Final Stretch

I'm in the last couple weeks of my pregnancy, thank god. I'm so happy it got nicer out this week because it is a great aid in just laughing at how ridiculously hard everything is. I mean really, the dorky clothes, the weird body changes, the unwillingness to look in a mirror, the mourning of friends and family, the exhaustion and resting with feet up after walking an incredibly slow mile, how different will being 80 really be???!!

The baby is still crazy. She seems to be attempting to kick and punch her way out my side, cartoon-style. Not only that, but she's in a bunch of extra amniotic fluid, so she has room to wind up and let it fly with great force. Yeah...did I mention they think she might already be over nine pounds? Whew. Hey, I guess I'm an excellent host at least. (Yeah, but I'm over it. Out, damn parasite! Out!) I think it's time the baby takes an evolutionary tip from the cats -- this is the part where she can save her butt by totally winning us over with her cuteness, not body slamming me.

I've been reading some fascinating but challenging books on the neurobiology of experience. That's how what we do and how we bond with each other during our infancy actually changes how particular, significant pathways form in our neural networks. It's complicated, but very interesting, and the passages I've read on attachment theory and memory and how we learn to modulate our own states of being seems very valuable information for parenting.

I also read a really interesting novel called Ordinary Wolves. It's from the point of view (which mimics the author's real life experience) of a white kid who grew up in a sod igloo in more of what we think of as traditional circumstances for the area than the native Inuit who lived in the closest town and are getting trapped in the drips and trash of the super consumerism of the US as a whole. The cultural mish mash that happens in his brain as he tries to fit in with the wolves and with the humans that prey on him and in a brief stint in the big city (Anchorage) is just fascinating. Of course, I have a bit of a natural connection with that part of the world, and have traveled to AK twice, to the Yukon, and to the Northwest Territories, so I'm bound to appreciate the descriptions in this book anyway. I sure hope my kid likes to travel.

It's so weird knowing I'm about to have one of my biggest life events happen, that it's so big I can't even guess how it will change me, and yet I have no idea when. But very soon. I know that. Meanwhile I'm unable to work or do much, and I'm just waiting.....