Caleb visits with Josie Staecker

Jonathan and his best friend from high school, Chris Staecker, have had a few uncanny parallel points in their lives over the past few years:

We found out in the summer of 2002 that we were going to Kazakhstan with the Peace Corps, and Jonathan called Chris to tell him the news. As it turned out, Chris had just heard he was accepted to a program that was sending him to Kazakhstan to teach English for a year.

Then, more recently, Jonathan called Chris to tell him that we were going to have a baby and Chris said, "My wife is pregnant, too!" The newborns are only 7 weeks apart. A few days ago, Caleb and Josselyn (Josie) Staecker got together for their first meet and greet. They didn't have a whole lot to say to each other, but you know how first-time introductions go. I'm sure they'll chat it up the next time they see each other.

First Christmas - 2007

Happy holidays everyone!

At just under 2 weeks old Caleb had his first Christmas by splitting time between Rhode Island and Massachusetts. First we spent Christmas Eve with the Shanks up in Lexington where Caleb met some of Jonathan's extended family, including his grandmother Caryl. Also, Jonathan's brother Colin and sister-in-law Jodie were down from Maine, and his sister Carolyn and her boyfriend Matt were up from the Philadelphia area. We don't have any pictures of that yet because we didn't have our camera with us - we'll get pictures up as soon as we can.

Then we went down to RI to have Christmas day at the McConaughey's. My grandmother, Sue, heard Caleb say his first words, which were (conveniently) "I love you Great Grandma." And at only 2 weeks old! Below are some pictures from Christmas and the day after...

Caleb's First Bath

Jonathan and I gave Caleb a sponge bath for the first time this week. He loved getting his hair washed and his body cleaned. Here are a few pictures from the hour-long event:

December 12, 2007 - Call me Caleb.

Herman Melville said it originally, but I'm sure his Ishmael wasn't nearly as precious as our little boy! Caleb Pasquale McConaughey-Shank (say THAT 5 times fast!) was born at 3:47 am on Wednesday, 12/12/07. He weighed 8 lbs. 2 oz. and was 21 inches long. He is a very healthy boy with a very healthy appetite, and we just adore being with him.

Here's how the name came about: we had a list of 4 first names that we liked, and when he was born we decided he just looked like a "Caleb." His middle name, Pasquale, was the first name of my maternal grandfather, and "McConaughey-Shank" is a combination of our last names. It's long, but the only other option for the last name was "McShank," and that was quickly vetoed by Jonathan and I for reasons I'm sure I don't have to explain.

We came home from the hospital on Thursday, tired and ready to spend some time together as a family. So far Caleb is a pretty mellow baby (just like his papa, Jonathan's mom said) so I'm not up very much in the middle of the night. Jonathan goes back to work tomorrow for one last week of teaching before Christmas vacation, so my mom is here to help me out for the week. Then we'll have more time together over Christmas vacation when we visit family in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Thank you so much for sending us wishes and congratulations over the past few days. I'm sorry that I haven't been able to respond to you individually, but please know that we truly appreciate your support! I will be in touch more as the weeks go on and my energy is back completely.

Here are some of the approximately 3 billion pictures that have been taken of Caleb over the past 4 days of his life: enjoy!

Week 39!

Here's an updated picture of my belly/cup holder. Our lives have basically been put on hold until our boy gets here. We just can't think about anything else - we spend all day thinking and talking about what it's going to be like when he gets here, even though in reality we can't possibly predict that! Poor Jonathan has to concentrate on writing his thesis, going to grad school, and teaching. For me it's a bit easier - last week my teacher's assistant, Moussa, started teaching all of my classes, and I became the teacher's assistant. I was very fortunate that I could have this arrangement because most teachers just get a long term sub while they're gone. Moussa has worked in our school for 4 years and is a great teacher - the kids know him and respect him, so I have no worries about what class will be like when I'm gone. That's a big relief for me!

Jonathan surprised me with a present yesterday that he bought from the holiday craft fair in Columbus Circle - it's a beautiful silver locket with a picture of him on one side and a '?' on the other side. Many of the vendors at the holiday fair are foreign, and he said he had to explain to each of them what a locket is. Once they understood what he wanted they pulled out either something gold or heart-shaped. Jonathan knows that I don't wear gold, and neither of us are fans of heart-shaped jewelry, so he got one that was custom made. (Had it been heart-shaped Godiva chocolate on the other hand...)

A few weeks ago my mom and sister threw us a baby shower at a tea shop - it was the perfect place to sit, eat, and talk more about the baby! We got a ton of great presents from books and clothes to strollers and toys. And of course, what McConaughey baby shower would be complete without Patriots and Red Sox apparel! Erin created a page on Snapfish so you can see more photos of that: http://leahsbabyshower.snapfish.com/snapfish, but here are a few highlights:

36 weeks and officially impatient

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Here we are at 36 weeks...big and round and ready to go! Everything is still going smoothly - his heartbeat is strong, his growth is steady, and his kicks are solid. Now we're just waiting for him to gain some weight and announce his arrival. Last Friday I was supposed to help some students after school, and before I conferenced with them I told them to take out all of their assignments and start working. I had to speak with someone in the office, so I left the room for a few minutes, and when I got back a student covered my eyes and walked me into the classroom. All of a sudden I heard, "SURPRISE!" and there were 35 of my current and former students, as well as the teachers on my team, with a baby shower. They had tons of food and presents, and of course I turned bright red and started crying...it was wonderful! One of my former students, Cristina, had planned the entire shower. She had gone around during lunch the past few weeks asking students what they were going to bring for food and presents. There was homemade chicken, rice, cake, cheese and crackers, and soda. For presents, we got everything from diapers to clothes to stuffed animals. It was a very special time for me - I really appreciated the effort that Cristina took to organize everything, and seeing students from all of the years that I've taught was very overwhelming. I just wish I had my camera with me!

34 Weeks - the final stretch!

This week someone in school said to me, "Wow! Your belly just keeps getting bigger and bigger!" She looked at me and smiled like she had just broken some news I hadn't heard yet. I responded, "Yep. That's kind of how the whole 'pregnancy' thing works!" I know that sometimes I have mush for brains, but give me a break!

Here is an updated picture of the belly at 34 weeks. (For those of you who are unsure, my belly WILL keep getting bigger and bigger, and then once that boy is born, hopefully it will get smaller and smaller!) If you look closely, you can see my belly button has started to pop out a little bit. Do you know that they actually sell a contraption that is supposed to hide your belly button when you're pregnant? It looks like a big band-aid. It's funny that women would buy something like that. They've got this big ole' belly that's no big deal, but as soon as their belly button, which takes up about 1/1000 the size of the actual belly, starts to pop, they need to cover it up.

The baby keeps moving around a lot, but since he's big he can't really kick anymore, so he just pushes a lot. Jonathan says that's because he's out of his 'karate' phase and into his 'tai chi' phase. He has also started hiccuping every now and again. It feels like he's poking me in the belly button with his pointer finger, almost like he's saying, "Hey signorina, can we get some food down here pronto por favori?

Potential Names?

The past month has been the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, when people fast from sun up to sun down. The Muslim students at my school (from Africa and the Middle East) have been staying on our floor during lunch so they don't have to sit in the cafeteria with all of the other students who are eating. The guys stay in my room, and it's a great opportunity to see some of my former students. The other day, 3 of them (all from Yemen) were asking what Jonathan and I were planning to name the baby. I told them that we've made a list, but haven't narrowed it down to one name. Here's the conversation that ensued:

Daud: You should name him Daud, the Arabic form of David. That way he can be half-Arabic and half-American.

Suliman: No way, Miss Leah. You only had them in class for 1 year, but you had me in class for TWO years. That means you have to name him Suliman! If not, where is the respect?

Khaled: C'mon Miss, their names mean nothing! Name him Khaled - it means "loyalty," and "lasts for a very, very, very long time."

And with that, those three names were officially added to the list.

The Big 3-0

This week marks a big event - our baby boy is now 30 weeks! People who feel my belly comment on how much he moves around, and I'm wondering if that means he'll be a light sleeper. If he's up at 3 am moving around now, why would anything change once he's born? We're both getting pretty anxious to meet him, but we're definitely not encouraging him to come out any sooner than he's supposed to!

Above is an updated picture of "The Belly." Did you notice the Russian nesting doll with Tom Brady and other assorted Patriots players in the upper right hand corner of the picture? Did you notice the Patriots are now 5-0? Remember, there's no such thing as coincidence...

We went to Babies R Us this weekend to start picking out items to put on our registry. We picked out a stroller from Maclaren that we've seen around the city a lot. Jonathan likes it because he doesn't hit his long legs on the wheels as he walks. The store has a personal scanner they give to you when you start your registry so that you can walk around the store scanning items you want to add to the list. Jonathan started scanning random items simply because he wanted to use the "laser" as he called it, so I threatened to scan a baby Yankees outfit and then tell everyone in my family that he's trying to raise our boy a Yankees fan. That was all he had to hear. Quick-thinking mom: 1 Gadget-loving papa: 0

We also went to the doctor today for our 30 week check-up. I had been going to the doctor once a month, but between now and 36 weeks I'll go every 2 weeks. (Then from 36 weeks on it's every week.) My belly measured exactly 30 centimeters to the top of my uterus, which is right on par for how big the baby should be. She also measured his heart beat, which clocked in at 130-140 beats per minute. (Anything from 120-160 is normal.) So far, so good!

I'm still running, and now I'm doing capoeira once a week. Last year my capoeira professor came to my high school to hold a class for the teachers on Tuesday afternoons, and he's continuing that this year. Last week I did a cartwheel (slowly and controllably, thank you) for the first time, and the baby started moving around. I took that as a sign that he liked it, so I did a few more. I talked to my mom later on, and she recommended that I not do cartwheels because the baby may be in the correct birthing position and I don't want to disturb him. When I told that to Jonathan he said, "Does that mean if we're in the birthing center and the doctor says the baby is breech, you should start doing cartwheels to encourage him to flip the other way?" My mom (and everyone else in the world) would probably say no, but I thought it was a creative idea!

Let the shopping begin! Week 28

Here is an updated picture of my belly at 28 weeks. I can still see my feet, but tying my sneakers has become an all-day affair!

Our good friends Kate and Adam were recently in town with their one year-old daughter, Ella. We went into a store called "Kid O" in the West Village where I noticed the most adorable, rather mopey-looking hen tucked away in the corner. (Grandma, don't you love it!?) I went up to Jonathan and uttered a phrase for the first time that I'm sure will become my mantra for motherhood: "This is so cute. I just HAVE to buy this for our little boy." Jonathan put his hands to his head and said with exasperation, "Oh god. Let the spending begin." Therefore, in the spirit of consumerism on behalf of the unborn, I decided to dedicate this entire blog posting to a few of the items 'I just had to buy' over the past few months.

Go ahead. I dare you to say they're not cute!

Week 25 Update

The baby continues to move a lot, and we learned in our HypnoBirthing class that at this stage he is aware of when I pat, rub, or scratch my belly. Sometimes his movements are so pronounced that you can see different parts of my belly moving. I bought a body pillow, which is a long thin pillow in the shape of a "C." I put the top part under my head, the middle goes under my belly, the bottom under my legs, and the very end of the C goes behind my back. Whoever invented that pillow is a genius - it has made falling alseep very easy, and I find I don't wake up in the middle of the night. I feel great overall - my feet have started to swell at times, and I told Jonathan it's my body's way of saying I need a foot massage.

Here are the latest pictures. (I just saw on the preview that the order got mixed up, so ignore the prompts for first, second, third, etc.) The first one is Jonathan and I on a dinner cruise for our 5th anniversary, which was the first of September. It was a beautiful night, and you can see the lights of the Brooklyn Bridge in the background. The second is my belly at week 25 - it's grown a lot since the last picture!

The next 3 pictures show the Christmas stocking that Jonathan made for our little boy. Jonathan made stockings for the two of us when we were in Kazakhstan, and since our baby will be born around Christmas we wanted to make sure he has a stocking. Jonathan made it almost twice the size of ours - he says it's because we're not sure what his name will be so it needs to be big just in case. I say it needs to be big so that we can fill it with tons of presents. I am definitely my mother's daughter.

The last 2 pictures are of our other babies - Nellie (1st picture) and Finn (2nd picture). They've been very good at getting used to the new rules - no jumping on my belly, and no meowing in the middle of the night to wake me up.