised if he debuts early... perhaps even sharing a birthday with my sister on July 19...

Anyway, here's a belly photo at 34 weeks.  I'm standing next to my three favorite possessions in NY: window fan, AC unit, and our bed.  (But you can't see the bed-- it didn't end up in the frame.  Just picture a square.  A very comfortable square.)

See???  CLEARLY it's a boy.  So obvious.

Oyster Bay

Our first day trip out of New York was May 19.  Since we live so close to LaGuardia Airport, turns out it's a snap to rent a car for a day.  We were needing to pick up Josephine's bed frame from Ikea and get a window fan from Home Depot, so it seemed like a prime time to hit up hotwire for a cheap ride.  

Aside from the errands, our main destination was a little town on the north coast of Long Island called Oyster Bay.

It was New Englandishly quaint and peaceful, with a nice (though pebbly) beach and park area.
Josephine watched a softball game, relocated dozens of rocks into the water, had entirely too much hot pink and pistachio ice cream crammed into her kiddie cup when we stopped for a treat, and acquired a pink plastic firefighter's hat from some little festival they had on Main Street.  
OBVIOUSLY a successful day in her eyes.
Sean and I enjoyed it, too.

A quick nap in the car on the way home was all it took to refuel her for the evening.  Well that, and I think she was still high on pink and pistachio sugar.  Thank goodness Sean had a few ounces of spare energy to humor her routines before she went to bed.

I found a lot of pictures like the one below on his iphone from that evening.

Madison Square Park

Didn't make it in time for the free concert for kids, but we did make it in time to see the mass exodus of ridiculously expensive strollers.  That was interesting.  

Next week, if we manage to get down there in time, I'm photographing the posh strollers all valet-parked en masse.

So we missed the music, but Sean picked up some lunch and met us in the park for a picnic, which was fun!  It was perfect, weather-wise, and I could have sat there all day just watching folks.  But Josephine hasn't yet mastered the art of being completely content while doing nothing at all.

Perhaps by next week.

Josephine played on the playground a little before we departed...

She rode a spinning tire swing for the first time (she almost got to in Central Park last week, but the swing was too quickly co-opted by a gang of 11 year olds and she had to back away out of fear of her life).  But here I noticed the kids were more her size, so I plopped her on when a hole opened up, without having paid much prior attention to how quickly they were spinning.  In about 5 seconds flat she was screaming "I want to get down!!" So I had to request that the girl twirling them all into nausea slow things down a bit.  At that point, a slightly older boy, about 9, took over and pushed at a perfect speed.  Josephine kept shooting him VERY thankful and charming smiles, clearly smitten with this knight in shining armor.  I think it might have been her first time to fall in love.

Anyway, we'll give the concert another shot next week if it works out (read: if I get us out of bed in time)...  Or else maybe just another picnic with dad.

weather driven

Rains a lot here.  At least in the opinion of our drought-accustomed selves.  It's refreshing, though, and I love it.  Errands are a bit trickier.  Well, not trickier, I guess.  Just really wet.  But on whole I love it when the grey clouds roll in and encourage me to lie around the apartment with my feet up.

 
These are from Sean's iphone; he was watching Josephine one evening while I went to the laundromat, as it hadn't been something I felt like doing in the rain with Josephine in tow.

Of course, I was only a couple blocks away, so I shouldn't have been quite as surprised as I was when I heard my daughter running through the laundromat, calling out to me.  Mentally, though, I was in a completely different world, lost in the book I was reading, so it nearly gave me a heart attack.  They'd gotten bored and decided to come visit me.  Sean had given her his umbrella for the journey, which she loved!

Memorial Day found us in a different boat altogether.  The heat and humidity had been building all weekend, we still didn't have any AC units in our third floor oven, and we were facing another 90 degree day.  So we went to nearby Long Island City, a short list of things to do in hand, hoping to kill the day in commercialized air conditioning.

An excellent plan, in theory, but it turns out the different cafes we went in were still relying mostly on fans, and PS1, the branch of the Museum of Modern Art in LIC, is simply NOT air conditioned.  :-/

Still enjoyed the exhibits.  Just in an overheated sort of way.

Our limp-haired, sweaty kiddo back home at dinner:

She and I hunted down an AC unit the next morning at a local general store and installed it before noon.  Then the one I'd ordered from Amazon arrived the next day, thereby enabling nearly half the apartment to feel cool once again, which of course promptly triggered a cold front, and we haven't turned them on since.  NOT that I'm complaining.  Never, never.  The last few days in the 60's have been utter BLISS.  Not sure I've ever experienced a week in June like this in my life!

life aquatic

I'm skipping over various outings to post today's, but not permanently.  I'll go back and upload those pictures, too.  Just might as well capitalize on today's momentum while I have it and post something! 

I decided, a bit spontaneously, this morning that Josephine and I would head down to Coney Island to go to the New York Aquarium.  It's on our subway line, just an hour and a half at the other end of it.  Still, it wasn't too daunting since we were guaranteed a seat (since our journeys started at the ends of the line) and I didn't have to mess with transferring trains with a stroller, stuff, and kiddo in tow.  Josephine brought a baby doll to play with, and she's a pro at these little seek-and-find picture pages.  Add a few sheets of stickers and a couple nice passengers that inevitably find themselves drawn into charming her for part of the ride, and an hour and a half can pass surprisingly quickly.

These outings, like the zoo one, have to be fairly unplanned for me to enjoy them.  Otherwise I stress about them in advance.  Much better to wake up, judge her disposition, the amount of cumulative rest over the last few days, the weather forecast, and my energy level, and then if the factors line up, hit the road.  Downside is that things like camera batteries aren't sufficiently charged in advanced.  But I did get some pictures-- I just couldn't click away as much as I normally do, so this is pretty much all I have to show for the day.

I think the largest sea creatures they had were the two walruses.  They were sufficiently huge though, and would fill so much of the viewing pane that Josephine declared the walruses to be for "mom to watch" while she watched the seals in the next tank.

They also had a couple big sea turtles and a few full grown sharks, which surprisingly, she seemed to have an instinctive trepidation towards.  After her nonchalance towards fierce carnivores at the zoo, I wasn't expecting that kind of reaction out of her.

The aquarium is really not on par with the Bronx Zoo in terms of size or impressiveness, especially since I was spoiled by the Georgia Aquarium before we left Atlanta.  But it was still good.  They had a cute section of seahorses, a cool jellyfish house, and a fun sea lion show.

(Josephine wanted a picture of her baby doll next to a fish tank.  She said the baby said "cheese.")

Other than on movies like Free Willy, I don't think I've ever seen a show with sea animals doing tricks.  It was adorable-- Josephine really got into it-- the music was loud and peppy and the sea lions had some funny dance moves and other tricks.

We were both impressed, and I loved how much she loved it.

Their 4D Happy Feet Experience was a flop though.  The 3D glasses would barely stay on her face, and for a kid whose never been in a dark movie theater, watching a large screen movie while your chair vibrates, wind gusts through the auditorium, water splashes on you, and bursts of air pop from behind your neck randomly.... WHILE watching killer whales attempt to eat the cute penguins in gale force winds... yeah, it's a bit much.  She was a firm advocate for bailing, and I couldn't really blame her.  About the same time we left the theater, another mom was coming out with her distraught two year old; Josephine was very pleased to see that another little girl didn't like it either.

We recovered by eating a funnel cake along the Coney Island boardwalk before I let her run in the waves a bit, and then we headed back home.

A memorable day, on whole, and one that I'm glad we did pre-baby.  Every time I saw a mom juggling two small kids  --especially during the first hour at the aquarium while gazillions of field trip kiddos were swarming around the facilities--  I was deeply grateful that the one flopping around inside of me was safely contained, silent, and completely taken care of without needing a second thought from me.  My energy levels are waning rapidly these days, but I must take advantage of the relative simplicity of having just Josephine over the next few weeks; it's going to be an entirely different ball game when we're back here in the fall.