Phone Calls

• Today I got my reminder phone call for my 40 week appointment on Monday. :( I told the gal that I really hoped I wouldn't still be pregnant, but if I was, I'd be there! Sometimes they don't have a sense of humor, but she chuckled. :)
• Then I got a phone call from a lady in the insurance dept at the hospital we're delivering at. Anybody else get one of these calls? She confirmed a bunch of information, then told me how much I could expect to pay for my "normal" delivery. Get this, then she wants to collect the payment! What?! I told her, "Um, no. I think I'll wait 'till I deliver." Paying for a hospital stay before I stay? I think not.

Not a moving vehicle

Natalie is checking out Gran’s new car:

She was pretty excited to be strapped in the front seat!

She was not excited when it was time to get out.

Today is Friday, October 15th.  Three days before my due date.  I’m all finished with work for the week.  The house is reasonably clean.  We don’t have any plans for the next couple of days.  This is a good feeling.  I’m trying very hard to be patient for my little man.  I really am happy to wait for as long as he needs to gestate.  I have felt a little “off” today though.  It’s probably just wishful thinking.  :)

Joanna mentioned last night that Mamma and Pop would be coming over today.  Maybe she knows something I don’t?  Also, Matt called a little while ago just to check on me.  It was tempting to tell him to come home, but feeling “off” doesn’t really justify that.  He should save his vacation for when he’s got a son to tend to!

Definitely looking forward to the weekend with my family and fun at church on Sunday!

Palindromes and other things

So I'm pretty sure other people have realized this first, but I am a little slow. I've decided the next cool birthdate for Little Man has to be 10-20-10. Like all the dates in October, it's a palindrome of sorts (same forward as backward), but I just looked at it this way too: 10-20-2010. It's the only date in October that's still the same forward and backward. (Now obviously it's not the same actually backward -- 01-02-0201, but if you look at the "tens" it is.) I think it also sort of works with the pattern our girls' birthdays have created: 1-11 and 2-22, if you think of the first number "doubling" to the second.

Not that I want to wait that long, but I've also sort of had a feeling he might come on a Wednesday. Mostly because I don't want him to. :) Really just for work purposes, that puts it right in the middle of the bulletin process, instead of in-between them. Oh well -- what a tragedy, huh!

I've been feeling really not at all like cooking lately and it's getting worse. I picked up several "convenience" foods at the store today because warming up is just about all the cooking I can stand. Sadly our oven doesn't work either, so I couldn't grab any frozen pizzas. Chicken nuggets work in the toaster oven though! I also actually bought a loaf of bread. I cannot tell you how long it's been since I've done that! I just wanted one to stick in the freezer as backup. Even without our oven, we've (and by we I mean Matt) been keeping up with the bread baking by using our families' ovens. When the baby comes, that might not be top on our list of priorities though! We really do need to get the oven fixed. I guess we just need to figure out how.

Back to work now -- trying to get everything done early this week.

39 Weeks

38 weeks  6 days

How Your Baby’s Growing (from Babycenter.com):

Your baby's waiting to greet the world! He continues to build a layer of fat to help control his body temperature after birth, but it's likely he already measures about 20 inches and weighs a bit over 7 pounds, a mini watermelon. (Boys tend to be slightly heavier than girls.) The outer layers of his skin are sloughing off as new skin forms underneath.

How far along: 39 weeks

Pregnancy symptoms: Braxton Hicks, lower back pain, constant need to pee, heartburn, itchiness

Food Cravings: brownies, chewing ice, apples

Sleep: Mostly good, but a couple nights recently I was up for a while in the middle of the night.  That’s the worst!

Measurement: ?? inches around the belly, 197.5lbs

Movement: He hasn’t been super active the past couple of days – I think it’s getting tight in there.  The other night I was holding a sleeping Natalie on top of the belly, and Little Man was really kicking her – you could see her thigh move!

Labor signs: Well, my cervix is dilating and the head is down – that’s moving toward labor.  I also feel pressure just because he is head-down, and my lower back is constantly aching.

What I miss: snuggling my girls close to me

What I’m looking forward to: meeting my son!!

Milestone: Well, I passed up 10-10-10 as a birthday.  :)  Also, I’m 4cm dilated, which is what I was the last appointment before Joanna was born.  Here’s hoping it’s soon!

Thoughts from the Girls: They are excited!  Joanna knows the due date.  If you ask her when the baby will come, she says “October 18th.”  I asked her if he could come before then, but she’s pretty set on the 18th.  :)

Doctor’s visit: Matt and the girls and I went in for the 39 week visit this morning.  Baby’s HR was 145; my bp was good; my weight didn’t go up a ton.  I’m really hoping to deliver before I break 200lbs.  :)  I’m 4cm dilated, but for me that doesn’t really mean much!  My doc is on call on Friday and offered an induction, which of course I turned down.  I would really love for her to deliver him though!  Maybe he’ll be born on Friday naturally.  That would allow me to get through the work week, and 10-15-10 is a pretty cool date!  Everybody stayed in the room while Dr. Torres examined me.  Joanna asked a few questions but didn’t seem to weirded out by the situation. :)

Baby-related projects:

• Keep the house picked up, dishes done, laundry done, diapers washed, etc.  Get it clean today!!
• Pull the “newborn” gear from the attic: bathtub and bouncy seat.

10-10-10

So I have to be honest: I was really hoping to wake up in labor today.  But I didn’t.  It’s okay though; it was kind of fun to hope for it!  And we’ve had a lovely day.  But seriously – anytime now Little Man; we want to meet you!!

At church today Matt needed to call me for some reason – look what time it was!

After church we had lunch at a local favorite restaurant with our friends the Vandenberges, Eges, and Beasleys!  After eating the big kiddos played around a bit in a close-by booth.

Aren’t they just precious?  These are the “big kids” from each family: Joanna (little sister Natalie), Anna (little sister Emma), Caleb (little sister Callie), and Abby (little sister Josie).  Man, that’s a lot of girls!

If I’m doing my math correctly, there were eight kiddos there from 6ish weeks old to 4 years.  Are we brave…. or crazy?  It actually was a very fun time to visit.  I think the only catastrophe was Joanna spilling a large cup of ice water on herself and me.  I was really hot at the time, so it was nice.  :)  We miss you Eges – thanks for inviting us to lunch!

Also today I said goodbye to my very first car, “Little Green.”  :)  It’s been in the family for 10 years.  (sniffle, sniffle)  It was still kicking, but my mom traded it in on a voucher for a “new” car for her!  She and I were technically co-owners since we bought it when I was not quite 18 years old.  I never got around to taking her name off the title, and it worked out for her!  She’s been driving it and paying insurance on it for a while now.  My mom needed a reliable car.  I’ll have a whole other post dedicated to the memory of Little Green.  I made my mom take pictures before she traded it in.  :)  And I’ll take some pics of her new ride as well – it’s very pretty!

Totally unrelated… I bought this foldy-up laundry rack last weekend.  I love it!  I’d been thinking about what to do in my laundry room for this winter and rainy days for the diapers.  I’m still thinking I may hang a couple of retractable clotheslines across the room as well, but this is working for now.  I can pop it up, fill it full of diapers right out of the washer and put it wherever I want to dry them.  Today there was still some good afternoon sun out, so I put it in the backyard.  I often find myself washing diapers in the evenings though, with how busy our days often are, so this is handy for leaving it inside, as well.  I’ve also thought I could put it out in the garage, but I don’t know if that would help dry things faster or not.

On the same trip to Target, we picked up some little hooks for the kids bath towels.  I wanted them to be able to put their towels away themselves (which is why it’s so low on the wall!).

We’ve been hanging them on the back of the door, but that means Matt or I have to do it – no way!  Matt installed it and took these pictures of the inaugural hanging since I was in the kitchen.  :)

We (and by we I mean me under the supervision of Joanna) finally cleaned up the playroom today.  It’s been so disastrous for so many days, and it just makes me crazy every time I think about it!  Even when it’s awful, it really only takes me (even as preggo as I am) a little while to do it, and I feel so much better afterward.  The girls play in there better too.  With some help and encouragement, they do a pretty good job helping clean up in there, but I find I’m just so tired at that time of day (after Joanna’s “rest”) that I just put it off and put it off!

Wow, I ramble.  Anyway, I passed by the room after fixing dinner and found this:

I had tossed the egg carton on the floor of the kitchen, intending to put it in the recycle bin later.  Somebody found it first.  :)

And I’ll share my latest piece of weird mail.  So today this giant, padded envelope comes in the mail.

I open it up and find this teeny tiny letter.

 

Regarding the Similac recall from last month.  Seriously?  How did I get on that list?  First of all, my children are old.  And second of all?  Um yeah, THEY DON’T DRINK FORMULA.  At all.  Ever.  Oh well, I’m glad they’re clearly covering their bases.  But that seems like an awful waste of postage and plastic for a teeny tiny letter.

Earlier this week I picked up some brownie mix at Kroger because it sounded so good!  Then I got home and remembered my oven was broken.  SNIFFLE SNIFFLE.  But today Matt was headed to his mom’s to bake a loaf of bread in her oven (and I checked and brownies bake for the same time at the same temp) so I sent a pan of brownie batter along too!  And Mom and Dad: I’m really sorry for making your house smell SO GOOD right now.  You can have some brownies if you want.  :)  Even though I’ve made brownies from scratch before, I really love brownies from a mix.  A lot.  And when you’ve got a craving… it’s really just best to go with it.

More Musings

This afternoon Joanna's teacher called over to the office to tell me to come watch Joanna sing karoke. Isn't that wonderful?! I got to go peek in the window of her classroom and watch her belt out "Twinkle Twinkle" in the microphone -- love it!!

I'm just about finished with another week of work. Today was just one of those busy days where I couldn't quite get it all finished during MDO time. I just have a couple of loose ends to tie up, and I'll be up there later for Sola Gratia practice anyway. I need to load the Media Shouts onto the computers, organize my printed bulletins, and fold The Vine bulletins. Should just take me a few minutes, and the girls will be at home with Daddy!

At this point in my pregnancy I feel so relieved when I finish up a week of work. Each week I really do hope that the baby will come before I need to start another week of work. Not that I mind the work (I enjoy it!), but I hate to start and not be able to finish, you know? Right now though everything's in place for other people to take on my duties if need be! I'd also love to do all my work next week as well. Really. :) But maybe not the week after. I might need to be rolled around at that point.

I'm hoping I can do more than listen tonight at rehearsal. Last week really tired me out, and I did more breathing than singing on Sunday morning, I think! Sometimes I have to stand up just to get enough air to sing. Unfortunately I sit on the front row. And also I generally have to go to the bathroom every time I stand up. Not a super-productive rehearsal, eh?

The Women are singing at the Rotunda in Austin in December. I'm not sure it's realistic that I'll be able to go, but I want to learn as much of the music as I can in case it does work out. And I love Christmas music!

My mother has gotten Matt and me completely and totally, utterly hooked on this TV show called Fringe. I think most people haven't even heard of it, but it's WONDERFUL. It just started it's 3rd season, but I wouldn't recommend starting there. My mother totally enabled us by letting us use her Netflix subscription to watch seasons 1 and 2 over the last few weeks. And yes, that'd be about 45 episodes in really just a few weeks. (Yup, I checked; we got the first one around the 11th of August.) I did say we were addicted, right? There were three episodes to a disc in the first season, and four episodes to a disc in the second season. There were many evenings we watched three in one night. I so should not be choosing TV over sleep. :) Well, last week or the week before we upped the Netflix from one disc at a time to two so we could "catch up" to season three. It just started, and we were able to quickly watch through the end of season two on DVD and watch the first couple of episodes of season three on Hulu. All this rambling means that tonight is the first episode of Fringe that we could watch while it's actually on. That is if I was going to be home. So even though I won't choose sleep over Fringe, I will choose choir practice. If we had cable, I'd tape it, but the chances of the connection remaining good for the whole hour over the antenna aren't good. And it would be terrible for the tape to fuzz out in the middle! We're better off waiting until tomorrow and watching it on Hulu. But it will be a long day. :)

Due date milk

The whole milk I bought at Kroger today!

It’s possible (although not likely considering how we go through milk around here) that Baby Brother could come before we use all this milk!  Of course it’s also possible we’ll be three gallons down the road.  :)

I was reading through my blog of the last few weeks before Natalie was born and ran across this post about waiting on her.  I’m pretty much feeling the same way right now.  Although I think I have way less energy.  I cannot fathom a trip to the mall right now!  Yes, I’m a little tired of being pregnant, but I also know that soon enough I actually will miss it.  This may or may not be my last pregnancy (don’t know!), and I will probably get those baby crazy, wish I was pregnant feelings again, whether or not we have more children.  Might as well try to enjoy it now!  I really do love the feeling that he’s developed in there and I could go into labor any time.  Joanna came at 38 weeks + 2 days, but we all know Miss Natalie held on until 40 weeks + 3 days!  I firmly believe that’s exactly how long she needed to gestate, so I’m trying to be very patient while waiting on my son.  He’ll come when he’s ready!  It’s so cute, Joanna knows the due date.  It doesn’t mean much to her, but I love to hear her say “October 18th.”  Natalie goes over to the pack-n-play and says “baby, baby” every day.  She leaves little presents in there for him too.  :)

I’m hoping to spend Friday and Saturday (with enough energy!) cleaning and picking up the house.  I feel so much better when it’s basically picked up and clean.  It’s just so hard when I don’t have mornings at home.  I get so behind.  The mornings are when I feel fresh and have energy.  It all goes down hill from there!  I should have Friday and Saturday morning at home though.  Phew!

To do then:

• Clean kitchen
• Clean table and chairs and dining room floor
• vacuum carpets
• pick up playroom
• put away any lingering laundry and probably do some more
• clear off surfaces of paperwork and misc. junk
• clip and file coupons (maybe…)
• clean middle bathroom

I know I said I’m happy to wait (and I am!), but I really think Sunday would be a very cool birthday for Little Man.  The girls’ birthdays are 1-11 and 2-22.  Sunday will be 10-10-10.  That goes very well with our theme!  Of course, today’s date would be good, or tomorrow’s or some time next week…  :)  I’ve been feeling so happy the past few days.  I LOVE the weather; my girls have started sleeping until 7am (instead of 5:30 or 6:00).  Things are just so nice!  In fact, sometimes I wake up at night (on one of my 900 trips to the bathroom :) and I get a little scared about labor.  I think: “I’m not ready!”  But then the next day, I have trouble getting up and moving around and I hurt, and I look at his little clothes and his little bed and think about his name and how much I want to hold him… then I’m not so scared anymore.  :)

Good night and thanks for listening to me ramble.