Introducing Jack Dalton

This is what our awesome little dude looked like about two and a half months ago:

And here is his adorable little foot:

Out of respect for his privacy, I am not including the pictures that specified his gender. His name is Jack Dalton, and we think he may be destined for heroism (or at least, to one day grow a really big mustache and serve as the trusty sidekick to some Macgyver like character . . . ).

Jack is due to make his grand appearance on the earth around April 4th, and we are very excited to meet him and see whose genes won out. The physical possibilities are intriguing: if he gets the McDonald length/height and the Dalton musculature and athleticism, Jack could have the makings of a demigod. As for hair, if he gets my curl and Josh's body, he could rival any hobbit's head in Middle Earth. If he gets Josh's eye shape and my eye color, he would be one tricksy little ninja. I tend to imagine him most as a little Mowgli baby, loin cloth and all, with rather wild hair and mischievous glints in his eyes.

All supposition at this point, of course. I am prepared, however, to make some preliminary assessments of Jack's character and disposition, based on the only sources I have available to me: doctor's visits, fetal movement, and lots and lots of weird dreams.

Jack Be Nimble, Jack Be Quick

Granted, this is my first child. I have no basis of comparison. But I'm pretty sure I have one squirmy little dude in there. I have a feeling this child will be an energetic one, payback for what I did to my own parents as an infant. Apparently I was a pretty fussy baby until I learned to move on my own. Dad says he remembers walking in the door from work and Mom greeting him by way of passing my squirming self into his arms. Once I learned to crawl and walk, however, my disposition improved and I became a much happier child.

I even had a dream that I was holding him in my arms and it was all I could do to keep him from flying out because he was kicking around so violently.

He also has an irreverent streak with his movements. He likes to kick really hard, with no warning, during church. It startled me so much the last time he did it that I fairly jumped in the pew. He also starts going a bit ape when I am working in the temple, as I do once a week. I seriously wonder if the patrons ever notice the way the big pregnant lady's belly starts writhing and bouncing during what should be very quiet, reverent moments. Hopefully this is just a phase that he will grow out of in a decade or two . . .

Ginger or Afro?

Josh and I have both had dreams that Jack had red hair and blue eyes. I also had a dream where I had just delivered him and was trying to get my first look at him through the nursery curtain, and suddenly he had a huge Afro. And his skin was black. I was pretty sure there had been some sort of mix-up....

Precocious Verbal Genius or Creepy Talking Baby . . .

In Josh's same dream where Jack was sporting bright red hair, he also demonstrated astonishing verbal prowess. Jack was about 2 days old, and Josh went to go get him from his crib. Jack looked at him and said: "Hi Josh!" Josh wasn't sure if he was encouraged or creeped out by the dream.

A Rogue in the Making

One thing I am quite sure of is that Jack is bit of a rascal. He likes to be evasive, especially where intrusive technology is concerned; he instinctively resists it. This could be a good thing if he is destined for a career as a spy or special forces operative.

For example, it has always been a bit of an ordeal getting his heartbeat at my OB check-ups (not good for my nerves/motherly anxiety) because he starts moving and flipping around as soon as she starts rubbing the machine over my belly. The nurses usually end up muttering something like: "You've certainly got a mover" or yesterday she just turned to me and said: "I really don't think he likes this thing," gesturing to the heart-rate monitor.

Our ultrasound took a good 45 minutes because he kept flipping over and refused to move his arm and show the tech his right aortic valve (mind you, he had no qualms about displaying his manhood . . . that was revealed within the first minute or so of the ultrasound. Not sure what to make of that one yet).

Whether or not Jack ends up with uncanny savvy to evade the surveillance technologies of foreign governments or terrorists, I do think he will have lots of fun playing Hide and Seek with his dad. If Josh and I are sitting on the couch, and Jack starts in with the acrobatics, I will grab Josh's hand and put it on my stomach so he can feel him. Sure enough, the lad goes completely still, so Josh will move his hand away and go back to whatever he was doing. As soon as he does so, Jack will deliver a quick roundhouse or left hook, and then of course fall silent again as soon as Josh puts his hand back on my belly. I imagine Jack having a good chuckle over these antics, snorting little bubbles of amniotic fluid as he flip-flops back down onto my bladder.

Josh loves him more for his roguishness, of course, and gets this gleam of fatherly pride in his eye whenever Jack pulls an evasive maneuver.

Truth is, we are mostly just excited to meet the great Jack. Even if he comes out with a Ronald McDonald red Afro, addressing us both by our first names, and karate chopping the nurses who try to measure his vital statistics, he will be our little hero.

The Return of the Unemployed

As you can see, I have been blog-absent for half a year--only making it to day 3 of our 10 day Scotland trip, and then dropping off the face of the blogosphere in July.

In my defense, two significant (but unrelated) events happened in July that brought this about:

(1) I got pregnant

(2) I got "unofficially" promoted at work. This means my boss departed, my work load doubled, and I received no recompense in salary or title.

What did happen is that I got unhealthily busy at work at exactly the moment when my body was working on building another little person. The end result is that for the next several months I worked, ate, took some Tums, worked, and went to bed. Thus, my disappearance from our fledgling blog.

Happily, something else happened in early December that brought about my return, and I have politicians and revenue-hungry executives to thank for it (literally--I am probably the only person in my company to be grateful for it). The war in Iraq ended, our troops pulled out, and my company reduced its corporate staff by 60%, and gloriously, I was among the reduction.

Before the cuts came, I had pulled my boss aside and let him know that if I wasn't on the list, I should be, as I was going to resign in a few months anyway, so would he please take that into consideration. It was an odd conversation . . . essentially: "Sir, could you please fire me?"

And this is how I found myself, one beautiful December morning, eating a donut on my couch at 8am in the morning, blissfully inaugurating my unemployment.

The transition from dashing around as a frenetic, over-worked defense contractor to a puttering housewife has been shocking easy and exceedingly joyful. I thought that maybe I would feel a sort of "ghost limb" connection to my missing BlackBerry, which had been my faithful, around-the-clock poltergeist for nearly three years. I felt no such thing. It was near immediate mental liberation, and mostly I was left to wonder at the luxury of being able to take my time with activities that I had normally rushed through in order to get to work on time, make dinner before 7:30 at night, and get to bed in time to get up and start it all over again.

All that, and the fact that my head feels miraculously uncluttered, leads me back to here. Josh's two conditions for my unemployment were (1) that I write; and (2) that I have dinner on the table by 6pm every night. So far I have failed at both, but thus begins my effort to accomplish the first.