country bumpkins (and an ultrasound)

This past Monday we took the bus to Førde, which takes almost two hours; Førde is where I'll be giving birth this summer.

[waiting for the bus]

[my little bus-writer

still writing her squiggles right-to-left because, according to Leona, she "doesn't know how to write so she writes in the wrong direction"]

 

We went because I had the provided ultrasound scheduled (all pregnant women are offered the option to have an ultrasound between 17 and 19 weeks or so, to check the health and development of the baby).

So when we arrived at 11:20 I headed over to the hospital for my 12 o'clock mid-wife appointment and 12:30pm ultrasound, while Judge and the girls headed over to romp around in a shopping mall.

I kept feeling like I had forgotten something, was missing something, and I realized it was just that I was alone out in the world, not having the girls with me. It's been a loooong time since I've had some 'alone' time, not counting Judge taking the girls to the store and me staying home to work, which is like a mini-vacation for me (like now...though instead of working I am here, writing).

Thankfully there weren't any long waits, and by around 1:30pm I was on the bus again heading back to town centre and the rest of the gang. I called Judge to see where I should catch up with them, and they were on a glass-gangway between two buildings in the shopping center, where they had been playing almost the whole time (two large egg-shaped things the girls could run through, and a carousel). I have to say I'm impressed with how little it takes to keep these folks happily occupied.

[enjoying the carousel - non-moving at the time]

Then we went and got us some ice cream to celebrate being out of the house

[E's first time trying ice cream...liked the taste but not the coldness of it, so rejected each flavor after a careful lick...Leona on the other hand, let's just say her love for the stuff has not diminished an iota]

- and celebrate finding out the gender of our healthy little *boy*.

[our 'announcement' picture]

Took me an afternoon and evening to get used to the fact that we're having a son and not another daughter, as I had been operating under the assumption (not the gut feel, but just the subconscious assumption) that he was a girl; similar-but-opposite to when I found out Leona wasn't a boy as I had been subconsciously assuming.

As we were walking around the part of town we were in, Judge kept exclaiming about how many cars there were driving around, and how surprised he was that there were so many shopping centres (two right by each other with two buildings each or something), and I came to realize we have really lost the 'small town of 600,000 people' mentality we had in Taiwan ;)



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