The Nursery

Peanut's nursery is all set up.  She has to share her room with our guest room because out here on the west coast we just don't have a lot of space.  So some of the other baby stuff, like our glider and her Moses basket, is in other rooms of the house.  It's not much to look at, but I think her little corner is just perfect for her.

Medical Update:  I am 3 cm dilated today.  My doctor says it's amazing I've made it this far without any pain (Correction - I've had slight pain with the contractions but nothing significant).  She wants me to come back in on Wednesday for another check up.  I would say that it won't be long before we meet Peanut, but I was 2 cm dilated this time last week and it took me all week to go another centimeter.  Hopefully things will speed up drastically once I hit 4 cm.  Exciting times!!!

The pink blur over the changing table is her name - Still a secret until her birthday :)

BA's Corner: Assembly Required

Have new fathers always been required to put together a ton of furniture, or is this a recent development? Perhaps the infusion of big box retailers like IKEA and Target have brought on an era where everyone assumes Daddy-O is chomping at the bit to translate diagrams with stick figures, drawings, and arrows into the wee hours of the night. In any case, I think I've got it down now. Here's how it usually works for me:

1. Get the toolbox. I'm very thankful that I actually have a toolbox, and it has come in handy time and time again. However, every time I retrieve it, I'm reminded of how I've saved all sorts of little tools and screws (that I'll never use again) from things I've put together over the years...so many that I also have an old backpack full of tools that "I just might need one day." I envision a 3-car garage with a full wall of tools (and a shiny '68 Camaro) in my future. I may not know what I'm doing, but I can at least look the part.

2. Grab the tool belt (optional). Only necessary if I'm in the mood to be heckled. There is no requirement that I actually put tools in the toolbelt - it's strictly for show until I get the above-referenced garage.

3. Open the instructions. If they're from IKEA, I tell AA that the Swedes want me to enlist the help of a friend with a smile and a pencil behind his/her ear. She typically declines.

The remainder of the event can go in any number of directions, depending on how much floor space is required and how many "jobbies" are involved. "Jobbie" is my term for pretty much anything that comes in the box, particularly if I don't know what the thing is actually called.

Given my recent adventures in assembling all of the furniture under the sun, I figured I'm in a good position to share a few of my most notable tools....

• Favorite Tool: Cordless Drill. What guy doesn't like his cordless drill? In the words of Tim Taylor, "MORE POWER!"
• Least Favorite Tool: Allen Wrench. Why in the world do these companies build this furniture that requires the use of a stubby little tool that requires you to work your little fingers to the bone trying to turn that stupid thing around and around. And why don't they sell variety toolkits with fancy, comfortable allen wrenches? And why the heck has no one invented a way to use an allen wrench attachment on a...you guessed it...CORDLESS DRILL??
• Least Likely Tool: Silicone Potholders. Why, you ask? Well, sometimes you just have to be resourceful. I don't even remember what I was assembling, but something kept turning whenever I screwed it in, and grippy potholders were the best things I could find to deal with it.
• Toughest Assembly: Glider. Something about the gliding mechanism...I thought I'd chop my fingers off before I was done.
• Biggest Box: Ottoman. But no problemo...it came fully assembled! Whew!

Cardboard anyone? Just don't light a match within 10 yards.

The Peanut

As I start this ninth and last month of pregnancy, I thought about how the Peanut will soon be referred to by her name, and not as the Peanut.  It makes me a little sad that we are already closing one chapter of her life and opening a new chapter.  I don't think I've told the story of how Peanut got her in utero name.  Back in December, BA and I came home from the doctor with some life-altering news.  I was pregnant and I was 9 weeks along.  We had both seen the evidence on the ultrasound, there was a tiny baby in there.  As we sat on the couch that evening chatting about how unbelievable this was, BA looked at my belly and said, "where's that little Peanut?"  I pointed at the center of my flat stomach, and he leaned down and kissed it.  From then on, our baby was known as the little Peanut.  And even though she will soon have a more "human" name, she will always be my little Peanut and hopefully we'll still call her that as a nick-name.

35-36 weeks

35 weeks people!  My doctor informed me yesterday that because they are watching the baby for growth, she'll be delivering me no later than July 19th.  Which is 4 weeks away.  Ahhhhh!  Within a month we will meet the Peanut!

Who did this to me?!?!

Whoa Baby!

35 Weeks. 

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there but especially to both my Dad and BA!  My Dad was a great dad.  He was so involved in my upbringing, and he has been a great example to BA of how to raise a girl.  My dad was Mr. Athletic in high school and college and he would have loved to have a boy.  He'd have been little league coach for every sports team and he'd have been outside playing catch with the boy every day.  But my dad had two girls - two girly-girls who were more interested in picking flowers, singing songs, and dancing than sports.  Even still, he volunteered to help coach my 4th grade softball team, despite the fact that I was terrible and mostly played right field (that's where they put the kids who are afraid of the ball).  He even volunteered to coach my 5th grade soccer team even though he'd never played a day of soccer in his life.  My team needed a coach and no other parents were stepping up.  So my dad volunteered to be head coach, went to the library, got a book on soccer, and coached the team.  And in high school, he was assistant coach of my tennis team and would be out there on the high school courts hitting balls with the me and the other students every afternoon in the spring.  But my dad's involvement didn't stop with sports.  When we were little, he'd play the guitar and sing songs with us, he let us play "hair-design" on him, he got roles in the community theater plays we were in so the whole family could be in the play together, he would surprise us at school and eat lunch with us.  He prepared family breakfast every Saturday.  I have vivid memories of waking up on Saturday mornings to the smell of homemade buttermilk pancakes and the sound of Dad's music (either New Age or Irish tunes, depending on what phase he was currently in) coming from downstairs.  He was also the only Dad chaperone on a week-long bus trip to Washington D.C. for my 4th grade class.  All the other chaperone's were Mom's.  He was always there, always playing with us, and that's what makes him so great.  I have a great Dad. 

For BA's first unofficial Father's Day, I decided to take the five favorite things he lists in his profile on this blog (sleep, chocolate, Chick-fil-A, FSU football, and classical music) and make a gift for each one. 

There's a C.D. of Mozart to represent the classical music we will be playing all day.
We have a Chick-fil-A card, promising to take him to Chick-fil-A for lunch.
We have brownies for chocolate.
And we have flannel pajama pants that I secretly sewed while BA was away last week in Dallas, to represent sleep; also in FSU colors for FSU football. 

BA is going to be a great Dad, I know it.  He told me not to do anything for him because the Peanut isn't born yet so he doesn't feel like a father yet.  But I said, you're already buying things for her and assembling all her furniture - that's what Dad's do and you'll be doing it for the next 20 years!  You're a father.

She's Got Good Genes

My Italian-American grandfather had several sayings that were unique to him.  One of my favorites was "you've got good genes."  Even now I can hear his voice in my head saying that to me.  It was Grandpa's funny way of taking credit for everything.  He lived with my mother for the last five years of his life, until he was 95, and whenever I'd come home from college and tell him about my good grades or a difficult class that I'd passed, he would toss his hands up in the air, shrug his shoulders, and say "well, you've got good genes," as if that explained it all.  Going to all these doctors has turned my pregnancy into a very scary time for BA and me.  But I know if my Grandpa were here, he'd tell us not to worry about the Peanut because, well, "she's got good genes."  And it's true.  She does.

Scary doctor measured the baby again today.  She's growing but still small.  She weighs 4 lbs. 9 oz. and I'm 34 weeks along.  The doctor was just okay with this measurement, but I was thrilled!  That's not far off from 5 lbs. and if I can get her to 5 lbs. 8 oz. then she won't have to spend time in Intensive Care when she's born.  And Peanut was moving around like crazy again.  She elbowed the ultrasound wand so hard the sonographer started laughing.  She said it had been a long time since she'd had a baby do that.  I said, you should feel it when she kicks - that elbow was nothing.

Gender Neutral

BA took me out for a lovely dinner tonight.  He was out of town last week at training and said that I deserved to be treated because I was couped up on bedrest by myself.  We went to Maggiano's and had a wonderful meal.  At the table next to us was a party of six plus an adorable baby with little wisps of blonde hair.  Both sets of grandparents were at the table, in addition to the parents, and they were all passing the little baby around. The baby was dressed in blue jeans with a horizontal red and blue stripped sweater and was so well behaved and smiled at everyone.  After dinner BA and I saw the dad rocking the baby outside the restaurant, and I asked "how old is he?"  The dad said, "It's actually a girl, we're trying to go gender neutral, and she's 7 months."  Oops!  Foot in mouth.  Gender Neutral???  I understand that parents get tired of all the pink and purple, but slap a red bow on the little girl's head for goodness sake so I don't look like a jerk calling your practically-bald baby girl a baby boy!  I have no doubt that the little girl will be very pretty one day, after all both parents were attractive people.  But right now she had very little hair, and by the way, red and blue on a baby, are boy's colors - not gender neutral.  I rest my case.

I'm Done

I'm done with being pregnant.  I realize I may have to be pregnant for another 7 weeks, but I'm telling you right now that I'm not going to enjoy it!  I'm 30 pounds overweight, I spend half the day going to the bathroom, everything is uncomfortable, I have heartburn, acne, and back pain, and I'm prohibited from exercising.  I daydream about exercising - about all the working out I'm going to do - about how my goal is to be in better shape than I was before I got pregnant.  But that seems so far away right now.  I know that all the moms out there will tell me that it's all worth it, and I'm sure it will be, but right now, I'm done.

BA's Corner: Really?

It's hard to believe something this small is going to keep me up all night.

Pictures from Haley's Visit

My sister came out to visit us last weekend.  We had a wonderful time and it was so nice of her to fly all the way out to L.A. just to spend her Memorial Day weekend with us.  Technically I was on bedrest, but I wasn't about to let Scary Doctor ruin her visit so we made some "accommodations" as you'll see below.  The big plan of the weekend was a Warner Brother's Studio Tour ... 

The "accommodations" = BA wheeling me around the Warner Brothers studio tour

Haley pitches in to help out her BIG sister

That's all folks!

Baby Shower photo

And finally, my law school friends threw BA and me a baby shower.  It was so nice of them to want to do that, and they planned it specifically for the weekend my sister was in town.