The expanding waistline...

It's taking me longer and longer to get dressed. It's so maddening to try on pair after pair of pants, not to be able to zip them all the way up. Or my shirts -- not only do they constrain my ever-expanding bust, but they can't seem to cover my tummy anymore. I know I'm pregnant, but I look in the mirror and all I see is someone who needs to lay off the chocolate chip cookies. I'm still holding out on the maternity stuff, but my options are quickly becoming limited.

The nightmare is that Thomas sent me an email this morning saying that we're invited to the opera tonight to see La vie parisienne and I have NOTHING to wear! I've been stressed about this all day. It was hard enough getting dressed this morning to do the tour of the French administration buildings so I can open my own business, but to have to look elegant... And to top it off, it’s a business function so his colleagues will be there with their chic French wives. I’ll have to work some creative scarf magic if I don't want to make a total fool of myself.

One positive side of being pregnant (and there are many, despite the above ranting) is that I'm able to use my newly acquired status of femme encinte to my advantage when confronted with the winding corridors of French bureaucracy. With a smile, I place my hand protectively on my tummy and sweetly say the magic words, "Je suis encinte" and bingo! No long lines, no "that's not my department", no "I go to lunch in 10 minutes". It's as close to heaven as you can get when dealing with red tape. I may even be in business by the end of next week!

Coucou Papa!

Boo made contact with Thomas! This time I made sure to read on the couch instead of in bed, to keep my husband's hand ready. Boo was pretty active -- I’ve noticed that the more I eat, the more he moves -- but it took Thomas awhile to understand what he was supposed to be "looking" for. But he felt did finally feel Boo's distinctive squirm. I think he was more perplexed than touched, but his eyes did tear up a bit, like any good future father.

I also made a cute observation this morning at the Jardin Publique where I go walking in the mornings. The rentrée in France has officially begun, as I saw at least ten well-dressed business men talking on cell phones while pushing strollers past ducks and geese to the daycare center on the far end of the park. Such modern fathers!

Boo's first blog

I've been considering this for awhile now... I suppose there's no time like the present to get started. When you live as far from your family as I do, I think you just have to put today's technology to work for you, especially when it has to do with the first grandchild. My hope is that by creating this Boo Blog intercontinental communication will not only be facilitated, but that I can also spare the members of my family from full email inboxes of minute reports on fetal gestation and comments on France's health system.

I should start off with the fact that I felt him move for the first time last night. All of my pregnancy books have said that I'm still a few weeks away from that magic moment but in the middle of page 283 of Vanity Fair, I felt a distinct little squirm. I sat there with one hand on my tummy and the other to mark my page and held my breath. Sure enough, confirmation came two seconds later. It had to be his head or his backside because it was a constant pressure (not a kicking foot, thank goodness) and about the size of a small walnut. Of course, once I knew what I was experiencing for certain, my first reaction was to scream for my husband. About 10 times. He was watching a film in the other room and had the volume up much to high for my voice to compete with without the neighbors wondering if they should call the police. So I lost my temper, as a pregnant woman is want to do, and ran into the other room and yelled at him to come feel his child move. Of course, all that yelling and running around probably frightened Boo who promptly refused to move for his dad. Ever the pragmatic, Thomas said that the baby will soon be moving so much that all I'll ever want is to have a little peace and quiet and that I shouldn't put so much pressure on Boo to succeed at such a young age.