Turns out we are very very bad at remembering to bring our cloth grocery bags into the grocery store with us when we shop. One of our bags had to be washed because of a cat incident and the sock had gotten stuck inside of it! Monday night we finally remembered the bag and now have our full set of matching socks. We are also awaiting the arrival of our cloth diapers this evening and a demonstration! Still no baby though.

I started having rather consistent Braxton-Hicks contractions about two weeks ago. Some nights they even seem like they might amount to something, but then they fizzle away eventually overnight. So we continue to wait on pins and needles, but have no baby yet. She’s not officially due until Tuesday anyway and first babies are on average a week late. We’ve finished up our baby preparation activities but I’m a little behind in my pictures. Below you’ll see the complete set of matching baby decorations I made, the nightlight, the quilt, the lamp, the curtains and the changing table. My dad originally made the changing table for me when I was born (albeit a few weeks late) and he recently updated the fabric to match my color scheme! Mio is on the right of the changing table, George is on the left. Mio is in the windows, while Fred is in the lower right hand corner.

For the last several midwife appointments they have been concerned when they measure the outside of my stomach that the baby is getting “too big”. Despite the fact that they say that babies are generally within 20% of their mother’s birth weight (mine was 6lb 3oz and Jordi was small too). I really didn’t believe her though as their tape measure was obviously measuring belly fat too. After several weeks we relented to an ultrasound to check on this as they started to voice concerns about me using the tub for labor and delivery and shoulder dystocia (shoulders getting stuck and broken on the way out).

The results are in, and we were right, she’s completely on track. On Thursday at 37 weeks, 2 days, she is at the 49th percentile for weight, 6lbs 13 oz. Plenty of fluid and the best possible position, LOA (head down, back out and on the left side). Hopefully she won’t change positions in however many days we’ve got left. And they still say she’s a girl.

Gratuitous cat photo:

Hanging out with our friends with babies we often find them struggling with keeping socks on their kids feet. They fall off, they get pulled off, and they get left behind. We haven’t even had the kid but we washed some of her laundry to be ready for her arrival and lost a sock in the process. Hopefully it will show up stuck somewhere inside our clothes one day. At least it was one of the plain white socks from Old Navy of which I have 5 identical pairs. Now I just need to lose another one and we’ll have complete sets again.

Last weekend we put together the baby seat that uncle-to-be Javier and his girlfriend Roxy gave us. It took about a week, but Fred finally figured out how to use it. Surprisingly he isn’t bothered by the fact that it bounces if he moves. Unfortunately we are a little bothered by the fact that Fred is over the recommended weight limit for the seat, so it has been moved back into storage. This weekend, we put together the baby swing and will leave that out for the cats to get comfortable with it. Somehow I don’t think I’ll be posting a picture of a cat in the swing next week. Baby is about 35 weeks now, so that means we’ve got somewhere in the range of 2 to 7 weeks to go for a full term delivery!

In February, our friend Susan was kind enough to throw me a baby shower and friends and family were gracious enough to show up! We are exceedingly well stocked now for this babies arrival from furniture to clothes to diapers to books. Jordi’s Mom and Jen’s Aunt even made the long distance trips to attend. Thank you everyone for the thoughtful gifts! Here are some pictures that I am long delinquent in posting.

Jordi’s Mom Tere, Jen’s Aunt Sheila and Carolyn

Jen, Jen’s Mom Karen, Cousin Janet, Bonnie

Susan, Rhonda and Jen

Rhonda, Alyssa, Stef with Xander, Cate, Saru with Ryan

We’ve had a busy few weeks! One new item in the house is a rocker/glider/recliner chair for comfortably rocking and nursing the baby (and for video game play when otherwise not in use). Kaya has decided that this chair is her chair and for the first three days she barely left the chair ever. She didn’t come to bed, she didn’t spend time looking out the window, she just sat in the chair all day and all night. She’s sitting in it behind me right now. In this house, as a cat with 4 siblings, whenever something new arrives, you’ve got to stake a claim early and often or someone else will.

Perhaps she’s just admiring the newly painted baby’s room which Jordi and my dad painted last weekend? It looks great, but it isn’t very exciting to show you a picture of an off-white wall, so I won’t. Instead, here is a rare picture of someone other than Kaya (Ezzy) in the chair.

It’s been a little while since we’ve updated because we’ve had some busy weekends. Jordi turned 28 last week! And then we had a weekend full of housewarming, birthday, and football parties. Unfortunately I managed to forget the camera for all of these events and so there are no new baby pictures. During that time we have accomplished a small amount of decorating progress. The picture below is of the finished baby quilt with Kaya. Jordi also hung new window shades in the baby’s room and a curtain rod. Now I just need to make the matching curtains out of the green fabric in the quilt.

I don’t agree with President Bush’s approach to most policy issues. But recently, I’ve been thinking about parenting a lot and I thought it might be funny to see what our commander-in-chief could teach us about parenting.

Spanking is a pretty big controversy. I personally think applying President Bush’s stance with Iran might be the strategy I choose:

This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table. – President G. W. Bush from Brussels, Feb 22, 2005

And, of course, it’s important for your children to understand:

I’m the decider – President G. W. Bush, Feb 22, 2006

Or…we are the deciders, anyway.

Good stuff. With that and heat-seeking chancletas, we’re all set. Now I’m starting to realize that the president’s condescending tone was really him trying to be the nation’s loving yet stern disciplinarian. I can’t wait to elect a president who doesn’t treat us like children.

In early January, we started childbirth classes in preparation for labor and delivery. Among the many options out there, we selected the Bradley Method classes on the recommendation of several friends. The classes focus a lot on relaxation, nutrition, exercise and showing the husband how to be an active participant in labor. It is a lot of common sense and will hopefully lead to a natural birth when the time comes. It is a long set of 12 classes which will run until approximately a month prior to the estimated due date. We have also learned in class though that the average pregnancy lasts 41 weeks and 1 day, making us a bit skeptical of our 40 week date. That, and every baby we know lately has arrived later than “due”.

While our felines need no help relaxing on an hourly basis, they do appreciate the class because it comes with a workbook of articles, information and assignments. Ezzy and Fred demonstrate in the following photo just how well it can be used by multiple cats at a time even.