New brother class, belly/family pictures, and more!

Sunday morning... Scott, Zach, and Grandma Cookie (aka Teri, Scott's mom) are off on a breakfast and swimming adventure, and I am going to catch up on some blogging while the house is unusually quiet. I've mentioned before that Zach talks a lot; to prove my point, just before they left, Teri, who has spent the last 36 hours alone with Zach, said "I noticed after Zach went to bed my ears were ringing." See? I'm not exaggerating when I say that our son talks nonstop!

Another funny example of his chattiness took place Monday night when we went to the New Brother/New Sister class offered at the hospital where the baby will be born. I didn't really know what to expect, since the ages ranged from 2 and up... would the kids really pay attention? I got my answer quickly when the teacher, a nurse, sat down with the kids on the floor around her and started showing them life-size pictures of very newborn babies. The reaction was amazing - they all immediately started asking all sorts of question: what is that thing on the baby's belly button? Why is that one crying? Why is that one's skin darker? And it continued - for the most part, all 10 or so of the kids sat, paying attention, following instructions as the teacher went through all sorts of "what to expect" scenarios. Amazing.

Guess who talked more than anyone else? And guess who talked louder than anyone else? Yep - our guy. I wish we'd brought our video camera. All the rest of the parents were just cracking up; the teacher would barely get a sentence or question out before Zach would be responding. He told her that he was having a boy baby, and that we didn't know what the name would be (which is only partly true; we're pretty sure we know, but we also know that if we told him everyone from the neighbor kids to the grocery clerk would know too!). I honestly can't even remember all the comments he made - there were too many. But my favorites were some of the questions he had. One was after the teacher explained that babies cry because they can't talk. Zach wanted to know why, if the baby was hungry, he couldn't just... and he did the sign language sign for "more." Good question.

We also got to tour the birthing suites at the hospital, which was nice, since that was a "to-do" we now get to check-off on our list (this is a different hospital than where Zach was born - closer to our house.) Zach got to trace his feet next to a newborn baby's footprint to see how much bigger he is, practice helping us change a teeny diaper and swaddle a doll, and bring home the newborn diaper and baby hat. While they didn't cover everything I had hoped (how on earth am I going to explain breastfeeding to this child???), I think it was good to have one more way to try to prepare this guy for the big change he's about to experience!

So after all that, the teacher was closing the class and asked if anyone had any more questions (one girl wanted to know what would happen if her sibling came out with different colored skin than she had - you should have seen the teacher squirm!). Zach came over by us, then apparently decided he did have one more question, so he ran back to the teacher and asked:

Why can't trains drive where cars do and cars drive where trains go? Another great question, although I don't think it was what the teacher had in mind. :)

If you're wondering about the pictures throughout this post, these are from my attempt to be better at capturing "belly pictures" throughout this pregnancy. Everyone talks about how you don't take as many pictures of the second baby as you did of the first, etc etc, and so I have been trying to get off to a good start by taking belly pictures as regularly as I did when I was pregnant with Zach. And, of course, I have often forgotten, so when I realized 2 days had already passed since the 32-week mark, I decided to get out the tripod and take the picture myself, rather than trying to remember to ask Scott.

Well, as you can see, Zach thought the process was pretty interesting and soon wanted in. He was amazed that the camera was going off by itself, and thought it was hilarious to race to where we had to stand for the picture before the flash went off. After we took the first one together and then looked at it, I told him he had to smile for the next one. We ran back to our spot in front of the fireplace, and apparently Koskie thought this was great fun too, so he joined us as well. So now we have a 32-week belly picture with some extras!

Let's see, what else? Oh yes, I mentioned that Teri was here. She arrived on Thursday and will stay for a week - Zach is beyond excited. I think they may have played with every toy we have in the house! Teri is on spring break, which worked out conveniently for us, as it meant she could come and visit and watch Zach while we curled in one of our favorite bonspiels this weekend. I wasn't too sure about bonspieling this far along in the pregnancy... but since it's a shorter bonspiel than most, and the games themselves are shorter, I thought I'd give it a shot. Well, I learned my lesson Friday night when I was feeling good and thought I could sweep. Let's just say I didn't sweep at all during our Saturday games... I was sore in so very many places, most of which it's not polite to mention! When you feel as good as I do most days, you tend to forget that your body is compensating for all that extra weight and work... but it's not a lesson I'll forget any time soon.

As far as the bonspiel itself... we've got another championship to our names! This bonspiel is a very fun one, as it's mostly the same group that we curl with on Friday nights in the mixed league. "Mixed" means it must be 2 men and 2 women, so it's a very fun and social event. Adding to the fun is that we play people we know pretty well, and once again, we met our friends in the championship game! Our team is the two of us and our friends Adam and Jamie. The Nunberg rink, our opponents, is made up of our friends Aaron, Jen, Zac and Liz. As a side note - Liz is also pregnant - due in late June! Anyway... let's just say that we've played this team several times before, and the outcome has never been in our favor. But for the first time, yesterday we pulled off the upset. A nice ending to a fun bonspiel! :)

And now we have a few more fun days ahead of us while Teri is here - I'll keep you posted on our adventures!