Happy Halloween!

I'm refusing to participate in trick or treating this year. If I can't snack on the candy, I'm not having it in my house. Too much temptation. Not like the teenagers who go around our neighborhood will really miss out much!

That said, here's Tot's costume (unless she arrives in the next 36 hours or so, then I have a different one for her!)

And here's the punkin and the ghostie:

I'm There

I think I've been a pretty good sport for the past 39 1/2 weeks. Even when I was sooo sick those first four months, I tried to stay positive and tell myself it was all part of the package and wouldn't last forever.

I've decided I'm about done with this now.

For the past two days I've rather suddenly been feeling more and more uncomfortable. Tired. Really tired. More random pains, including occasional leg spasms in my thighs and night cramps in my calves. Contractions aren't any more frequent or consistent, but some of them have been a bit stronger. Walking (waddling...) has become more of a challenge, as is getting in and out of the car. Every time Tot moves she pokes something that hurts. I know, she's out of room in there and it's not her fault, but she could make some effort to hurry up!

I told Greg I think it's probably time for me to seriously stop running so hard every day. I need to be still more, start resting. I'm not good at that these days, but I don't have a lot of choice. I just can't go like I could even a couple of weeks ago. Won't be long now, I guess. Couple more weeks, max. Maybe she'll get motivated before they have to induce. I've been very patient every week when the doc tells me we've made no progress. Not in a hurry, she'll come when she's ready. I'm ok with that. I've waited this long, I can wait a few more weeks. I think I've reached that point where I'm past that. I'm ready. Her official due date is Sunday, let's hope she pays attention to deadlines!

La Dee Da Dee Da...

Sorry folks, all of you who are anxious for Tot's arrival are just going to have to wait. We have so little progress that my doc went ahead and penciled me in for induction in two weeks. We'll make that official next Tuesday. I have no control over my child. She's going to do whatever she wants until they yank her out kicking and screaming on the 10th.

She's either going to end up absurdly laid back or incredibly difficult. I can only hope it's the first!

Mid Life Crisis.

Tot turned 39 on Sunday. I fully expect her mid life crisis to kick in any minute now.

You thought I meant my own mid life crisis, didn't you? HA! Not me, but the pup may be about to have one.

Going to see Dr. T today. I've been going on Wednesdays for 9 months, and this week they could only get me in on Tuesday. It's a miracle I remember. I'm not expecting any earth shattering news today. I haven't been having many contractions over the past week, so I don't imagine she's moved much. Doc said last week that we needed a few more series of stronger ones to start moving her down more. Still five days from "due," and another week until she's jolted into reality whether she likes it or not. There are a lot of people anxious for her to get this show on the road! (The pup isn't one of them.)

Time To Move

There was a snake in my house tonight.

In my laundry room, where I walked past it three times before I noticed it. Smack in between me and the door. Yes, I screamed. Loudly. Greg thought my water broke. Oh no, that wouldn't be nearly as traumatic. I nearly hyperventilated right then and there.

Greg is my hero. He coerced it out the front door after much effort. I may not be able to walk out the front door tomorrow. If it wasn't for Greg I'd probably still be trapped in the laundry room, standing on top of the washer.

I was about to go to bed, but now I'm thinking that's pointless. Perhaps I will start searching house listings online. I can deal with most creatures, even mice which I really don't like. But I can't deal with snakes. At all. Especially not IN MY HOUSE.

Getting My Money's Worth

I made the decision before we bought our new DSLR camera that if I was going to drop that much money on a camera, I was darn well going to learn something about how to use it. I've been reading a lot over the past week about the technicals of manual settings and composition techniques. I know I won't ever be a "real" photographer, and I don't want to be, but I like photography, find other people's work interesting, and want to get the most out of the equipment I have.

I think it's fairly obvious that I'm not going to be in a position to take a formal class any time soon, so I've been going through a couple of online tutorials and doing the assignments to play with settings and composition techniques. I'm going to upload some of the better pictures to a set on my Flickr. I haven't even contemplated post-processing at this point, they are all raw pics sampling different specific techniques. Not even cropped. I'll work on that later, when I don't feel much like hauling a tiny Tot all around town.

The original files are too big to post a lot of them here, but here are a couple I particularly liked (resized to a reasonable file size!):

This one was part of an assignment dealing with aperature and utilizing points of lights to make those fuzzy circles of light as part of an overall blurred background. My old camera wouldn't do that. The full sized version shows the detail much better.



I was actually working on an assignment involving shutter speed and capturing motion in a fountain when I switched targets to this flag blowing in the wind. It wasn't really a better subject for shutter speed, but it did fit and also covered another assingment involving flow of motion and composing with lines (in this case an S-line). I also thought the colors turned out particularly vibrant on these if you look at the originals. This is one of those I really wish I'd shot with my old camera as well, just to compare.

Christmas

At the rate we're progressing, it'll be Christmas before I give birth.

I just knew we'd be told I was at 1 or 2cm today, but no. Nothing. She's moved "a little bit" down. Still have a long way to go. Dr. T was even talking deadlines today. She said they won't let me go more than about a week late, and if she doesn't get a move on we'll be scheduling for November 10. We go back next Tuesday. Dr. T didn't even suggest that she'd see us next week unless we come in before, she didn't see that happening.

She guestimated Tot was about 6.5lbs, but that's a big guess. Said she should be putting on about half a pound a week, so I could be looking at an 8lb or so baby.

In all honesty, I'm not in a rush. I'm probably the least anxious person when it comes to her arrival. I've waited a long, long, long time, a few more weeks won't matter. And I'm not miserable; I feel pretty darn good for 38 1/2 weeks. I'm willing to wait until she's ready or until Dr. T says it's time to force her out.

Evidence

Yes, I'm a posting fool today. Enjoy it while you got it, cause I have a feeling there may be a drought in the near future...

That said, I suspect most of you are very familiar with my lunatic pup, Casper.

Exhibit A

I get home from an errand this afternoon and let him in from his adventures in the back yard and find this:

Exhibit B

Really, it doesn't do it justice. There is black soot all over his neck, face, and feet. I held him down and scrubbed his face with a wet washcloth and got some of it off, but the minute I went for his feet he freaked out and started running laps around the house. Our guess is he was playing under the grill. That's his favorite naughty place to be. And this whole time he keeps telling me he hasn't done anything, he doesn't have any idea what I'm talking about. The evidence speaks for itself, you nutcase pup.

And you don't even have a clue how your world is about to be rocked. Just wait.

Practice

I knew better than to make the comment that I'd all but quit having Braxton-Hicks contractions yesterday.

They started back with a vengeance about 10pm last night. Apparently Tot decided she needed more practice. Lasting longer this time, anywhere from 30 seconds to over a minute, and kept going off and on until after 3:30am. Usually I can sleep through them, they don't hurt they're just uncomfortable. The problem last night was that every time one started to end Tot would spend the next two minutes kicking the daylights out of me. She wasn't liking it. Nobody in our house got much sleep last night.

When we went to the doc last week I wasn't really surprised to find that we hadn't made any progress. If we get that report this week I'll be very surprised. My belly seems farther away than it did a few days ago, although from this perspective it really is hard to tell. Seems like I'm feeling more pressure lower in my abdomen than before as well, and she doesn't seem to be kicking right at my rib cage now, but a bit below it. Surely she's dropped at least. And with all the contractions and kicking last night I would expect to see a little dilation. We'll see tomorrow at the next doc visit. I know it could still be a week or two before she gets serious, but I hope she doesn't make a habit of nights like last night in the meantime.

Perhaps I should put some more thought into packing a bag...

Can Someone Explain...

Yesterday I opened my kitchen cabinet to grab one of my favorite glass mixing bowls when I noticed this:

Do you see it? Notice the bowl in the middle. There are three smaller bowls nested on top and a larger one on bottom. But then there's the middle one...

The entire bowl isn't shattered, just the rim, all the way around. The other four bowls don't have a scratch on them. These are heavy bowls. They have to be to survive in this house. Nothing fell on it. And it was nested in the middle. I showed it to Greg when he got home last night and he said he'd heard something make a racket in the kitchen Sunday morning but never could find the source of the noise. Anybody got any ideas on what the heck could have happened? I'm baffled.

Mars and Venus Prepare for Baby

I don't think it's a big secret that I fell victim to the nesting urge. I was mostly focused on organizing, but at our house that involves a LOT of cleaning. Ok, so vacuuming the ceiling fans was just plain fun, but that's not my point.

I realized today that Greg has been man-nesting. What is man-nesting? Well, apparently they have their own ways of preparing for baby. In our case, that means buying electronics and gadgets and such. I didn't think that much about it when he insisted we were buying the new vac. We needed it even though I kept coming up with reasons to put it off. He didn't want Tot hanging out on our yucky carpet any more than I did, we bought a new vac. When he flat told me that if we were going to buy a new DSLR camera we needed to go ahead and do it before the baby arrived so we'd have it at the hospital I made a token arguement about waiting a while... until we found exactly the one I'd wanted on clearance at Best Buy. (Did I mention we bought a new Nikon D40? I have to be careful not to drool when I use it.) Skip ahead to this weekend. It was determined that we need a video camera. I pointed out that Tot won't actually do anything for several months, just lay there and sleep. But we have to video her coming home for the first time. Ok then. At least we found a refurb silly cheap we could order...

Man-nesting. I had no idea. I hope Tot gets here soon, before a new flat screen TV arrives.

Resistance is Futile

Target. Dollar. Bin. Can't. Resist.

All Clean

Tot should be all clean now. We had her last Tot Wash on Friday at Greg's office.

It was a diaper and wipes shower, which was GREAT considering that after three big showers we had received exactly zero packs of diapers or wipes. I'm not kidding. It was weird. But fine, because we knew we'd be having this one and be set. Greg find it weird that every time they have one of these at his office they make them open all the gifts - even though it's pretty obvious what they are. I had some fun with it. I kept getting a bag or a package and trying to guess what was in it. "Ummm... I think this one might be... well, it kinda feels like... No, wait, it's diapers!"

When I went to put all the packs of diapers away on the top shelf of Tot's closet I had a minor diaper-lanche. Thankfully it wasn't the wipes.

Meanwhile, we've decided that she doesn't like the cold weather. Even the Braxton-Hicks contractions have stopped. I think she's decided to hibernate until Spring. I don't blame her.

Patience

Seems I have a very patient child. That or she's convinced the way out is by climbing my rib cage. I keep telling her that's not an exit, but she doesn't listen.

But she's growing. Which I already knew. She's getting heavy.

And that sums up the results of my visit to the Tot Doc today.

Oh, and I would just like to confirm that after watching that show about the family with 19 kids last night, I have no intention of deciding at the last minute to have a home birth. No way, no how. I want my kid surrounded my doctors and nurses and very expensive medical equipment when she arrives. I am in no way qualified to determine if she's perfectly healthy aside from counting fingers and toes. I'll gladly pay somebody with more education than I every wanted to give me that report.

Party Time

Dr. T. told us that Tot would be considered full term at 37 weeks. That's today. She's starting to make an impact:

We celebrated the beginning of the end of this stage yesterday at our 3rd Tot Wash at my parents' house. I had a great time, and was so very glad to spend some time with my cousins who came from out of town to host the event:

Lynn and Bonnie are awesome, and I was so thankful for all the work they did! I always wish we all had more time to hang out when they're in town, but they have so much family to see and things to do that it's usually hard to pin down more than a couple of hours. This time I monopolized them for an entire day!

I can't describe all the great gifts we got yesterday, but I thought I'd share two. Greg's convinced that Tot will arrive on Halloween and thought she needed to be a little pumpkin. Now she can!

t

The award for "Most Popular Gift," as voted on by 4-8 year old boys in attendance after the shower, was by far the jungle play mat:

I'll probably post more pics on my Flickr, but since I have 212 so far (I haven't gotten the ones off Mom's camera yet) I'm being a little selective here. But I'll share one more. My dear sweet brother is a little scared of pregnant women. If he makes one more comment about me being fat he will have good reason, but as it is he's afraid I'm either contagious or that I'll go into labor in his presence. That'd be a little too much for him. This was the only time he let me get this close the entire weekend.

I'm totally determined to have this baby November 7 just to hijack his birthday. I'd have the upper hand the rest of my life...

Things I Never Thought I'd Blog About

I don't think I ever mentioned that we bought a new vacuum last week. Our old one wasn't really dead, it did a decent job, but it didn't have attachments. At all. And I really wanted some attachments. I did my research and then almost talked myself out of buying one. That's when Greg stepped in and informed me that I was going to buy one.

In truth, I think Greg understands this nesting thing better than I do. He gets many bonus points for that. Or else he was tired of listening to me whine about it. Either way, we went and bought a new vac.

No, I didn't buy a Dyson. I couldn't do it. I spent less than half the price of the Dyson I wanted and can sleep at night knowing I didn't deprive my child of her college education. I'm not that hard to please. Most importantly, it has attachments. I knew I wanted them, I just didn't realize how much I wanted them!

There are parts of my house that are cleaner right now than they have been since the day I moved in. I vacuumed baseboards and corners and crevices and vent covers of every imaginable variety. I broke out the motorized pet hair tool and went to town on the pup couch. And it works on bare floors, too. I've never had one that I could use in the kitchen/dining room. Best of all...

I have this serious phobia about mice in my house. I never had a mouse in the house until they started construction on the new library in my back yard. We've had several mouse issues since then. I hate cleaning up mouse poop more than just about anything in the world. I would rather just not use certain drawers in the kitchen than face it. But guess what vacuum attachments will do? Suck up the mouse poop without me having to get anywhere near it. Maybe I can use two of my kitchen drawers again! (After using copious amounts of bleach to finish the job...)

Over all, I probably vacuumed up three or four dogs worth of hair today. And I'm not done. I just wore myself out and started getting overheated. Every time I ran the vac and the AC cut on it blew the breaker. After the second time in different rooms I just turned off the AC. At least it's not the middle of summer!

I've worn myself out every day this week. Tomorrow I have to take it easy, it's a travel day. And I need to be rested for Saturday's Tot Wash and much quality time with the extended family!

Apples

I have never before in my life had a doctor roll her eyes and tell me to quit snacking on apples. Apparently they have, "practically no calories at all..." Sigh. Tot likes apples. And pineapple. And I thought fruit was healthy? And what about that apple a day thing. Guess that's not really working, as I'm seeing her once a week now!

I don't know what she was complaining about. I gained two pounds this week. And when they pricked my finger my sugar was 113, well below the 140 limit. Not dilated any, but Dr. T thinks her head has moved down. In other words, right on schedule for 36 weeks.

This weekend is Tot Wash #3 at my mom's house. I'm looking forward to it, I get to see some family (including BFF Lynn) who I haven't seen in well over a year. And my brother's girlfriend is coming, which should take some of the attention off of me, thank goodness. This should be our last trip out of town until post-Tot. Since our next (and last) shower is a diaper shower, I should have an idea of what we have and what we need to get after this weekend. Maybe.

I Dunno...

The #1 most frequently asked question I'm getting these days is, "So, what do you still need..."

In all honesty, I dunno. I've never actually done this before. Other than the basics, which we have, I don't have a clue what we'll need!

I've made a list of things I think we need to have before Tot arrives, but it's mostly things other people aren't going to buy for us. Like an extra car seat base. Or a garbage can. And I'm absolutely NOT requesting people buy me breastfeeding supplies! I'll take care of that myself, thanks!

We've gotten so much stuff already, and there really isn't that much that we need in the first place. There are some things we haven't gotten at either of the two showers so far that I've found strange. Like no diapers. At all. This doesn't concern me, as Greg's office is having a diaper shower for us on the 16th. We'll be set. Just weird that nobody's given us any after two showers. And only one set of bottles. Which also doesn't concern me, as I have no clue what type of bottles Tot will be willing to take or how long it will be before I actually need them if I'm able to breastfeed. But between the stuff Lauren gave me, the "extra" stuff Jen gave me, and the first two showers, I can bring a baby home right now and be fine for a while!

On a slightly different note, I realized that while we've taken a lot of pictures of me since I got pregnant, we hadn't really taken any of me and Greg. So I had my MIL take this one at the Tot Wash this past Saturday:

Looks like I need to lay off the beer.

Perspective

I bought a half gallon of milk this week.

While making my bowl of cereal this morning I noticed that my milk expires on 11/15.

Tot will be here before my milk expires.

Oh my.