Pro-dirt

I've always suspected I'll be the kind of mom who isn't anal (enough?) about my kids' cleanliness. I don't mean I'm going to let them be filthy. But I also won't flip out if a dropped pacifier finds its way back to their mouth before it's cleaned. Of course I'll teach them to do things like wash their hands before eating, but honestly, mostly just so other people don't think I'm a terrible mother.

I have a long-held belief that it's good for kids to be exposed to a certain amount of germs. I could be wrong, but I believe that one reason Amanda and I don't have a single allergy is that we grew up in a 100-year-old house that was, to say the least, not tightly sealed. I think that being outdoors and getting dirty is not only the most fun kids can have but that it's good for their health.

This is just my personal opinion. I'm not criticizing all the moms, which is most of them, who are way more sanitarily conscious (?) than I am; and I can't swear I won't adjust my attitude once I have kids that actually play in the dirt and then resist washing their hands before dinner.

(For the record, when keeping other people's children I do respect the fact that their mothers care more about these things than I do. Although occasionally I forget and get called out. Like the time I was keeping church nursery and fed a kid a Cheerio she'd dropped. Another little girl saw me and yelled, "You never, ever, ever, ever, EVER eat food off the floor!" Oops.)

But I was happy to read this article: "Babies Know: A Little Dirt Is Good For You." The whole article's interesting, but here's a summary:

"What a child is doing when he puts things in his mouth is allowing his immune response to explore his environment," Mary Ruebush, a microbiology and immunology instructor, wrote in her new book, "Why Dirt Is Good" (Kaplan). "Not only does this allow for 'practice' of immune responses, which will be necessary for protection, but it also plays a critical role in teaching the immature immune response what is best ignored."

One leading researcher, Dr. Joel V. Weinstock, the director of gastroenterology and hepatology at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, said in an interview that the immune system at birth "is like an unprogrammed computer. It needs instruction." He said that public health measures like cleaning up contaminated water and food have saved the lives of countless children, but they "also eliminated exposure to many organisms that are probably good for us."

"Children raised in an ultraclean environment," he added, "are not being exposed to organisms that help them develop appropriate immune regulatory circuits."

Dr. Ruebush ... does not suggest a return to filth. ... But she deplores the current fetish for the hundreds of antibacterial products that convey a false sense of security and may actually foster the development of antibiotic-resistant, disease-causing bacteria. ... '"I certainly recommend washing your hands after using the bathroom, before eating, after changing a diaper, before and after handling food," and whenever they're visibly soiled, she wrote.

Dr. Weinstock goes even further. "Children should be allowed to go barefoot in the dirt, play in the dirt, and not have to wash their hands when they come in to eat," he said.

Hormones

I don't feel hormonal, but something's off because I have cried over some crazy things lately. Such as a TV remote that wouldn't work for me and then immediately worked for Matt. And a Sports Guy column about a dog that died. And Kay Yow's death (very sad, but it's not like I knew her personally). And the taste of Coke (happy tears). Matt could give you more examples.

It's like irrational PMS tears except that in this case I know as I'm crying that I'm reacting disproportionately, and usually that makes me laugh through the tears. Whereas with PMS outbreaks it was usually the next day before I realized how unreasonable I was being.

In other news, my bump is starting to show (I've been saying that for weeks, but finally other people are acknowledging it). I even got my first belly pat last week, courtesy of Lauren R. My clothes still fit fine and I haven't gained any weight -- yet -- but I looked back at Amanda's pictures and she started to pop between 16 and 20 weeks so I bet I'll be the same.

I hesitate to talk about "cravings" while pregnant because I don't think I've been craving anything more now than I did before I was pregnant. I mean, hearing me say "We need to make a chocolate cake RIGHT NOW" is not something Matt experienced for the first time in the past 17 weeks.

But in the past month or so especially there have been certain foods that sound good to me all the time: grilled cheese sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cheese toast, Kraft macaroni and cheese, peanut butter and crackers, pizza, oatmeal, Chick-fil-A, cereal, yogurt, grapefruit juice and FRUIT. All fruit, but especially strawberries, white grapes, blueberries and oranges ... I cannot get enough.

All of those foods, with the exception of pizza, are pretty bland. Heavily seasoned foods, even those that I love -- chili, steaks, lasagna, Japanese food -- are totally unappealing to me right now. This seems like something that would have hit in the first trimester; I don't know what's causing it. It's not that foods with strong flavors make me feel queasy, not at all; they just, as I said, don't sound good.

Matt thought I was crazy until Carrie told him she went through a pregnancy phase of wanting nothing but grilled cheese and PB&J sandwiches. I suppose it will pass. I'm fine with it, but it does make me completely unmotivated to cook, so I feel bad for Matt.

No news is good news

We had a good, uneventful doctor's appointment on Tuesday. I didn't even get undressed -- I'm not sure what the point of the visit was -- but we did get to hear the heartbeat again (155 beats per minute). The best thing about that appointment was that we got to schedule our NEXT one -- Feb. 10 -- when we'll find out the sex of the baby! I still think it's a girl ... Matt thinks it's a boy ... we'll be happy either way.

Soon after that visit we'll be announcing the baby's name, so stay tuned. And although we aren't disclosing the names we're thinking about, this is your last call if there are ones you feel we must consider. Don't get your hopes up, though -- I think we're pretty set. :)

I asked the doctor if it would be OK to sign up for the Nashville half-marathon in April, and he said it was fine as long as I was in shape for it and stayed hydrated during it. Carrie and Jacob have signed up for it, Stephen was going to if I did and Matt would have joined us for the trip. I don't love half-marathons, but it's supposed to be a really fun race, with a band every mile and great crowd support. Plus there's something about being pregnant, especially visibly so (which I assume I will be by then), that takes off ALL pressure to run fast.

But I was thinking the race was on April 29, which is only nine days after Amanda's due date, and I know first babies sometimes tend to come late. I definitely don't want to be in Nashville during Brianna's birth, nor do I want to lose a not-cheap race registration fee if that's how the timing works out. And then yesterday Carrie told me the race is actually on April 25 -- even closer to Amanda's due date, and more of a potential conflict -- so I think I've decided to skip the race. It would have been a fun road trip/long weekend, but not as much fun as holding my newest niece!

I feel kind of stupid putting this out there because I'm not sure it's even possible yet, and I don't like thinking of myself as a crazy pregnant woman with an overactive imagination ... but I wonder if I've been feeling the baby move for a few days. It hasn't happened often, but I've noticed a kind of fluttery or bubbly feeling while lying in bed a few times. I have read online of people feeling this sensation around 14-16 weeks, but it seems much more common in another month or so.

For Kate

I haven't posted in awhile but I have a good excuse -- nothing seems to be going on pregnancy-wise! Which isn't really true, the baby has grown from a plum to a peach to a lemon since the last time I wrote, and formed teeth, approached normal proportions (its head is only a third of the size of its body now), and started sucking its thumb and breathing amniotic fluid. Amazing!

I feel and look as utterly unpregnant as ever. You know those birth-control pills that let you have only four periods a year? I always thought those were a terrible idea because if you did accidentally get pregnant, you might not know for a couple of months. When you're doing your best to not be pregnant a monthly period is wonderfully reassuring.

Now that I'm three and a half months pregnant I feel more strongly than ever that I could never be comfortable with that particular pill. I am (was) religious about taking birth control exactly as prescribed, at exactly the same time every day, etc., and therefore I always had perfect confidence that I was protected. And while I could recognize certain pregnancy symptoms (tiredness, sensitivity to smells) once I knew I was pregnant, they surely wouldn't have been strong enough to make me suspect pregnancy if I were trying to avoid it. Can you imagine blithely carrying on with your life, only to discover one day that you were a third of the way through a pregnancy? No thank you.

For a few days about a week ago I had a string of mild to terrible headaches and I was worried they were related to the pregnancy, coming as the did around the beginning of the second trimester. Thankfully, they have been gone for four straight days now and I think they must have had another cause: either not eating enough, not drinking enough water, getting too much sleep over the holidays, or being off my regular workout routine (only working out about three times over two weeks).

I had welcomed Cokes back into my life around Christmas but I don't think the added caffeine was directly contributing to the headaches -- but I do think that every bottle of Coke I drank probably represented a bottle of water I didn't drink. And that probably left me a little dehydrated, which is bad news for headaches. This week I've gone back to water, juice and tea, plus am back to my regular sleep and workout routines and am trying to eat more every day, and it seems to be working.

That's all I've got for now. We go back to the doctor on Tuesday, I think just to hear the heartbeat again, so maybe I'll have more to report then, if not before.