Waiting for the World

Today was another baby-centric day as if we have many that aren't anymore. First was my work baby shower at Tommy's for lunch and cake, a purple and gold cake at that from my fellow Husky and boss-man Howard! It was a nice outing with the coworkers and John was able to come too. Good to see people out of the office for once and not talking work stuff, at least not much work talk. ;) We got some great presents and everyone had to write out some parenting advice for us, so we'll see how well that pans out.

This afternoon was our weekly checkup. Things are moving along but not much change since last week. I was at least hoping for a possible birth this week, but that looks unlikely unless things progress very rapidly. Baby wants to bake a little longer, we'll see where we are next week. Now that we are down to the end, it's just weird not knowing when the big day will be. Hurry up and wait...

Also, work started on the kitchen today. They got the new cabinet in above the range and took out all the old boxes that had to come out where the new oven and cabinets are going in. So maybe by the weekend we'll have an oven and John might finally get some apple crisp with the fresh fall apples.

Baby-zillion Decal

This last week (and weekend) John and I really buckled down and finished a bunch of house projects pre-baby arrival. In particular I got some help from Alicia, Erin, and Jen and their crafty hands getting the tree decal on the wall in the baby's room. I then spent another 3 nights sticking the 8 gazillion leaves on the wall. I love the way it came out but I think I'll check how many pieces there are before the next time I choose a decal. In any case the tree is up and the baby's room is DONE! Still need to get some things like a mattress for the crib obviously, but the baby won't be in the room for a couple months so no rush on that really.


John also got the surround sound speaker run in the living room, and added some much needed outlets and lighting to the garage (2 fluorescent light ballasts, 5 outlets, and a new circuit breaker), we put some built in book shelves into the study and generally finished un-packing. So the house is for the most part done as well. We have the contractors starting work Tuesday in the kitchen and that should be complete (please, please, please) by the end of the week. Here are some snaps of the house and the decal process.

Barefoot and Pregnant

Since I am getting towards the end of the pregnancy, 2.5 weeks to the due date and probably won't make it that long, things are starting to change quickly. First, my feet are swollen and retaining water so I am wearing flip flops at work today as none of my shoes fit all of a sudden. The baby has dropped and that at least means less heartburn and an easier time breathing.

I would have to say the thing I like least is how much my hands hurt. Several hormones make your joints relax and, for me, that means all the knuckles in the my hands are swollen and retaining water as well. It is just really uncomfortable and is at its worst in the mornings after I wake up.

But I think the best thing is cuddling up to John while the baby is kicking so he can feel it wiggle around. And we have an active little dude or dudette in there so even John has gotten a few kicks from the baby. Only fair that baby gets a shot at him too.

So stay tuned over the next couple weeks as things are starting to happen and we'll keep posting news here.

Term Limits

I'm sort of one day early, but I'm calling it since going into labor in the next 12hrs really isn't going to happen. But we are now full-term on the baby at 37 weeks! I wasn't terribly worried about going into pre-term labor even with with the onsie, twosie contractions, but I am still relieved to hit this milestone. Since we were not planning to birth in a hospital and have instead chosen to use a birthing center with Nurse Midwives, this makes it possible. Only normal pregnancies are allowed to use the birth centers, so any high-risk complications like pre-term or multiples are by default sent to the hospital and for good reason, so I'm not knocking it. One big hurdle crossed for us this week.

In anticipation of this milestone too, John and I spent Saturday in the house prep mode for "if the baby comes today what do we need" which included a shopping trip for some random items. But this weekend we now have the diaper changing box together, the pack n play (where the baby will sleep in our room to start), clothes washed and folded, and everything else all setup and ready to go. The last major item is putting the car seat in the cars and getting the diaper bag in the mail (at least for the what needs to be done now catagory).

Otherwise the weekend was busy with me giving a Monopoly whopping to John, Brent, and Alicia Saturday night who were all simultaneously trying not to go bankrupt to me. They all went into don't lose mode and it didn't work out so well for Brent which ended the game. Sunday was Texans tailgating and game with my work this time and then Jen M's baby non-shower for the twins. Busy weekend but a good one.

My Baby Called Me a Geek

...or at least Mona and Kari did with this gift! :P Really, I'm not surprised by this present.


Here are a few more pictures from the shower that Alicia and Erin took.





Thank you to all for the great presents and wonderful company at the baby shower!

Baby Showered

Sunday my good friends Alicia and Erin hosted a baby shower for me and it was fabulous. I got to hang with a bunch of my favorite ladies and eat all the great food and cake they made. We had a great time talking and, since there were other pregnant ladies and a couple already moms, swap a few pregnancy storie. For the non-preggo, I think it was educational if nothing else.

I got lots of super cute goodies and thank you to all that could make it!

I'll post more pictures when I get them since I wasn't shooting any myself, but for now, the pretty, pretty diaper cake.

Gross

I can't even come up with a good title to this blog post because I'm having a hard time keeping my lunch down looking at this. If you ever had any reason to question why we have an obesity problem in this country, just take a look at what KFC is test marketing to masquerade as a new "sandwich". Note, the Vancouver Sun estimated (because KFC won't yet release this information) the calorie content is over 1200! WITHOUT accompanying fries (300cal/medium) and a soda (250cal/20oz) in the "meal". Seriously, that 1750cal "meal" is literally more than I eat in an entire day!! Never mind, that it is all fat and carbs. I'm aghast.

http://www.dietsinreview.com/diet_column/08/kfcs-new-double-down-chicken-sandwich-is-frightening/

New Kids On The Block

Monday night we drove up into our driveway and saw a Labor Day party occurring in the driveway of a house down the street. 5 minutes later we got a knock on the door and were accosted by more than half the ladies that live on our new street (or rather dead end court). We were being welcomed officially en mass and invited to the party, which as it turns out, was most of our neighborhood.

I'm already impressed. At our old house we literally only knew the neighbors on either side of us and certainly didn't do anything social in the hood. But the new street appears to be a lot of fun as they were quickly trying to tell us and we had a good time hanging out for an hour or so in the evening as the party wound down. The new street comes complete with Halloween parties, progressive dinner Christmas parties, and other parties and get-togethers to be discovered. At one point I jokingly told one of our neighbors she could stop selling it as we had already bought the house and were committed. Seems like there are a lot of interesting folks on the new street and it was a great introduction to the neighbors.

p.s. If we ever get mostly unpacked, I will take some pictures and post them of the new digs. But right now if generally looks like rooms with boxes, no artwork on the walls, and a kitchen with no oven. I think the only "complete" room minus artwork is the formal dining room seeing how that mostly just involved putting the chairs around the table.

Homes Have a Sense of Humor

Moving, as with remodelling, must be approached with a sense of humor I think because inevitably things happen you can't prepare for. Friday morning, the movers came and moved us in under 3 hours. WOW! Totally worth that money for sure. John and I spent the rest of Friday and most of Saturday unpacking and have made a huge dent in that. So we are in the new house and already enjoying it for the most part with a couple minor exceptions.

Saturday afternoon, we wanted to install the new oven after pulling the old non-working oven out in the new house. Hmmm... so when the contractor told us the house had a 30" oven, it didn't, it's a undersized 27" oven. So the awesome brand new (and working oven) is still on the floor and an empty space exists where an oven should be. So we have an oven we can't return easily because we ordered it online and doesn't fit the space, an oven that doesn't work and does fit the space, and no usable oven in general in the house. I don't want to buy an oven that "fits" either because I don't really want an undersized space saver oven at all. We are waiting for the contractor to call us back so we can see how much moving some of the kitchen remodel we wanted to do up is going to cost.

Second fun thing, we were back at the old house doing some last fix up things and I cleaned the doggie door. When finished I put the plastic panel in to lock it up and "close" the door... and it broke. So there it is, the very last time I needed the doggie door to "work" and it broke. Murphy's Law in the extreme. Now we have to put a new doggie door in the old house just for grins and giggles.

Today I did some pretty cool stuff at work. Since I'm working on Orion, sometimes the best example of how to do things is just go look at how Apollo did it. The Apollo 17 Command Module (owned by the Smithsonian) is on permanent display at the JSC visitor center, so the astronaut I've been working with setup with them to let us get in and take a look. I actually got to climb into the sucker to get a view from the seat out the window for the hardware. Really cool although incredibly cramped and hard to get in/out of.

We also had a fit check for the hardware in the Orion mockup in Building 9 today. What a difference 40 years makes. People may call Orion "Apollo 2.0" but the similarities end at the hatch. Orion actually has space to get in and out of and can fit way more people and equipment, mostly because your watch has more computing power than Apollo did and it fits on your wrist and not half the interior volume. Here's me in the Orion mockup too, we look a little cramped but that's just because we were in the seats to see out the windows again. Really there are two other people and loads of extra space when this was taken. Interesting to get in both on the same day though to really tell the difference in the two.