Happy Halloween, Me Mateys!

Our little guy was a pirate for Halloween this year (thanks for the loan of the costume, Donna!). I vividly remember my brother Andrew loving his own pirate costume (fashioned by my mom, not a mass retailer, props to you, Mom!) so much that he wore it two years in a row when he was a preschooler. I didn't have such high hopes for Finn - we did a test drive in the costume a few weeks ago, and it stayed on his body for about 2 minutes. But luckily, daycare had a parade and party at school during the day yesterday, so they got to struggle with convincing Finn to put it on, not me. And I'm sure, since ALL the other kids had costumes to wear, Finn was more than happy to oblige. So by the time dinner was over, the sky was getting dim, and it was time to suit up for Trick or Treating, it was a piece of cake for me to get Finn into the costume. See for yourself, he makes a pretty jolly pirate:



M. was en route from a business trip up in Maine, so I had to handle our first real experience trick or treating alone. I left two big bowls of candy out on the front steps with a note for everyone to help themselves, and we took off down the side walk: me, my little pirate, two fake swords, and a plastic pumpkin. Finn was a little overwhelmed at times by all the kids and costumes, some of which scared him. He is still talking about the robot and "bear" (really a werewolf) that he saw this morning. Every time we saw another group of kids, he wanted to follow them, regardless of whether we had already been to that house or not. It was a bit of a challenge directing him around, and a lot of the experience was more like a meandering walk down the street than a trick or treating effort. But I managed to get him to say "trick or treat" several times, as well as "happy halloween," and we came away with a full pumpkin of candy and lots of compliments. The general verdict around the neighborhood was that he made for a very cute pirate.



I also had a doctor's appointment yesterday - I am 15 weeks along in the pregnancy as of today. These appointments always seem kind of pointless to me - there's confirmation that yes, the baby is alive, which is always nice. But the rest of the time is spent peeing in a cup and stepping on the dreaded scale, with only about 5 minutes or less of face time with the doctor. The doctor I saw yesterday was new to me (not surprising since the whole practice is new to me), and I was not overly impressed. She seemed very expressionless and not warm at all. Luckily, I think she does not deliver babies at the hospital we will use, and I plan to see only those doctors in the practice that do from now on, so I don't have to have any more appointments with her.

I had some concerns, because I've been having heart palpitations lately. I had them occasionally with Finn, and I know they can be a normal side effect of pregnancy. But with Finn they started much later into the pregnancy and didn't happen very frequently. They've been kind of frequent this week, and I was a little worried that they started so early this time around (I've had them for a couple of weeks). When I told the doctor about them, she basically told me to find a primary care physician and get monitored. She was not very proactive at all about helping me - didn't offer a suggestion of a primary care doctor (I told her I don't have one), and she also didn't offer to run any tests under her purview that might be helpful, like checking my iron or thyroid levels. Frustrating, and part of the reason I was less than impressed with her. I think everything is fine, but I will follow through, and find myself a PCP to get checked out.

Well, I'm being paged to come to the breakfast table, so I guess that's it for now...