I is for Ivo

Last night I cleaned out Ivo's dresser, something I've done periodically but haven't this autumn/winter yet - but better late than never. We recovered an errant letter "H" and a couple other things that were buried under the too small but too cute to get rid of clothes.

The H comes from Ivo's set of letters that stick to the tile wall in the bathroom. The letters are pretty stylized and I never knew how much he gets that they're the same abc's as in books. So while examing the rediscovered pieces, Ivo would show me and I'd name it. When I said "H" Ivo said "H for Heather"!!!!!

I couldn't believe it - cuz I'd only told him that once about a week ago at Heather and Dylan's house and he remembered... He can recognize and name A-F and knows that these shapes are associated with words... but I don't know if he gets that letters are any different from say, shapes.

Still cool.

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This morning I had a doctor appt - Karin came to watch Ivo and for the first time ever, I left while he was sleeping so when he woke up, he had no parents, only Karin - whom he loves... but just a new experience. He was just at the doctor last week with me and Ryan and Karin has watched him a couple mornings when I've gone by myself. So he understands, "Mama's at the dr." I figured he'd be ok and he was.

Baby Burl and I are both holding steady weight wise. This is excellent news for me cuz my dr told me last week that I'd gained too much in the prior 2 weeks (2.8kg). This hurt my feelings, caused me some dismay and no small amount of embarrassment. So today, while I was happy for me I didn't know if this was good news for Burl. The dr said that the ultrasound measurement has a 5-10% margin of error so it's ok. Burl looked squished but otherwise super cute moving his lips around like he's talking. His face looks a lot like Ivo's face did in ultrasounds.

Lots of people have gone to great lengths and effort to tell me how fat I am - I've chronicled some instances, but by no means all. As flattering as it is that strangers and stalkers alike take their obviously valuable time to apprise me of my situation - in agonizing repetitive Chinese because, apparently, I don't give them a satisfactory response... I really don't like it. And it never fails to catch me off guard. I hate that. I don't bother explaining anything or defending myself. On one occassion my eyes started tearing up but, maybe the amah didn't notice cuz it didn't stop her.

I've been pregnant and/or nursing since April 2004. In March of 2004 at my ARC/health screen I weighed 57kg. I now weigh (for the past 2 weeks - yay!) a massive, monumental 85kg. It's almost too terrible to think about - but the horror increases in conversion to lbs... Since I never stopped breast feeding, I never worried much about losing all the weight - I never even weighed myself - but I thought I looked ok. I felt good. (Also my sister is dying due to alcohol and eating disorders so I try with all my might to stay on the sane/safe side of body-image issues.) I figure I've got 2 more years of breast feeding. I'm not really worried it's slow and I don't wanto to have to start hurting people!!!!!!!!!!