It's our first. I can't decide whether I'm more excited or bewildered by this whole pregnancy process, and I have the strangest feeling that this ambivalence is going to extend into parenthood.
A cast of characters might be useful at this point.
This is mommy and daddy, aka Kimberly and Matthew.
I chose this picture for two reasons. One, it was taken in September of 2009, which means it was taken just a couple of weeks before we conceived.
The other reason is that it reminds me that pre-pregnancy, I wasn't just a belly with legs! I mean, all dressed up, I was even kind of cute. :)
Matthew looks very stern and serious in this picture, which is pretty much his standard pose for photographs. Don't let him fool you. He can be a serious, intense kind of guy, but he saves that for work and for martial arts. In the rest of his doings he's an irrepressable goofball, the kind of guy who wishes he had a good excuse to own a nerf gun. :)
This is our little one! It was taken at his 19 week ultrasound. It's a boy, and his name is Locke Thomas. We wanted something a little bit different, but not so far out there that he'll hate us for it one day. Locke is for the philosopher John Locke (Matthew majored in philosophy in college) and for Matthew's best friend, whose last name ends in -lock, and Thomas is for quite a few Thomases, including Thomas Merton, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas the Apostle, and Thomas Covenant (that last is a character in a series of books by Stephen Donaldson. We're fans.)
And here are our girls, Arya and Sansa. Arya's on the left, Sansa's on the right. They're both 4 years old, not littermates, but born within two weeks of one another. They've been together since they were six months old. We're a little bit concerned about how they're going to deal with Locke...after all, they hiss at and hide from every other child with whom they have come into contact, with one exception (a four year old who made such good friends with Sansa that he spent an afternoon teaching her how to be a ninja. It was pretty cute). But, as with everything else in this whole parenting adventure, we'll deal with the problems as they come, and learn as we go.And boy, oh, boy do we have a lot to learn. :D
I'm hoping to chronicle my thoughts and experiences with this whole parenting thing with this little blog. I have a sinking premonition that someday I'm going to look back at some of what I write here and laugh at my own naivete and inexperience, but hey, that's part of the fun, right? I don't plan on shooting for any best-mom-ever accolades anyway; I'll settle for alive and healthy, with maybe a little bit of social responsibility and self reflection sprinkled in.
Anyway, nice to meet you, and if you're planning on following along with me, prepare for a bumpy ride! :D
