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!