93,92,91,90,89 and 88 days of Baby Strads: What Day is it Again? or Vacations Only have a Beginning and An End

I don't know about you, but when I'm on vacation, it's difficult to keep track of the time.  I find myself asking questions like, "What day is it again?" "It's 4 o'clock? Wow. Should I even change out of my pajamas at this point?" "Wait, when was the last time I took a shower?"

This last question took me several minutes to figure out earlier this week.  I realized the answer was 5 days.  5 whole days without cleaning my body.  Since I spent the majority of these days doing a whole lot of nothing, I don't feel too bad about it.  But, come on...How can a whole 5 days go by without even remembering to take a shower? I wish I could say it is because I was SO busy doing SUPER fun things...but to tell you the truth,  these last five or six days have been so uneventful, that I can't really distinguish one from the other.  I've lazed from this spot to another, flipping through books, nodding off, and eating and eating.  I'm not complaining.  Doing nothing for several days on end is some people's dream come true.  I like it most of the time, especially since I've become prego, until I begin to feel flabby, fat and lazy.  Like today.

So, as a cure, I've decided to catch up with my countdown and re-establish my once a day posting schedule.  This will force me to do something each day worth writing about.  And let's not kid myself, I have PLENTY of time to have even the most minor of adventures each day while I'm here in New Mexico.

What I can remember of the last few days includes the fact that our baby has become a wild child.  I think it's probably related to the massive increase in the quantity of food, especially sugar, that I've been consuming, but our baby has been kicking so hard at times that I jump.  Somehow he hits a nerve that momentarily stiffens my body and causes me to gulp in a deep breath.  Jonathan thinks it's hilarious.  He imitates what our baby might be thinking or doing when he leaps and bounds and kicks the way he does, and it makes me laugh.  I hope our baby is like Jonathan.  Jonathan makes me laugh.

Also there was a lunar eclipse on the 21st, the Winter Solstice!  Did you have the chance to see it? Since we are in the middle of nowhere New Mexico, the night sky is sprawling and full of all kinds of stars.  We stayed up late so we could watch the eclipse, the first one I've ever seen, and I have to say it was really magical.   According to reports, this eclipse was the first total lunar eclipse to occur on the Winter Solstice since 1638. 

Astrologers tell us that the Lunar Eclipse is infamous for bringing matters to a head in your life. "You can expect the results of all the things you've been expending effort on to come in, for better or worse...The effect of the Eclipse can be felt in your life from three months before the date to about six months after..." A Washington Post editorialist, and prominent Wiccan, says of the eclipse, "We stand tonight between the past and the future. It's as if we step out of time. We are free of the past, and we can consciously create the future, for ourselves, for our communities, for the earth." Nice, right?

Whether or not it's true, December 21st, 2010, the winter solstice, the night that I watched a full lunar eclipse, was the night that I internalized, for the first time, how different I and my life will be in exactly 3 months from that date, on March 21st, my baby's due date.  Until that point, I would find myself hoping, uncertainly, that our future as a family would be a happy, exciting, and joyous one, but as I watched the eclipse with Jonathan, realizing how little time we have left with just "us," I could see that our future is bright and that, with our little baby, we will be happier than we ever have been.  Yeah!

Jonathan took this picture of the lunar eclipse on Dec 21st, three months from Baby Boy Strads due date, March 21st.