December 14, 2006 | Mama Smith

a few parting words

Okay, so I didn’t really mean to wait this long in between posts, but THANK YOU to everyone who heeded my threats and emailed or commented on that last post. With that slew of great meals, tips and ideas for getting our freezer nice and stocked, I now have a list of over three weeks of meals to get started on. Whew! I’ve begun some, but January will prove to be a busy cooking month.

In just three short days we head over to London. We’ve been getting swamped with British Airway emails about baggage allowance, checking in ahead of time, and so on. My favorite was one regarding our seats. Since I’ll be 32 weeks pregnant and Brighton still classifies as an infant, we’ve been rewarded the bulkhead seating. Complete with an infant bassinet that supposedly attaches to the bulkhead. I doubt they’ll allow Brighton’s 22lbs to hang from the bulkhead wall, so we may just have it at our feet instead. But it’s nice to know there’s another option besides our laps. Mine, which is quickly disappearing.

The seating chart cracked me up. Here is what BA’s seating chart showed for Matthew and I:

Per our seating assignment, I’m actually number 2 and Matthew is number 1, with the funny midget on his lap being Brighton. Cute illustration. Interesting how they have the infant in the father’s lap, not the mother’s? Another illustration for the flight back depicted Matthew holding a little bassinet:

How sweet. I’ve taken to calling him Mother Mary and myself Joseph.

I just hope we don’t have any situations in the airport like we did on our return flight from New Mexico. No matter where we go, one of us never fails to stick our foot in our mouth.

We were patiently waiting in line for our sandwich order at a deli in the Albuquerque airport, when we passed up a pile of enormous rice krispie treats. I knew snacks were getting bigger, but I’d never seen a R.K. treat the size of a dictionary before. Right as I was pointing these out to Matthew, the gentleman in front of us let out a slightly restrained toot. One of those you try to hold in, but it just squeezes itself out, defying your attempt at confinement. Matthew didn’t notice, but instead comments on my pointed out R.K. treats. “Dang, just a little guy, huh?!” The man in front of us turns around horrified. Thinking Matthew had just rudely commented on his fart. I fumble around trying to make up for it going overboard about the massive R.K. treats, but I think the guy was too embarrassed to listen to anything else we had to say. Ahh, the Smiths, we have such a way with words…and making fools of ourselves.

Brighton continues to try and grasp the concept of a baby being in my belly. He often pats his own belly when we’re changing his diaper and says “Beebee”. Tuesday at my 31 week checkup with my midwife, Brighton watched as my midwife waved the handheld monitor, that looks sort of like this….

....over my belly to listen to the baby’s heartbeat. She then let him hold the whole contraption as we sat and chatted for a bit. Until a loud rustling filled the room and we both look down to see Brighton holding the wand up to his own belly and “listening” to the box. He’d turned it on and was shaking it next to his ear as the sounds of the wand moving over his clothes blared through the room. I think we should just stop the whole “baby in the belly thing” or we’re going to seriously confuse this boy.

I doubt we’ll be up and running in the internet world once we get to London since my parent’s DSL still isn’t functioning, so it’ll be a nice, long break for Matthew and I. Trying in some ways, since we love our computers, but perfect timing for both of us who are in desparate need of rest on all fronts.

Not sure if I’ll write more before we head out or not. I guess it depends on how chaotic the next few days are. If I don’t return for awhile, I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and enjoy being together with your family and/or friends. I’m sure we’ll return with plenty of stories and pictures from our trip overseas to make the wait worthwhile.