30 Days To Go!

I have 30 days to go!

So I thought I would share some of the crazy theories I have heard on whether I am having a boy or a girl, because, just in case you didn't know this, it is still a secret-even to us.

• Heart beat: Fast heart beat means its a girl; slow heart beat means its a boy. I find this interesting because at one doctor's appointment early on, the heart beat was 136 beats per minute. Then for the next, say 6 appointments, the heart beat ranged between 145 and 152. During the last doctor's appointment, the heart beat was 135. So does that mean I had a boy in the beginning, a girl in the middle, and a boy at the end? Or am I pregnant with the highly rare hermaphrodite baby?
• If I carry high, its a girl; if I carry low its a boy. Interesting, yet again, but I happen to have carried the baby directly in the middle right across the belly button like a football. The kid likes to hang out sideways like my uterus is a relaxing summer hammock. 

Here come the fun, yet more bizarre ones.

• If I'm beautiful during the pregnancy it means its a boy. If I'm ugly, then it means I'm carrying a girl. The theory behind this one is that little girl babies suck, drain, and destroy the mom's beauty and take it for themselves. In essence they are beauty vampires. Little boy babies couldn't care less. Alex has been asked this question many times by my in-laws. I think he's smart enough to give the right answer each and every time (of course, I look beautiful! Duh). It's hard to believe this is a serious question but it makes me laugh anyway. On a side note, I have a family member who says that while his wife was pregnant he found her to be extremely unattractive (even though he says he would never have told her that) and they ended up having a boy.
• If my lips are full then I'm having a girl. If my lips are thin and dry then I'm having a boy. So how does that work out with Beautiful Theory above. Can someone be beautiful and yet have dry, cracked, genetically weak lips? How can you be ugly but have a supple and moist kisser? By the way, I've always had small thin lips. That hasn't changed. Even with lipstick and lipliner.
• Alex was instructed to do the following to find out if it is a boy or a girl. Wait until I fall asleep and then pour a pinch of salt on my head and then watch me. If I touch my hand to my nose, it will be a boy. If I touch my hand to my lips then it will be a girl. My response to this was: if you pour salt on my head while I'm sleeping, I'm going to punch you in the lips.
• Another crazy one. Alex is to thread a needle and then stick it in one of my veins. (WTH?) If the thread moves in a circle its a boy. If it vibrates back and forth its a girl. (Oh, the thread will move all right!) There is an American version of this where you just dangle to needle over a vein to see what it does. Something about the iron content in mum's blood. But I take prescription prenatal vitamins so this test would be null and void right off the bat. Plus, with my on-going fear and revulsion of needles, Alex knows better to ever attempt this. 

Fun times! Honestly, there is no way of knowing if its a boy or a girl until its born. Even sonograms get is wrong every once in a while. We'll all just have to wait a little longer.

I did go to the doctor today for my twice monthly appointment. It turns out that I have already dilated to 3 cm and I'm 75% effaced. Sweet! That means I only have 7 cm to go! It also means that the baby could be here before May 5th. Any takers on when the real due date might be?

Rotisserie Chicken

This looks delicious. Probably because I didn't have to cook it nor do I have to clean up the mess afterwards. Unfortunately, this story isn't actually about this fine specimen of roasted hen. It's about me.

Like most third trimester pregnant women, I don't sleep all that well at night. I gave up blankets and sheets about 2 months ago. Poor Alex has had the distinct pleasure of sleeping through the tail end of winter and early spring in a house that is a cool 69-70˚F. In my defense, if there is any, I am not only sharing my internal space with another creature, but the bed with my 220 pound husband and a 6.5 foot long, 140 pound Great Dane. Imagine lying on your side of the bed. Now curl up your legs into a sitting position. Place a stretched out dog under your bottom like he's the chair. Now add said husband to the other side of the bed. Make sure that he's clearly on his side of the bed. Please, no touching. You're far to irritated for that. Need to stretch out? The husband has unquestionably boxed you out so you're forced to drape your top leg over the backside of a massive and now snoring dog. Between your natural internal core temperature that rivals molten lava and the heat given off by the two Coppertop batteries lying next to you, the room is now a toasty 75˚F. After about an hour, I give up and kick the dog off the bed. He has his own bed after all. Complete with clean sheets and matching curtains.

But this is only half of it. Here is how the rest of the night goes. I fall asleep on my left hand side. My left arm is under my pillow stretched up toward the headboard. The other arm is wrapped around a pillow that helps to prop me up. I fall asleep. An hour and a half later, I wake up to find that my left arm and hand are painfully asleep. So I flip onto my back. That works for about 10 minutes until my kidneys feel like they've been squished paper thin. I then roll to my right side and assume the same beginning position (arm up, pillow propped) for another hour and a half. I wake up to painful zombie arm, flip to kidney squish, and rotate back to starting position. Repeat this action ALL NIGHT LONG. Don't forget to add in bathroom checks every 3 to 4 hours.

It's also worth mentioning that it's very difficult to climb over ones self. I'm not huge, mind you. I can still tie my shoes (with 36 days to go) and bend over without tipping over. But shifting a sleeping being encased in its own watery habitat isn't easy. Try sleeping with a 10 pound aquarium strapped to your stomach one night and we might be on the same page.

So now that you have all the background needed, I will proceed with my tale. On one particularly molten hot lava night, I felt like I was flipping every 30 minutes. It dawned on me this must be what a Rotisserie chicken must feel like.

So I say this out loud, "I'm tired of feeling like a Rotisserie chicken!" It's probably 4 am.

"Who's eating chicken?," peacefully sleeping husband inquires.

"NO! I'm the chicken!" I exclaim in desperation, followed by a helpless sigh.

"Please go back to sleep." As if this is a simple command that can be simply executed.

I will. Soon. Don't worry. I'm hoping for a full night sleep in about 20 years.

Baby Brain

We've been experiencing a really strange phenomenon around here lately. It's something that I've only read about but I've never seen in person. Kind of like angel sightings and UFO's. This one seems only to strike households that are expecting a baby. It's called "Baby brain". If I understand the concept correctly, the baby has some magical, mystical power that sucks away average, everyday brain power that keeps one organized and on track. It's a fascinating concept, especially since I'm not the one suffering from it- Alex is.  I've been trying to capture as much of it as possible on film. I need the physical proof because I know its only a matter of time before the denial stage of this phenomenon sets in. Here is my list of proof so far:

• Weight gain. Today, I have about 38 days left before Baby P is due. I've gained 14 pounds. Alex has gained 25. 

• Ice cream in the refrigerator. I haven't had one constant "craving" throughout this pregnancy yet. One week I'll eat a grilled cheese sandwich every day then the next week peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Last week I only wanted to eat Taquitos covered in cheddar cheese and sour cream. A couple of weeks ago, I had chocolate ice cream once a day. I think the only thing I have consistently gone through has been bags upon bags of Cutie Mandarin oranges. I demolish a bag every 3 or 4 days. Anyway, one night Alex fixed up some bowls of ice cream. It was tasty and delicious. He even cleaned up afterwards. Come the next day, as I opened the refrigerator to make some breakfast this is what I found:

          Half a container of completely melted chocolate ice cream. Make that foamy chocolate milk product. 

• Dryer sheets. That's the box of Bounce dryer sheets in with the laundry. The intended-to-be-used single sheet was sitting on the shelf.

• Forgotten keys. Alex has now forgotten his work keys at home on average of 3 times a week. Today included. They haven't moved. They're right where he always leaves them. On the hook, by the front door. 

• Razor blades. Several times now, he's reached in the drawer for a new disposable razor, removed the blade cover and tossed the razor in the garbage.

• The sliding glass door. Just about every day, Alex will open the back sliding glass door, stick his head out, and evaluate what the weather is like outside. It doesn't matter if its raining, snowing, sunny, or a tornado is headed directly for the house. He doesn't open it just a little. He opens it wide enough to hang his manly frame out the opening at the most unnatural angle. I would not be surprised if one day his hand slips and he falls down the stairs. Well, today, he forgot to shut the door behind him. I watched him turn right around, walk toward me, kiss me goodbye and walk out the garage door to go to work. Door wide open. Thank goodness the dog was sleeping in the other room. Our backyard is not fenced in and Davey is not trained to stay put. 

• Mood swings. This just might be my favorite. My mom asked me the other day if I'm starting to get cranky. The answer: not that I can tell so far. Well, at least not me. Alex has been very cranky. Some days he wakes up cranky and won't be himself again until after he eats lunch. The other night he came home from work early and lied on the couch while I was finishing up a letter. Thinking that he wanted to take a nap I quietly kept myself busy. Nope. He wasn't napping. He was pouting. Turns out he wanted to go see a movie and my thank you card writing took to long. (Seriously, it was one card. That takes, what 7 minutes if one writes slowly.) So he put himself to bed at 7:30 pm. With no dinner. On another occasion, I asked if I could have a bit of his hazelnut chocolate cake roll. A tantrum followed. The other day, I wanted to sleep on his side of the bed (he sleeps on the left side, I'm supposed to sleep on my left side, it's easy to sit up when you don't have to crawl over yourself just to go to the bathroom). Another tantrum. And I thought I was the one who was pregnant. Yikes.

I bring up all these points not to husband-bash, of course. It's just that none of this has ever really been normal behavior. At least not in the past 13 years. Alex has always been a very routine-like kind of guy and likes his stuff to be in the same place.

What can I say? I kind of like this version of baby brain.

Happy Anniversary Little Home!

5 years ago today, we moved into our first home. Our decision to purchase a home instead of continuing to rent or live in an apartment has been one of the best decisions we have ever made. Almost every night I thank God for the walls that protect us from the wind, rain, snow, and heat; the windows that let light in; the roof that gives us constant shelter; and the carpet that cushions our toes.

It has seen sadness (the death of my father) and joy (the home-coming of a new puppy, the announcement of expecting a baby). It has received friends and family, a mouse, and too many spiders to count. It has concealed arguments that are long forgotten, tender days of forgiveness, and late nights of study. I'm not sure how long God has planned for us to live in this house but given the journey that we have enjoyed thus far, I know that we're in the right hands.

Happy Anniversary little home!

Davey's 4th Birthday

My puppy isn't much of a puppy anymore. I still call him Puppy. He naps a lot now a days. His current activity of choice seems to be sun-bathing.

He still enjoys playing tug-of-war and will demolish a 5 knotted tied rope in about a week. For his birthday he got a new toy, a granola treat, and dinner complete with a can of tasty, yet expensive, dog food.

He's getting a little more white in the face as the years go by but he'll always be my my Velcro Pup,  Monster Monster, Black Dragon, Mush-mouth, Sweet Prince, and Baby.

Happy Birthday David! Pappa Puppy and I love you!