All Our Ducks in a Row

Yesterday we had our OB appointment and from now on we'll be going every week. Our little boy is head down just as I suspected and while I'm not dilated yet, I'm 50% effaced. This made me happy! It's good to know that something is happening in the way of getting ready for labor and DELIVERY!!! I'm so excited to hold our little "George" in my arms! And I'm looking forward to the ease of movement I totally took for granted before becoming pregnant! Smile.

Yesterday we also met with our family doctor to talk to him about being our baby's doctor as well. He's such a great doctor and we're super excited that he will be our baby's doc as well. I've never had such a great doctor experience as I have with this doctor! He's so great about explaining everything and answering questions and I never feel intimidated or condemned by him. And he had really good things to say about our OB doctor as well! That was cool! So now we have all our ducks in a row!

R and I finished setting up the Pack N' Play and put it in the living room. I almost cried just thinking about the fact that soon we'll be placing our sweet baby boy in it! I really can't think about anything else these days except his coming! I guess that's the way it's supposed to be!! Tomorrow I reach 35 weeks!! Not too much longer now!!!!

My Champion!

Yesterday I went shopping to get the last few things I needed for my overnight bag for the hospital. I picked up a couple things from different parts of the store and then headed to the changing rooms. The woman at the dressing rrom desk asked me to move my cart out of the way...no problem. I moved it off to the side where she could still see it, thinking she would make sure no one ran off with it. I tried on my items and came out only to discover that my cart was missing. I almost burst into tears right at that moment. Here I am with a handful of clothes that I'm buying and the thought of limping back around the store to find the items that were in my cart is enough to make me want to just sit down and weep! The woman apologized, but there was no offer or attempt to find me an empty cart or assist me in finding my items again. I'm thinking "Hello!!! I'm 8 and 1/2 months pregnant with a foot I can't actually walk on and I could use some help!!!" Thankfully I did find my cart as I was on my way across the store trying not to cry, but I certainly realized how vulnerable I am right now.

I told R about this incident while we were discussing our days over dinner. He immediately got on the phone to speak to the manager at the store. He was really nice about it and simply expressed to the guy that we shop there a lot and that we usually have a positive experience and just think they could have done better. The manager agreed and apologized and said he would address the situation.

I felt so protected and taken care of. When I thanked R for calling them he responded by saying "Nobody messes with my Baby!" Sniff, sniff. That's me! I feel super blessed to have a husband who stands up for me and takes such great care of me! I love you, sweetheart!!!

A Little of This and That

I don't have anything in particular to post, but I feel like posting so I'm just gonna share what comes to mind. At the moment I'm sitting on the couch with the doggies hoping to get sleepy enough to actually go back to sleep after waking up far too early with R. He had to go in to work early this morning.

Little Man is entertaining me with hip-hop belly dancing...he's hip-hopping and my belly's dancing!!! His movements are getting so big now that we can watch his body parts moving across my belly. R thinks it's a little creepy! I have to say it is rather alien-like! Watching him move inside of me is the only thing I think I'll miss about being pregnant!! But then once I'm not pregnant anymore I'll get to watch him move OUT side of me! Looking forward to that!!!!

R's family came over to visit on Saturday to see us and the nursery. We had a great time! Mom made gumbo and my favorite cake with cream frosting and roasted pecans! Yum, yum! We played the LONGEST game of Uno in history, I think. It just goes to show that you shouldn't worry about who will come in second. When someone wins, just call it good and move on to the next game!! It was crazy and lots of fun!

I'm walking gimpy these days. Last week my foot started bothering me...probably from wearing flip-flops in my heavy pregnant state. It's getting better but I still can't walk normally. It's quite frustrating and is making it hard for me to get some things done that require walking. Grrrr....I hope it's soon on the mend!! Makes me so thankful that this is not my normal condition. It would be really difficult to be handicapped and live with pain all the time! Sometimes I'm sure I don't know how good I've got it!

Well...I think that's enough of random thinking. Time to head back to bed and finish sleeping!

Shopping Spree

Last night R. and I went on a little shopping spree and got the remainder of the items we needed...or at least think we needed to be all set for our little man! Now I just have to set them up and go battery shopping! It's crazy how many different baby things are run by battery power!!! We could almost buy stock in Duracell, I'm thinking!!!

Tomorrow I'll be 34 weeks pregnant! Unbelievable! I'm ready, though, and have to keep reminding myself that our sweet boy might be late and not to get too set on when he'll arrive. I have certainly hit the exhausted, hard to get comfortable, numerous aches and pains stage of pregnancy! And heart-burn!! Good grief! It used to just happen at night, but now it can hit anytime and come back again to visit throughout the day!! I can't complain too much, however. Overall this has been a really good pregnancy and R. has been so supportive of me all along!

Speaking of R., I just have to say that I think I'm the most blessed woman in all the world! When God puts two people together...He does a wonderful job!!! I'm so very thankful for my sweet husband!!!

Unveiling the Master Bedroom

When we bought our house we decided we wouldn't worry about painting anything except the Master Bedroom. R. put in a lot of work on it and it's finally all decorated so I have to show it off!! R. did a fabulous job and I absolutely LOVE IT!!!



This is what the room looked like before.....

And now here are the after pics!

To All You Gmail Users

Okay, my friend Hannah shared this little tidbit with me and it makes blog reading SO much easier to keep up with!!! For those of you who have gmail accounts, you can click on the feature at the top left of your email account titled 'reader'. There you can add blog addresses as subscriptions and this feature checks for updates so you don't have to!!! That way you never miss a new post and you don't have to keep checking when there isn't one!!! Thanks Hannah!!!

Showered With Love

Our friends blessed us with a sweet baby shower yesterday! We had it at our house so everyone could see the nursery and our new house. We had so much fun and felt so loved! It was awesome to have all our friends together and to see some friends we hadn't seen in awhile. And "George" made out great with the goods!! And he'll be stylin' in his new clothes and cute shoes (I'm a sucker for baby shoes and socks!!!)!

We played a relay game that brought lots of laughs! I had to drink apple juice from a bottle...not an easy task!!! And R. got to eat mystery baby food. You can see by his face that it wasn't that great!!! We think it was sweet potatoes but no one could say for sure!!!

Thank you, dear friends, for blessing us so much!!!! We love and appreciate you!

Gonna Miss You, Girl!

This weekend my good friend, Hannah, moved away to start a new adventure. While we knew from the first time we met that this event was inevitable, it doesn't make it any easier to say goodbye. I have to share how we met 'cause it's too cute! A mutual friend of ours that I knew in WA and Hannah knew in CA introduced us by email when she learned Hannah and her husband were moving here for school. Hannah and I met up for coffee one night, discovered neither of us had eaten dinner but only a banana, and ended up chatting over Chilis. We totally hit it off and I have been so blessed by her friendship the last year and a half. True friends you can share anything and everything with are hard to come by and so I'm so glad to know Hannah. You rock, girl, and I'm gonna miss you terribly, but I pray many blessings in the new chapter of your life! Now we'll just have to plan a little visit!!! I love you, friend!

A Much More Manageable Speed

I feel so much better this week after finalizing everything with my job and knowing that none of my co-workers hate me for leaving! And I'm stress free again! Praise the Lord! Stress is such a horrible, debiliating infirmity!

This week has been all about taking it easy and slowing down the pace. I've had to realize that I just can't keep up my usual speed while this much pregnant! So, I've been working on my quilt while watching movies and doing little things around the house with frequent breaks.

Tuesday night we went to a friend's birthday party that was all about relaxing and star-gazing! I don't know if I've ever really taken the time to just watch the stars! It was beautiful! And it felt so great to just sit there and enjoy the beauty of God's design!

Little man is growing stronger all the time. He's still dancing in there! Smile. I'm almost certain that he has shifted and is now completely head down with his feet up! His kicks feel different and he's kicking higher than ever before. The other night I'm pretty sure I felt the outline of his foot! It's so cool and surreal. I still find myself awed that there's really a BABY in there! It's so amazing!!

8 months pregnant!

Once again I'm amazed at how quickly time flies! 8 months pregnant! The fact that we will soon have a little boy in our house is starting to sink in. I'm so excited to meet him!! When R and I are out about town, we keep commenting on how it won't be much longer before we have our little man with us...at church, at the coffee shop, in the car, at our new home.

This morning the worship leader at church was talking about one of the other worship team members who has a new little one and he referred to the baby as a "human pet". That made me laugh! Well, our little human pet is getting strong and more and more squirmy! A few times today he's surprised me with the strength of his movements. I would say kicks, but I totally can't figure out what body part I'm feeling! Maybe I'll be able to figure that out soon!

One of the hardest decisions ever......

Yesterday I quit my job. No two weeks notice, just, I'm not coming back. That was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, but in just a few days the stress was making it so I couldn't sleep and I started experiencing strange pains and discomforts. It didn't look like the stress was going to lessen for quite awhile and I had already reached the breaking point, so R and I decided I couldn't keep going and risk complications with my pregnancy. Thankfully my boss was totally understanding! I don't think I could have handled it if he had gotten angry with me about quitting 'cause I already felt so guilty about leaving them in the lurch. I think it will take a few days to feel like myself again. I'm super tired and just have no energy. But hopefully this will give me the opportunity to finish the quilt I've been quilting for like a year! I would love to finish it before "George" comes along and it gets shelved for longer! Needless to say, it's been quite the week and I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend and sleep, sleep, sleep!

Carseat Safety 101

R and I went to the carseat safety class tonight that's offered at the hospital. We went in wondering what on earth they could possibly talk about for a whole two hours and left feeling like we need to tell the world about all the things we learned that we had no idea about before the class. There's so much more to it than just putting the carseat in correctly!!

One of the biggest surprises was the after-market products that simply aren't safe for our babies! I decided I had to share some of what we learned on here in case someone reading this didn't get to go to a carseat safety class.

So, those mirrors that you can get to put on the back window or attach to the headrest so that you can look in your rearview mirror and see your baby? Yeah. Those aren't safe apparently. The ones that attach by suction to the back window are known to come off or even break during a crash and they end up hitting the baby in the face at the speed the car is traveling at the time. The kind that attach to the headrest are dangerous during a crash because when the carseat raises up the baby's head strikes the mirror rather than the soft seat. Our instructor told us about a baby in the Dallas area who now has brain damage after the corner of a kleenex box that was in the back window struck the baby between the eyes. In other words, don't have loose items in the car that could fly around.

By the way, the back of the rear-facing car seat (the part closest to the front of the car) is actually supposed to be able to raise up and move in the event of a crash. This is to keep the baby from absorbing the impact the way that someone does when they tense up in anticipation of a crash. Car bumpers are now designed to cave in during a crash for the same reason 'cause stationary objects are what absorb the crash impact and the movement helps to alleviate some of this. For the same reason, it's important that the carseat is not wedged against the back of the front seat. Also, if your car has a latch system you should use either the latch system or the seatbelt pass-through, but not both because use of both has not been crash tested

Those cute little things that wrap around the straps and look like they'd make the baby more comfortable? Well, they're not considered safe because they come down too far and make it so that the strap that connects the two side straps can't come up far enough and so there's too much room around the baby's head and the baby could fly out of the seat during a crash.

The comfort pillows that keep the baby's head from moving from side to side are dangerous if they're too long and come down under the baby's butt. The danger is that the pillows can work down too far as the baby wiggles around, or just over time, pushing the baby's head forward which can cause the baby not to be able to breathe. A good rule of thumb is that if it came with the carseat it has been safety tested for use with the carseat.

The window screens that attach by suction are dangerous because, as with the mirrors, these can come off during a crash and strike the baby. Our instructor said that the force of an object is the weight of that object multiplied by how fast the car is traveling. So, if an item is 10 pounds and the car is traveling at 50mph, the impact of that object would be as if it were 500 pounds. Thus, even if the item doesn't weigh much all by itself, when combined with speed it can be really deadly.

For older children using booster seats that don't have a back, they could be killed by the shoulder strap of the seatbelt, or seriously injured by the lap belt because the shoulder strap is not in use. Our instructor recommended the booster seats that have a back on them that keep the shoulder strap at the right level so that it goes across the shoulder like it's supposed to rather than going along the side of the neck. When the shoulder strap goes along the neck, a child could actually be decapitated in a crash because the seatbelt is designed to lock, but the force of the impact and speed of the car still throws the child forward into the seatbelt. If the seatbelt is at the shoulder where it's supposed to be, then it's not a problem, but when it's against the neck, or soft tissue, it can be dangerous. The same thing with the lap belt. It's meant to go around the hips, but when worn up too high where the soft tissue is, injury can occur to the vital organs. This can happen in a backless booster seat because the child can scooch down causing the belt to hit at the wrong spot.

I'm sure there's more I'm probably forgetting, but I had to pass along what we learned. I'm certainly not intending to put fear into anyone, but I know I'm really glad to have learned about this stuff now so that these preventable injuries can be avoided. Who knew carseat safety could be so involved!!! We now have our carseat properly installed and ready for the little man! Yay!!!!

It's a Jungle Out There!!!!!

Finally! I'm posting house pictures!!! Here's the mostly finished nursery!! We went with a jungle theme as you can tell! R. made the tree in the corner and I made the curtains and quilt...I'll have to post a more detailed picture of the quilt later. The room was already that color when we moved in so it was ready for us! Now I can't wait for the sweet baby boy who gets to live there!!!!!!