20 Down, 20 to Go

Yesterday marked the end of the first half of my pregnancy. Hip hip hooray! Above, you can see evidence of my burgeoning zaftig-ness. I think most of it can be attributed to the wee Chan, but I'll be honest - some of it might be all of the celebratory eating we've been doing. We're pregnant! Let's eat! We closed escrow on the new place! Let's eat! We closed escrow on the old place! Let's eat! We're done with the first trimester! Let's eat! It's a boy! Let's eat! In fact, to celebrate the halfway point of our pregnancy, guess what we did? That's right, we treated ourselves to a gluttonous feast at Chicago for Ribs. Good thing I took that 20-week picture before dinner.
..I marked the halfway point in my own way by starting a Sheldon for Vince Jr. Oliver seemed to sense that this was a special turtle. As you may recall, the pug has exhibited turtle-cidal behavior in the past, but he left this one in peace. Perhaps it's because Vince made me promise to knit him a turtle of his own.

This morning, we got a chance to say "hi" to Vince Jr. at my Level II Ultrasound, AKA Structure Check. I'd been feeling him move around since my 14th week, but man, was he a squirmy little bugger while the doc was trying to get a look at him! I'm surprised he was able to get any measurements at all. According to Babycenter.com, he's about 10 inches and 10.5 oz now, but he feels much bigger when he kicks me sometimes. I want to tell him to calm down, but I'm so rotund now, I can't get my mouth close enough to my belly to do so. I just end up looking like a crazy person. Instead, I have Vince do it. Somehow, when a man talks to his wife's pregnant belly, it looks cute rather than crazy.
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Grandpug > Son-in-Law

My parents have a really soft spot for Oliver. About 99.9% of my father's emails have some mention of how smart, how funny, or how adorable Oliver is. Prior to getting together with Vince, Oliver was the only man in my life they liked. Then they met Vince, and he joined Oliver's hallowed ranks. Upon meeting Vince for the first time, they gave me confused glances that said, "How the hell did you pull this off?" Despite their approval of my choice in mate, I always suspected that the pug occupied the space closest to their hearts. After we got pregnant, though, I figured that Oliver's sway over them would relax. Father of first grandchild trumps painfully cute grandpug, right? Well, take a look at the above picture, and you tell me. It was snapped last week at LAX mere seconds after my parents exited customs, and it was the first time we saw them since getting pregnant. I found the scene to be wildly amusing until I had a premonition of my parents brushing past my newborn son to see Oliver. Maybe I'll just put them side-by-side in the same bassinet - problem solved!

Oshiri?

You know how people talk about seeing things "through the eyes of a child"? Well, I got to do just that last weekend, and what I saw was Oliver's butthole.

Our good friends Herman and Sachi came over on Saturday with their two adorable kids to check out our new place. While we grown-ups were chatting about grown-up things like mortgages and the amazing decline of the dollar, three-year-old Matthew grew bored and wandered off. Suddenly, we hear him squeal, "Oshiri! Oshiri!!" He's standing about four feet away from Oliver and excitedly pointing at his backside. I ask Sachi what "oshiri" means, and she starts laughing. "Oshiri" is Japanese for "butt." I'd grown so accustomed to Oliver and his puggy anatomy that I no longer noticed that his oshiri was hanging out for all to see. But Matthew noticed. And five minutes later, he also noticed that Oliver's mini-me chew toy was minus one oshiri. As he turned it over in his hands, he looked at his mom quizzically and said, "Oshiri?" And that had us all laughing our oshiris off.

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Below, you can see Oliver has parked his oshiri uncomfortably close to my growing Lady E. He probably doesn't realize that garment is going to be worn right by my face. Or maybe he does.

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Pugs of the Sea

As we departed that wretched land known as The First Trimester, our thoughts turned to the gender of the baby. Vince was unable to attend my ultrasound this week, so we agreed to have the OB write the baby's sex on a card if it was discernable, seal the card in an envelope, and wait until the evening to open the card together. As it turned out, my OB saw the sex clear as day, and I left the office with a sealed envelope burning a hole in my handbag. After spending the next six hours, 42 minutes, and 22 seconds in sheer agony, Vince and I eagerly ripped open the envelope. The verdict? A boy! Boy, oh, boy! I confessed that I thought I had seen a penis on the ultrasound at the OB's office, but I didn't give it much credence, because at one point I mistook a lung for an arm. Though we would have been jubiliant with a son or a daughter, Vince was relieved to have escaped life with two Lilys, and I was looking forward to having two Vinces to boss around. Everyone wins! Actually, not everyone won. Oliver seemed less than enthused at the prospect of sharing his kingdom with a potential male usurper. I'm confident that once he realizes the new addition will be a messy creature who throws table scraps on the ground, he'll get over it.

L to R: Ed, Hana, and Grace Chan in Modesto; Wes Sen, Tracy Lam-Sen, Katelyn Sen, me, and Vince in Sacramento; Vince, me, and Joyce and Mark Yim in Berkeley. Unfortunately, we didn't get to snap a pic of Uncle Henry and Aunt Susie Chan in Oakland.

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In other news, Vince and I just returned from a mini-vacation to the Bay Area. The main purpose of the trip was to see friends and family, but we also saw the long weekend as a little "babymoon." Perhaps it's a contrivance of our spoiled generation, but a babymoon is a vacation a couple takes after they find out they're pregnant, but before the baby comes. It's sort of a last hurrah before you become mired in the inescapable black hole of parenthood. Just kidding.

I admit that I missed the Pug quite a bit. Perhaps that why I found myself strangely drawn to these sea lions we spotted lazing about at Pier 39. I swear they looked uncannily pug-like to me, and I kept referring to them as "pugs of the sea." Vince thought I was nuts, but take a look at the picture, and YOU decide. The resemblance is undeniable! Who's nuts now?