Living in interesting times

As if my life weren't intense enough lately, circumstances have provided me with more excitement than one ought to have between Monday and Tuesday mornings. Like the most horrible deja vu, Alex and I have had our home burglarized AGAIN, for the second time in the past two months. After four years in this place, in this neighborhood, to have two break-ins within a few months of one another... It's beyond belief. This time the break-in occurred while we were away at work on Monday and our sliding glass door was violently shattered all over our bedroom. It seems preventing doors and windows from being forcibly opened is not enough of a deterrent to a determined criminal. I feel so helpless. I don't know what more we can do to stop this from happening.

Surprisingly, they did not take ALL the rest of my jewelry this time, as I would have expected. They ransacked our bedroom and pulled out the top tray of my jewelry box, which was emptied in the previous burglary, but they did not remove any of the contents underneath. Instead they took a nearly worthless ceramic dish (which I loved) filled with all my everyday earrings, mostly of sentimental value: my very first pair of earrings -- gold hoops purchased for me by my mother, labradorite earrings my sister made for me, adorable ladybug earrings given to me by Grandmom. The only remaining piece of jewelry I habitually wear are they earrings I was wearing when this occurred.

Worst of all, the thieves took my beloved, brand-new personal computer, carefully purchased last fall, our biggest spending splurge in many years. Presumably our insurance will eventually cover the cost of a replacement, but nothing can replace our photos, my personal documents and files, or the many hours Alex spent digitizing home videos from his childhood and organizing our entire digitized music collection. My personal computer also served as our entertainment center for watching movies and listening to music. Now, not only do I not have my own computer, but we don't have a television or a music center either. And I am afraid to replace it, as long as we live in this place. The only positive I can see from this is that they did not find and take our brand-new camera as well. Then again, there's always next time.

Thinking about this doesn't put my mind in a very good place.

However, after a very restless Monday night lying awake listening to one of our poor terrorized kitties yowling his distress -- which is pretty much all I felt like doing too -- we finally got up around 4:30 AM to count down the hours until my first ultrasound on Tuesday morning. It was such a wonderful relief to see our baby, to see and hear the heartbeat, and to learn that everything is progressing normally. It was especially thrilling to see our 3.6 cm long fetus wriggling on the monitor during the sonogram. I had no idea there was so much movement going on -- not just wiggling of limbs, but the entire body turning about. I really look forward to being able to feel that movement myself, which the technician said I should be able to do in just a few more weeks.

Our wriggly baby:

Such a round tummy and sweet profile: