D-Day.

Today is the due date.   

It appears to be passing by without any significant changes (i.e. I'm not in labor yet) but it's been a great, productive morning anyway.  So great that I celebrated by making some beautiful (frozen) waffles with raspberries.  Look at the size of these suckers!

The baby has permission to take as long as he needs (within reason) so I'm focusing on staying busy and have been happily puttering around running errands and getting things ready.  Thanks to all my lovely friends who sent me emails saying they were thinking of me today!  :)

On unrelated news - I recently donated my wedding dress to a breast cancer research society.  It served me well and hopefully will make someone else happy too.  I found a couple of pictures that I took of it before I shipped it out.  Little details that made me happy.  

And speaking of happy news...Jon and I found some GREAT pediatricians yesterday evening.  We talked with them for almost an hour and loved their philosophy and general feel.  It is so nice to have that taken care of...hopefully we'll be seeing them again in short order!

Ice, Ice, Baby

And now...three random things.  

It snowed this week.  And then it rained and froze which created this ice sheet on our driveway.  You can see little foot holes where Jon cut out spots for me to step in as we...

..went on a date!  I don't have any dating pictures...just this one of me looking happy BEFORE we left.  It will have to do.  We went to see Slumdog Millionaire and eat hamburgers.  Both were great.  I'd recommend that date to everyone (except you can't have Jon and that's really the best part)

And finally: Zoe continues to actively seek out inappropriate places to sleep.  Like on my pillow, in my face, in the sink, on the baby's changing table, in the fresh laundry, etc.  Here she is looking guiltily away because she knows that, even though I am taking a picture of her, she is a bad, bad cat.  

Oh well, what's another load of laundry in the big scheme of things?

The Mobile

I finished, mostly at least, the birds for over the baby's crib.  These are the ones that my wonderful friends helped me to make at my baby shower in early January.  I think they came out wonderfully.  Here are a few pictures.

It would probably look better with white walls - but the colors are much more vivid in person.

This is the view the baby will have.

A close-up of the craftsmanship!  (I have great friends!)

I even hung a few over the changing table so he'll have something to look at during diaper changes.  

I'm not sure how I feel about the ribbon hangers yet - I might switch to clear fishing line...but I want to give it a few days to see.  

Orange you glad...

That we're back posting?  

I am

(Thanks Gbenga for the cool pic.)

Ice and Snow

Lately I've been taking long walks on the canal.  I can't begin to describe how beautiful it is in the winter months.  The trees are bare and offer a stunning view of the partially frozen river.  The air is still and, except for a few brave runners and bikers, the path is just as quiet.  I love walking down there, thinking, praying, contemplating both little and big things.  It's refreshing in many ways.

This year its been cold enough that the canal has been frozen solid for a few weeks.  Jon and I went for a walk yesterday and saw this - kids and adults playing shinny, or pond hockey.  (Shinny is some Canadian word for it - according to Jon!)  There were a ton of people - more than it looks like in the picture.  The ice was really hard - it looked much better than even the rink ice around here.  What a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon.  

It's also the time of year when Zoe catches up on her heater worship.  She'll sit staring at the glowing space heater for hours.   Cute little fat fluff-ball.

39 Weeks

Our official due date is this Friday (the 30th)!  Here I am with about a week to go.

Still going strong, feeling great, sleeping well (and a lot!), and in no rush at all.  :)  The baby has dropped but he's still comfy and warm in there!  We have people betting on the due date - everything from last week to 2 weeks late!  The fun part is...no one has any better chance!

38 Weeks

Cold - check out the river ice.  Here's the Pod pic for 38 weeks.  :)

We're officially done with the Birthing classes now and we had our last doula appointment.  At this point it's just finishing up the last few things on the to-do list!

Does he know?

Over the past week or so, our cat - Cassanova - has been spending a lot of time in our apartment. This is unusual because he normally spends his days and evenings with our landlady upstairs. While we've been happy to share him, his sudden clinginess and need for attention has me wondering... does he know that the baby is about to be born?


To give you a little background, my little buddy Cass predates even Emily in my life. He is the little orphan kitty that chewed through my screen door ages ago to claim me as his owner. This guy is famous for warming even the most ardently anti-cat people... fully affectionate and easy going... he is perhaps the perfect cat. And I'm not just saying that because he's mine... this statement has been made by numerous friends and neighbors.

So I've been wondering if his sudden re-emergence on my lap has something to do with a sense that our son will be arriving soon. Perhaps he's staking his claim to pre-eminence as being 'first', or maybe it's something else.


Either way, he'll always be 'first-cat'... there is no doubt about that.

Week 37

So last week was apparently not the most flattering picture.  I got a few comments about how tired I looked.  So this week we pulled out all the Photoshop stops and Ta-Da!!!!  Not too shabby - huh?  Super special thanks to Claiborne for cutting my hair (yay Trim) and to the sun for shining at the perfect angle this week.  

And sorry if my comments misled anyone last week - I didn't mean to sound as tired as I looked.  Really, I'm very, very excited about this baby coming...however long he takes to get here.  And I actually am feeling GREAT.  Seriously.  I sleep about 9-10 hours a night (usually I don't even get up once!) and rarely feel uncomfortable.  People are asking me all the time if I'm totally ready for this to be over with - but really I'm not.  I love having little Whn safe and sound in there, I love feeling him roll over and stretch, I love playing little games of "push the baby's foot".  This is still such a wonderful time for me that I'm not rushing it one minute. 

What we did on New Years

We had some great fun on New Years.  After piling all our gifts in the crib for weeks, we spent our chilly New Years (the one without heat cuz the power was out) unpacking our crib.  As you can see, we put up a 'cat tent' to prevent our furry friends from getting too close.  It's been successful so far.  

But before we did, we went out baby seat shopping and picked up this sweet seat...

So we're almost all set for him to come... just need to get a last few things together.

Look out for more soon... we're off blogging hiatus and getting excited for the birth of our son!

- JP

 

Week 36

36 Weeks Gone.

4 To Go. 

Well...2 to 6...but whatever.