Walker H. Williams

Mia's great-grandpa passed away very early yesterday morning, and I'm very sad that they won't have the chance to meet. My grandpa was one of the coolest men I've ever met, and I'm very grateful that my family and I have been able to spend so much time with him over the last few months while he struggled with his health. He was so excited about Mia, and every time I saw him over the last couple of months, one of the first questions he eagerly asked me was if she were kicking. (And the answer was usually "yes".) It seems so cruel that they are going to miss meeting by a matter of weeks, but it dawned on me a few days ago that if it weren't for Mia I'd still be working (more than) full-time during these months when my grandpa needed us most. Because I'm neither a full-time employee nor yet a full-time mom, I was able to spend most of the last six weeks helping the rest of my family to take care of my grandpa. And that was a gift for both of us. March 5, 1920 - July 24, 2006

32 weeks

We've got about 8 weeks to go now, and the pregnancy symptoms are definitely intensifying now. The pelvic bone situation is pretty ugly. It mostly feels okay during the day, but it wakes me up about every 30 minutes at night. It's so painful and annoying that I dread going to bed at night b/c I know I'm not going to get much sleep, and I don't even really enjoy laying down. At this point, if Mia lets me sleep 2-3 hours at a shot after she's born, that'll be a marked improvement!! Also more intense are the heartburn and the swollen feet. Both seem to defy logic at this point. I wake up with heartburn and sometimes I still get it from drinking water. And the swollen feet don't even go down completely overnight anymore. But on the upside, Mia is moving around more and more. Since I know that she's upside down, I can tell now where her back is and I can tell the difference between arms and legs squirming. I can't yet tell the difference between feet and knees or hands and elbows, but that probably won't be long. ;o) The picture is of my sister Heather and me in San Diego. We escaped some of the crazy heat today and hung out near a model boat pond in the park.

7 months!

We are 7 months along now, which totally seems unreal to me. :o) Mia is getting big & strong enough that she can keep Jeff & me entertained for 15-20 minutes by squirming around visibly. There really is nothing more alien than watching her squirm under my skin!! She has been lodged up under my right ribs for about 3 weeks now, and she pushes up whenever I lean over too far. Let me tell you, if you ever want to fix someone's posture, try kicking a lower rib. That seems to do the trick! The picture above is from Mia's first (in utero) trip to the beach for my friend Marleisha's birthday. (Happy birthday, Marleisha!!) It was a beautiful day and we got to meet Marleisha's nephew Aiden for the first time. He's 4 1/2 months old, and I can barely believe that we're going to have one of those in 6 months!! Crazy... As you can see from this picture, Friday still thinks the crib is his. It's going to be harder than I thought to introduce him to the baby b/c he's going to have weird displacement issues when she takes over the crib. I started looking into a mesh tent that sets up over the crib to keep "unwanted pets out of the crib". It's starting to look like something like that is going to be necessary, at least until Mia is big enough to fend for herself. ;o)