Our weekend, and my fears on having a handy child

This weekend was so productive! And social. And fun. And now I am totally, completely beat.

Saturday we attended a "babywearing" class at the local organic store. They brought in a guest speaker to show us the five different types of slings/pouches/structured backpacks/wraps, and she used the various infants and toddlers in the audience in her demonstrations. Holly is making us a mei tei, and we're thinking of getting a ring sling too for when Wiggle is first born. Here's some info with pictures: babywearing.

After that Jonathan and I headed to a private photographer's studio to take some pregnancy pictures. The woman is an amateur trying to become professional, and she has a little photography nook set up in her basement. She took about 200 shots, both of me and me with Jonathan, in all kinds of outfits. We're going to get a disk in about a week, and I'm sure we'll post some on the blog.

Later that evening, after a much-needed stop at Costco, it was time for Carl's surprise 30th birthday party! His wife, Anne, had planned it to the tee, and he was honestly shocked - about 60 people showed up in the park to wish him well, and it was a potluck picnic dinner with tons of food and then cake. The nicest thing was that at one point I was hanging out talking to some HUC graduate students when a woman I'd never met before came over and handed me a huge pack of Pampers newborn diapers: "You're having a baby!" she said. "We're not. He grew out of them." And then she took off! This is excellent, because Jonathan and I had just been discussing using a mix of disposables and cloth diapers in the first few weeks after Wiggle's born, so as not to totally overwhelm ourselves with laundry.

Elbie and Dave came over for more Firefly after the party ended, and when they left, Jonathan and I crashed hard. Then Sunday I taught my last day of Sunday school (Friday was my last day of teaching Adult Hebrew), and when I got home, it was time to set up the birthing tub! (picture a five-foot circular tub, three feet deep, in Jonathan's office). Everything's ready now except for the baby itself. And I'm getting ready to be done being pregnant... my feet are swelling like crazy, so I've been putting them up and availing Jonathan for massages.

And speaking of Jonathan - we have completely agreed on using the Montessori method in raising our children, especially in terms of the nursery setup (i.e. having a mattress on the ground instead of a crib). I had thought we agreed so easily because we both are Montessori advocates. Come to find out, that's only part of the reason for Jonathan!

On the phone with his mother last night, I mentioned that we weren't going to have a crib, and Liz said, "oh good!" Then she tells me this story: once when Jonathan was about two, Liz put him down for a nap and didn't hear anything from him. She figured okay, he was sleeping, plus he was a child who could always amuse himself. But when she walked into the nursery a couple of hours later, she saw that the sides of the crib were completely taken down... and that little two-year old Jonathan was happily burbling to himself with all the screws and bolts in his lap! When I mentioned this story to adult Jonathan later that night, when I got off the phone, he was like, "oh yeah... I knew about that, I just didn't want to scare you. Not having a crib will be good thing just in case the baby takes after me!"

Then he told me about the time when he was four and ruined the suspension on his tricycle: he loved Speed Racer, and so hammered nails into the tires so that it would have a good tread on ice. Unfortunately for him, he lived in southern CA in the time and there was no ice! He was very disappointed that his grand plan did nothing for winter, and only made his ride more bumpy.

What will I do if I have a handy child?! For the record, I was very boring and safe. I climbed a few trees and got hit in the head with a soccer ball while playing goalie. As an adult I live for IKEA instructions, and I had no idea how to use a hammer and nails until an embarrassingly old age. What will I do if Wiggle is gifted kinesthetically and good with tools?! These are parenting dilemmas, I tell you, utter dilemmas!