Emotion Processor Needs a Re-Boot

My capacity to process emotions is officially on the fritz.

This is a processor. I think. What do I know about computers?

Example 1. There's no more food.
I arrived to church on a Wednesday night about 15 minutes after the start time for dinner.  THERE WAS NO FOOD LEFT. Okay, there was a bowl of corn, a bowl of mixed greens, a variety of salad dressings, and some garlic bread.  I dropped my fiver in the plate and subsequently watched as quick hands snatched up the last 4 slices of pizza that I had been hedging over a willingness to eat in the first place.

I just about burst into tears.

I wasn't *starving* at that point.  I had an hour, at most, before I would be.  It officially became hard to see straight.  Pretty ridiculous, right?  There are pregnant women all over the world who don't get adequate nutrition. I ought to just suck it up when I have to wait an extra half hour to eat. Sheesh.

Example 2. She just fell down (up).
I had 3 letters in my left hand, my purse was on my left shoulder, and I was making my way up the stairs at work to put the envelopes through the postage machine.  Three steps from the top I tumbled forward << Thank God it wasn't backwards >>.  I landed on my legs, and it startled me.  One of my co-workers was at the top of the stairs, and there were 2 volunteers at the bottom of the stairs.  The downstairs group gasped audibly.  The upstairs chick mumbled something about center of balance being thrown off, or else she said something about carrying extra weight being a challenge...  Either way, I was mortified.  I landed on my legs, and it startled me.  I was paying attention.  I was climbing stairs normally.  I was wearing sandals that were well-attached to my feet.

There's no reasonable explanation for the tumble.  I felt extremely embarrassed and a little upset that NO ONE said, "Jess, are you okay?"  So I franked the envelopes and went to the post office,  driving there all the while teetering between bursting into fits of laughter or tears.  Seriously.

Example 3. She was listening to her favorite song. Seriously.
So my current favorite song is "Stand Up" by Sugarland. There's this one part where it's just Jennifer and Kristian singing (all the music fades), and for me it's powerful the way they harmonize the lyric, "Won’t you stand up/ Stand Up/ Stand Up/ Won’t you stand up you girls and boys?"  Literally, it gets me every time.  This song came onto my radar after I got knocked up, so I can't say whether or not this is a common reaction that I'm having to the song, or if it's progesterone induced.  Either way, it's kind of lame how I get teary-eyed and choked up EVERY time I hear this song.


To give you an idea of how ludicrous it is to get emotionally wound up over it, here are the lyrics:

All the lonely people cryin’

It could change if we just get started

Life the darkness, light a fire

For the silent and the broken hearted

Won’t you stand up

Stand Up

Stand Up

Won’t you stand up you girls and boys?

Won’t you stand up

Stand Up

Stand Up

Won’t you stand up and use your voice?

There’s a comfort

There’s healing

High above the pain and sorrow

Change is coming

Can you feel it?

Calling us into a new tomorrow

Won’t you stand up

Stand Up

Stand Up

Won’t you stand up you girls and boys?

Won’t you stand up

Stand Up

Stand Up

Won’t you stand up and use your voice?

When the walls fall all around you

When your hope has turned to dust

Let the sound of love surround you

Beat like a heart in each of us

Won’t you stand up

Stand Up

Stand Up

Won’t you stand up you girls and boys?

Won’t you stand up

Stand Up

Stand Up

Won’t you stand up and use your voice?

Example 4. Did you write your thank you note?
I was raised in the old school where you hand write a thank you note, stamp it, and snail mail it to your gift-giver. Period. No exceptions.  I'm proud to say I've been on my A-Game since the attention, favors, and gifts started pouring in.

Lots of folks will tell you that when you're pregnant, your short-term memory fades.  They're not lying.  A couple weeks ago a gift card arrived in the mail from one of my aunts. .. talk about thoughtful and generous!  Specific instructions read, "Buy something for yourself!"  I can totally appreciate that.  So I wrote the thank you note, hung onto it for a day until I was able to get to the post office to buy stamps, and subsequently dropped the note in to the mail... I think << I have a very clear, cognizant memory of writing the note and stamping the note. Mailing the note is fuzzy because I handled a lot of mailings last week >> .

So my mom calls last night and said my aunt is wondering if we got their gift card.  I toed the edge of turning into a monster at that very moment.  As my father-in-law would say, !Casi me volvi mona! I held it together enough to not snap off my mom's head through the phone... barely.  I did, however, explain to her my recollections, and I got off the phone quickly because my fuse was getting shorter and shorter.

In theory, that particular conversation should not have gotten me riled up even slightly.  But it did, and in a big way no less.  It's absurd how upset I was.  I blame all this silly progesterone for my reactions, and I'll say it again: My Emotion Processor Needs a Re-Boot.

The Name Game

It's begun. Lucky for us, attempting to name our passenger is a barrel of laughs.  During numerous baby-naming conversations, we have in fact laughed until we cried.

Unfortunately, to try to describe some of those conversations would only come across as awkward and not-funny. So I'll spare you the lost effort of trying to understand our strange, parents-to-be humor.

I will say this. We've got a big task ahead of us, for three very important reasons.

First, the spelling.  We want a name that will have the same spelling in both Spanish and English.  That's harder than you might think. An example is found in two of my favorite little boy names: Nicholas and Alexander. In Spanish, that would be Nicolas and Alejandro.  We're not quite in agreement as to whether or not the pronunciation of the name in either language should change, but if the pronunciation doesn't change, then we're even *more* limited.

Second conundrum is the syllabic content. The cadence of the kids name is important.  It's got to have a nice flow.  Last name, Bocangel,  has 3 syllables.  We don't want a 3-3-3 name.  People would start yawning halfway through the little dude's middle name.  I'm thinking a 2-4-3 or a 2-1-3 cadence would sound nice.

Example of a 2-4-3: Jacob Mariano Bocangel

Example of a 2-1-3:  William Luke Bocangel

*Disclaimer: neither of those 2 options are ones that we love- I'm just making a point here.

Third, can the name pass the test? Let's face it: kids are mean.  So let's suppose we get through steps 1 and 2, and we have a viable option.  Then I put on my "cruel middle school thinking cap" and I make fun of the possible name of my child.  I'm as brutal as possible, because quite frankly, kids will be.  And I don't want to set mine up for ridicule.  This part is always where we wind up in tears from laughing so hard because I'm pretty creative when it comes to making fun of names when I put my mind to it.

All of this to say we've got a significant task ahead of us.  So don't be surprised if we call our little man nick names like, "Son, Love, Baby Boy" etc. before actually naming him when he's 5 and we've finally found the perfect name.

It's a... Surprise!

Well, sort of.  We know the gender of our baby.  We even knew for a few hours before our family found out.  As a little girl, I always wanted to wait to be surprised with either a little boy or girl upon their arrival.  I always thought I'd convince whatever man became my husband and the subsequently father of my child to think the same way.  Then there's the reality of finding out we're expecting a baby.  Everything I *thought* I'd do a certain way... well, it seems like I'm not really doing it that way.

Like finding out the gender.  We decided to go for it.  As a bit of a compromise, we opted to have a "Gender Revealing Party."  << Okay, okay, I know. It sounds a little awkward.  Would you prefer we call it a "Baby Sex Party"?  That's 100 times worse, and it would probably land us on the pedophile/predator list... I digress >>.

So the big day arrived (04/08/2011). We show up for our appointment at 9 am for the usual routine- pee in a cup, check weight, blood pressure. Everything looks good.  We take a seat, indicating aloud that we're excited for the ultrasound.  The nurse says, "Um, we don't have you down for an ultrasound." WHAT?  There has to be a mistake. We've been looking forward to our anatomy ultrasound- we've even planned a party to surprise our family with the news that requires an ANATOMY ULTRASOUND.  The nurse leaves, and the doctor comes back.  They can get us in at 3:15 that day. Of course Preggo breaks down into tears, and the hubs is extremely sweet and supportive << he later admitted that he was as upset as I was, but he knew I was expressing enough for both of us >>. The office promises to call us if they get a cancellation sooner.  Distraught, I head back to work. Less than an hour back at work we get a call- they can see us at 12:30.  WHEW!

Well... which is it?!?

The little runt did not disappoint! Within the first 15 seconds we got our answer.  Then for the next 15 minutes, we chased the wiggle worm all around my womb checking for fingers, toes, heart function, brain formation, bone length, and all that good, sweet, 'growing a baby' stuff. My passenger weighs a whopping 12 ounces! We've got a 3/4 pounder on board.

So now we could finalize the details for the big reveal!  Colors for the party were fun and gender neutral: green, orange, and yellow.

We had some jelly beans in a bowl, iced lemon and orange sugar cookies, and in the background of the pic below are the yellow packages that each family opened, contents inside revealing whether we're having a BOY or GIRL..

 We used the balloons to create XX and XY wall chromosomes.

  We had some orange flowers and framed ultrasound photos.

 Yellow flowers and more framed ultrasound pics.

A hand-made sign to welcome the guests...

 A fruit bowl, with - you guessed it - oranges, lemons, and limes!

We also had a couple of pitchers of ice water with slices of lemons and limes, but we didn't photograph those.  Now for the actual reveal, I'd heard about putting food coloring in the cake and then covering it with icing so no one knows until it's cut what the gender is.  While I always like the idea of cake, I don't particularly love the idea of eating a pink or blue cake.  I could give you pink cake- in my head, I can assume it's strawberry flavored... but blue? Yuck!

So we opted for little goody bags for everyone to open at the same time.  They were wrapped in yellow tissue paper, tied with orange and green ribbons.  Inside was a seed packet with wildflower seeds (either pink and red or blue and purple flower seeds) with a label that said either a sweet little girl or a precious little boy was in bloom.

Team XX pictured here!

Team XY pictured here!

I guess you want to know what was in the package.  It would be very cruel of me not to tell you, wouldn't it?

IT'S A BOY!!!

For fun, we added a little package with 2 wrapped almonds, held together with a blue clip.  Here we are, proud to announce that we're having a son... The Bocangel name will carry on for at least another generation!

It's true! XY = BOY.

Bryan was sweet and clever to make us some "Buns in the oven"

So now you know!  Baby Boc is of the sweet little boy variety.  Sorry, no name decisions just yet.  Stay tuned!