I know, I know...its late and I haven't posted for a week. Simply put, I'm not inspired.

So what does this remind you of? Could it be?

Here's hoping the creative juices will start flowing again...soon...

So its Wordless Wednesday...and...I seriously am at a loss for words...not to mention pictures...

So I decided to turn it into Wanted Wednesday (just this once).

This is what I didn't get for mother's day (um, yes, apparently we're still in a gray area since the fruit salad itself isn't here to present me with the gift...). But there's always next year right?

Rock on, Papasan!

(Anyone for a trip to Guangzhou?)

In the beginning -- at about 7 weeks -- there was a relatively flat stomach

(even without much sucking in thereof).

About 47 kg (about 103lb). A tad under weight perhaps -- initial trouble with Chinese food will make your already slightly too big pants have issues. Ha! We'll see if I'm still recording my weight by the end of this...

After which...there wasn't much to look at until 12 weeks...

Being pregnant in China. Of course I've nothing to compare it to but my personal opinion is, its enough to make the most sanest of people doubt their sanity. Problem is, I'm not sure I'm the most sane person I know in the first place (I do live in China after all). So mostly these days, I feel like I'm grasping onto any possible piece of my mind I have left and holding it tight lest I forget where I put it (you found it where?).

Hey! There's a bump!

I walk to the bottom of the stairs and then back again to make sure I haven't left the keys in the door (because I can't ever find them in my purse the first time I look). I'd probably do it a second time except that we live on the third floor.

I check the oven is turned off before going to bed every night -- even if I haven't used it that day.

I have a reoccurring dream where I sit down and eat an entire 500ml of whipping cream by myself in one sitting -- they organic kind mind you. I'm partial to a particular brand that I can't remember the name of but I can see the box clear as day in my mind...the other reoccuring dream (although not so much of late) is where I eat an entire lobster tail after fighting another five people for it.

Last night, I walked by McDonalds -- which I haven't eaten at in over 5 years on principle let alone the fact their food is gross -- and began salivating over the Choc Mint McFlurries. McFlurries are new here and despite the fact I've never eaten a Choc Mint McFlurry anyway, somehow my mind began to engage in a war trying to convince myself that I had eaten one at some point and that I really needed to eat one because getting enough calcium here is a problem. Darn you "What to Expect" for telling me that ice cream serves as a serving of calcium -- do you really think anyone, let alone pregnant women need to be encouraged to eat more ice cream? Did it ever occur to you that one of your 'over 12 million copies sold' would be in a country with no decent ice cream. Ok I can get ice cream but its not good ice cream and wouldn't satisfy my craving for cream in the slightest. I'd just have to eat more...one giant downward spiral.

Jason saved the day. He took my hand and dragged...um...guided...more like dragged...me away (ok, ok, kicking and screaming). Tried to console me by reminding me I was holding a mango ice in my hand (that doesn't have anything other than mango and ice in it -- read: no cream) and that I'd regret it later...I forget the rest of the pep talk from then on out.

But the foreign import store, had cottage cheese the other day! I paid more than I ever have for cottage cheese -- much like the time I paid $30 for a jar of Vegemite during the great Vegemite Import Ban of '07 back in the USA. Only this time I paid about $5 for 100g of cottage cheese. Won't be doing that too often!

12 weeks:

added 2cm to the waist and about 1kg to the scale!

My calculations and the Baby Centre put me at 14 weeks now -- I need to take a new photo so I'll put up 'our' new stats later.

Oh the places you'll go!

Or, perhaps more aptly said, the things you'll do to pay for school...

Modeling for a real estate exhibition.

If a picture can paint a thousand words, how many pictures can be heard by only a few sentences?

I was going to use my lunch today to put up some photos of my fabulous belly -- yes I'm biased -- but I'm still dwelling on an incident from this morning.

On Saturdays, I go to the orphanage to teach English and play or do art with the kids. Once Jason's done with this group, he'll join me sometimes and we'll add sport to that mix. I've been working up there on and off for a year now. They call me 'Lachel Lǎoshi' (Teacher Rachel) because Chinese have a hard time pronouncing the "Rrr" sound especially in the South. They call Jason "Gāo Shu shu" (tall uncle).

The director is so stoked to have us. Most days, I'm left asking myself why -- I'm not a teacher, my Chinese is ok till I get around kids and find I don't know any of the words they commonly use (how come the first two books of Chinese don't cover subjects like 'glue' and 'action fighting figures'?), and I'm picking up bad pronunciation of the words I do learn because many of the kids have special needs that affect their speaking capabilities. A while back, I expressed this to the director and she explained that she wanted to expose the kids to a healthy family relationship (Jason and I) outside of what they were familiar with. Her dream is that many of them will group up to lead as normal a life as possible -- with or without disability. My dream is to show the world how it is to be gloriously married -- so it fits.

So I keep going. I love it and this semester, the director is letting me work with some of the children with HIV too. Aside from feeling slightly bad that I can't pronounce all their names, let alone remember them, we have a great time and I've discovered that stickers are the best communication tools in the world, from 4 to 10 year olds alike.

This morning, the director told me she wanted to come in and let the kids know I was pregnant. Now I can tell you I'm pregnant in Chinese but I couldn't explain it to a Chinese four year old for the life of me. So of course she began the usual explanation, that inside my stomach, I have a baby, and how my tummy's going to get bigger ("Lachel Lǎoshi is going to be fat?" "How fat?" "Will the uncle (that's what they call Jason) be fat too?"), and then I'm going to return to my parents home to have the baby and that I'll bring the baby to show them all when I get back to China. Fair enough explanation...all the little black heads, bobbing up and down, eyes as big as saucers at the thought of me being so "fat" in only a few months.

And then the director asked if they had any questions. Oh she had to go and do that didn't she?!

A small hand shot up at the back of the classroom. A four year HIV positive child asks, "Lachel Lǎoshi? Why are you getting a baby from your tummy and not from the orphanage?"

I have to admit I wasn't ready for that question. Fortunately the director being used to questions such as this was able to step right in and come up with an explanation that apparently appeased his curious little mind. What struck me though was that it was such a matter of fact statement for him. Why would one choose a baby in their stomach over picking one from the orphanage? Why wear the red shirt over the blue shirt? Why eat apples rather bananas when you like both?

I haven't an answer. I don't think I ever will. But I also don't think I'll ever forgot his serious little face with the furrowed brow that later wouldn't sit still and knocked the bag of 500 buttons off the table, all over the floor (why does it take longer to pick up 500 buttons when six under six year olds offer to help you?). How does one answer that? "Come my babies, I'll scoop you all up in my arms and take all 15 of you home with me!" I feel like Wendy and the Lost Boys...I'm not really capable of being everyone's parent.

I would like to adopt someday. Or join a Chinese foster family programme. Maybe not for a few years till we have life with our own baby figured out (does that ever happen, I wonder...). And hopefully, I'll never have to answer that heart-stopping, gut-wrenching question from a four year old who's come to except his lot in life of being parent-less with such matter of factness. To tell the truth, I now know its going to be a whole lot easier to answer the my own baby when he or she asks the normal "Where do babies come from?" question...