Picture of the Day: The Wonderful Baby Shower.

I saw this challenge (in response to this challenge) and thought I might as well accept.
Post a picture that describes my life right now.
I'm not normally one to "take on challenges" or that kind of thing, but this one was so easy. It did, however, take me all weekend to post it because I was busy trying to organize a mountain of baby items.

Here it is, my life:



Saturday I had an absolutely lovely baby shower. This picture of a heap of pink tissue and gorgeous baby things says a lot but you might not be able to see it.

It shows how amazing people can be. I admit that moving here has been more difficult than I thought it would be. More often than not, I have been awkward, sulky, shy, standoffish and/or reclusive. However, there have still been so many people who are willing to be supportive of and excited for our little family. I am so undeserving of all of the love and care that we receive - much less the beautiful party and gifts!

It also shows how quickly my life has changed/is changing. A few months ago, I had never really stepped foot in the baby section of any store. I didn't even know most of these newfangled baby contraptions existed. Travel systems? Diaper genies? Huh?
Any day now, there will be a new little person. She's going to wear all of those tiny outfits and poop in all those diapers and splash around with all those bath toys. I couldn't be more thrilled! Well, to be perfectly honest, I couldn't feel a wider array of emotions than I'm feeling right now.

It also reminds me how much work I still have to do before this baby comes. Where is all of her stuff going to live?! I'm ready for her, but I don't think I'm ready for her things.

This picture also describes my life right now:



My mother-in-law suggested we take the leftover baby shower cake to stake conference and try give it away. At the time, I thought "I can finish that off." I have been working 'round the clock on it. Eventually, I might have to give up on the the actual cake part. I'll just resort to my five-year-old self and eat all the icing with my fingers. Mmmmmmm. Are mommies allowed to do things like that?

Full Term.

This is what "full term" (aka 37 weeks) looks like:

It also looks like I just stuffed a basketball under my sweatshirt.
Trust me, it's a basketball-sized-and-shaped growth that is sheltering another human.


Oh, and for all who were astonished that I didn't have any stretch marks in my belly button post, they have arrived. I think she dropped. All of a sudden I had to pee all the time, my pants that could button wouldn't button and the stretch marks magically appeared. My belly button has also been stretched even farther, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to post that one publicly.

A minor note: pictured above are my very nice sweats. You might go as far as to call them dress sweats.
Or don't.

My New Best Friend.

Up until a few days ago, we kept our garbage can in the laundry room with the door shut tight. I don't know what you've heard about beagles, but in our house we have proven (time and time again) that they lack that part of the brain that says "You're full! Stop eating!"

That's right. Beagles are greedy by nature. If you drop a scrap on the floor, he'll be waiting to snatch it up. If you leave food anywhere within reach, he'll do crazy gymnastic moves to get to it. If you leave a garbage can unattended, it will be raided. Even if you feed him a hundred times a day, he will most likely gobble up his food as soon as it hits the bowl. Once, he even took a bite out of a sandwich that I was holding when I turned my head.

I can't tell you how many hours I have spent cleaning up his little garbage parties. If we forgot to make sure the door was shut, he'd sneak in and grab as many goodies as he could before getting a spankin.


But all that is over now!
Here's the reason (aka my new best friend):


We brought it home and I used it while I made dinner. Judge was thoroughly mystified. He sat next to it, watching as scrap after glorious scrap disappeared into the belly of the beast. He kept looking at me and looking at the thing that was eating his treats. He is still very confused.

We haven't left him alone with the new contraption, though. I'm curious to see if he tries to knock it over while we're gone. If he starts that, we're putting a brick in the bottom of the can . . . so really, his garbage raiding days are over.






P.S. - Here is my other new best friend:


We've been eating some incredible salsa lately.
Salsa gives the baby hiccups.

25.

Then:

Now:

25 days! Well, give or take a few. She'll be technically full-term on Thursday, so any time after that . . . who knows?

Luckily, this month is already filling up with activities to keep me from obsessing over the due date. We survived the really, really ridiculous overnight hours (but we're still both a little bit zombie and our sleep is really off). Now we're staying busy and getting ready.

This weekend we finished our drywall patching in the bathroom and, I dare say, we are ready to paint. There has been a massive cleaning effort in our house. Most days I end up almost crying out of exhaustion (and probably hormones) and decide it's time to give up and go to bed. It is really taking a long time and it seems as if I haven't done anything. It's mostly because I'm so round. Bending over isn't easy - in fact, somehow it ends up making my entire body ache! I never noticed before how many times I bend over each day and how many things are stored so low to the ground. I've been working hard for a few days now and I think we're finally seeing results, but for a while there I was pretty sure that I had spent four days shuffling things from one room to another and then back again. (I mean "shuffling" literally, too. I am a prime example of what shuffling looks like.)

At least we're working on one of our goals for the year - decluttering. That one is turning out to be a lot easier than some of the others, mainly the "watching less TV" goal. With Lost starting on the 2nd, I think we may be doomed.

Overnights.

Me, trying to stay up all night.

When we first got married, husband did overnights. That meant he left for work at 10 PM and got home around 6:30 in morning. I worked early mornings then, so I left the house just before he got home. The nice thing was that we always had dinner together, something that doesn't always happen now with our ever-changing schedules. The really hard thing was not ever sleeping at the same time.

I think that's when Judge got really used to sleeping in our bed. He spent 75% of his day in bed with one of us. (When he was in bed with me, we were usually falling asleep while watching Law & Order: SVU - which I now realize was probably a really bad idea for a woman home alone all night.)

He did that job for the first three months of our marriage. We actually got really used to it. It was nice to have a set schedule, at least. It's much easier to have a routine.

This week he's doing the overnights again. It's just for the week, though. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure his body will finally get used to the crazy sleep schedule on the last day of the work week and he'll have to fight all over again to get back to normal.

Today didn't work very well. I organized everything so I could wake up and quickly get myself and the dog out of the room so that he could sleep. When I left the house to run errands around 10 AM, he woke up and stayed up. He tried taking naps at three different times in the afternoon, but nothing lasted long. He looked miserable when he left tonight.

I'm trying to stay up extra late tonight so that I can sleep in a little longer. Then maybe he'll get more rest . . . I hope.

Anyway, I now know that Judge is only a medium guard dog. He barked when husband came into the bedroom this morning. By the time an intruder is already in the bedroom, I'm not sure he would be deterred by a barking dog. Thanks anyway, buddy.

(Judge is pretty vigilant when it comes to keeping the yard free of birds, squirrels, cats, deer and sometimes leaves that look suspiciously like birds.)

It's official.

This year shall be the year of the dumb (but cheap!) t-shirts.

Latest additions:



The history behind this decision:

Every time I'm getting ready to go somewhere with the husband, he complains about how long I take. I usually let him know that he is very lucky - I'm pretty sure I get ready in about 1/4 to 1/2 the time most women do. He complained all last year that I didn't have anything "just normal" to throw on and wear to the store or wherever. It always had to be an outfit . . . or at least the shoes had to match the ensemble.

His most commonly used phrase while getting ready was "Why don't you have any t-shirts that you can just put on?"

Second most commonly used phrase: "It's Wal-Mart. Have you seen the people at Wal-Mart before?"
There's a tie for third place between "I thought you were ready" and "Just wear that!"

Anyway, one day I found a really cheap (and dumb) t-shirt on clearance at work and I bought it. Then I bought more. For some reason, most of these shirts involve cats. I can't complain when the average price for each one is 95 cents. Neither can husband. I put one on the other day as I was getting ready. He smiled at me and said, "Yeah, wear that. It's funny."

So it began.

Anyway, let the dumbness/cheapness continue throughout the year!
I'll be on the prowl for more. They're really comfortable, especially with my nice sweatpants.


(By the way, those newest shirts cost 88 cents each. I KNOW, right?!)

35 1/2 Weeks.

You might be getting bored with all of my giant belly pictures, but it's mostly for the benefit of my family 2000 miles away who won't get to see me pregnant. It has been hard not being able to share this with them the way I always thought I would, but at least we have the wonders of the internet. I could be sending telegraphs or something, right?

(By the way, excuse the saggy-bottom pajamas and bleach-stained top. My nice sweats were in the wash.)
(Yes, I do realize I just called them my "nice sweats.")

Anyway, she's pretty active in there. She's rolling around enough to make me very nauseous sometimes. It's visible, too. It's pretty weird seeing a little knee or elbow make a wave across my stomach - not unlike having some sort of alien living inside me.

You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned anything about names. We had a couple of mixed reactions to some of our earlier favorites, so we've decided to wait until we see her to make sure the little girl fits the name. You're just going to have to wait.

We're all getting pretty excited. We have about a month left, give or take a few days. I'm cleaning as much as my joints and muscles will let me. Husband is cuddling up with her teddy bear while he reads. I'm very interested to see how Judge reacts to the baby. I'm hoping that he'll get used to her quickly, since she'll be around all the time. Right now I'm not sure what he's thinking, but leaving his favorite toy sitting in the car seat could mean many things:

(That's his "I need to go potty now" face.)
(Also pictured are my "nice sweats.")

Now if I can just stay very busy for the next few weeks, I might be able to keep my mind out of the "any day now" thinking and just enjoy this time before she's finally here.
Maybe.
Probably not.