This week I thought I was feeling much better, but then on Monday, in the midst of eating my lunch, I suddenly saw all I had eaten again. So now the puking feeling has moved from being just a feeling to a no-feeling-but-then-suddenly-a-reality kinda thing. Only one more month of this, right? Less than that, going into 11 weeks tomorow, so it should be all hunky dory in less than two weeks...

I also have been told I am much bigger than I should be. Some have speculated there is more than one miniture person in there. I suspect I am just getting fat. Why, not sure, because I haven't really been eating anymore than I usually did, but I sure as hell don't bother to try and suck it in anymore.

Most all of my students know now. I told my favorite class as sort of an announcement, "In addition to doing page 56, I also wanted to let you know that I am two months pregnant." They were very excited and quized me on dates, feelings, and names during the next class. I even had one student listening to my stomach for a while, although I told him there was nothing to hear yet. He's sort of a special student - you know the type - very lazy, does the bare minimum, but so intelligent that you let him get away with it and love him anyway. His nick name is Butter, and I cannot keep him in his seat during class. His mother is also a teacher, so I'm sure she knows how he is. I hope the Pimentinha will not be like that...

The cats have decided that the top of a desk is a good place to sleep, which makes lesson planning a bit difficult at times. Currently Lela is asleep right here, next to the lap top (at least she is not on it). This is all fine and dandy except for when I come home to find a good chuck of fur in the keyboard or the number lock turned on (took me 20 minutes to figure out how to turn it off). Tomorow they will go visit their new vet. I'm sure they are very excited and just don't know it yet.

HOPEFULLY, I will be going to the doctor tomorow to see what's going on in there. This is providing there is an appointment open tomorow, since we have not been able to call them. If so, there will be ultrasound pictures posted tomorow on the Belly website (now listed on top at the left). If not, well, be satisfied with the belly pictures until further notice.

Being pregnant makes you seriously tired. Everyone says this and says it's normal, but it is SO different to actually experience it. I sleep almost as often as I did when I was in the end of Crew season last fall, but on top of that I feel like I want to throw up much of time, have a hard time tolerating heat in the air, and at times I almost want to pass out. I don't want to do too much social stuff because I get much more tired much more quickly when I have to talk to a lot of people. And teaching... Well for those of you who have never been pregnant, imagine that feeling you get when you have been out drinking all night, then the next morning you wake up, feel tired, have a headache, generally want to puke and don't want to move much. That is about what being pregnant feels like. This is the longest I have been out of bed in about 7 hours. We had lunch with Barbie and a couple of her American students and then I came home to crash. Meuamor got up to attend a party for one of his students, but I just couldn't take the thought of going out and being social with a bunch of people I don't know when I feel like I might keel over at any moment. So here I sit.

I started drinking real milk here. I had not before, was quite satisfied with the soy milk flavored with vanilla, but since recent events have come into play, I find it to be entirely too sweet some times and down right gross at others. Milk here only comes in boxes; there is no refrigerated section like in the U.S., and is manufactured in some other way - milk I am currently drinking was processed and boxed some times in June. So now we have real milk, which tastes distinctly like the powdered milk and water mix that I used to feed to baby cows at my friend Laurie's house when I was 11. I never tasted the mixture myself, mind you, but the powdered milk dust would float all over and get on you and in you, including in your mouth. Drinking milk now brings back memories of the smell of cow manure, cold icy mornings at 5 AM, trudging out to the cafe barn and being pushed around by baby cows that weren't much bigger than me. They were cute, smelly, and slobbery. I kind of miss them.

Speaking of which, I'm gonna go drink some milk now...

Ramp with a small movement.

This is the sign heading as you walk down the docks to the ferry to Itaparica Island, in the middle of the bay of Salvador. There were numerous discoveries of Engrish made that day when we went to go visit some friends there, but I neglected to write them all down. I'm sure they will still be there the next time. I met some other gringa's on the island, and was told by a store keeper that she would charge a gringo almost twice the price for a pair of sandles than she would charge a Brasilian. How lucky we are.

This has been a nice long weekend due to the holiday (one of many) and I am not looking forward to going back to work tomorow. Ug, work. Ug. All we did was visit people, go to the beach, get sunburned.... What a joy.

Several other amuzing events:

On the ferry boat to the island, Meuamor decided to jump off 2 minutes to shore and swim the rest of the way there. He stood up, stripped to his tangerine Speedo, and jumped in. Others on the ferry seemed to think this was normal.

Pondering why the cats had neglected to use the freshly cleaned litter box, I took a closer look and found it was full of ants who were stealing the litter, for uses unknown. This is a nightly ritual apparently. No wonder it gets everywhere.



Oh, and one other noticia: I'm pregnant.