Goodbye, sweet youth

I'm making baby steps toward becoming a mother and one of those steps happened last night. I took out my belly button ring. Without you, belly button piercing, I feel that I am now headed for a lifetime of front-butt jeans and flats. There may also be an appliqué Christmas sweater in my future. Because I'm not a woman anymore. I'm a mom. Believe it or not, I got my piercing in 1998 - nine years ago so I've had it nearly 1/3 of my life. My stomach looks naked now. I just didn't want Ellie pointing at it, asking me what it was and if she could have one. Because the answer is NO - she can never have one. She'll be lucky if she's not still wearing clip-on earrings when she's 18. It's bad enough that he-who-will-remain-nameless has TWO tattoos. I hope she doesn't follow our examples because I really don't want her to wind up one of those girls with a piercing through her lip and a tattoo on her forearm of Mickey Mouse giving the finger. Of course, the bird-flipping Mickey would much be preferred to the initials, and I think Lee's dad can vouch for that.

I've been having the strangest dreams lately. The one I had on Tuesday night kept waking me up during the night. I dreamed that my doctor came into my hospital room to give me an epidural. She showed me the needle and it was the size of my pinky finger. I told her that I thought about it and on second thought probably didn't need one. She started chasing me and then jammed it into my back. I had the baby and they took her away. I said to a nurse "what does she look like?". The nurse said "she looks just like you". They brought her over to me, pulled the blanket back and sure enough - she looked exactly like me. It was my adult head on an infant's body. At least she got the good nose. Lee had a dream the same night that he was pregnant and couldn't get comfortable while he was sleeping. So I guess he had a dream that he was me.

Lee has also informed me that I'm going to have to be Johnny Law for the household. He said "I will never be able to discipline or punish Ellie because that's my little girl. That's my sweetheart". I'm sure he'll forget about making this statement when she comes home with that Mickey Mouse tat. I'm documenting this because I know that Ellie will one day read my writings and think "what the hell happened to that idea?!!".

I got some yarn this week so I'm going to start knitting Ellie's baby blanket. I'm 27 weeks so hopefully I'll have enough time to knock it out and maybe something else before she gets here. I'll keep you updated with pictures!