Getting by with a LOT of help from my friends

Holy Cow. Life is so much easier with friends. I tip my hat to the angels who showed up on a gray/rainy Sunday to help get the apartment ready for Parker. Namely, Mark & JackAllen, Robyn, Pahu, Layna, Kathleen, Tim, Jenni, and Maureen. What outrageous troopers. I'll have pictures of the crew and the apt up soon, but for now I just wanted to say THANK YOU in a public forum!

Back to the outrageous amount of homework to finish before monday...

xoxo

*Mom's Visit and More

Just finished up a great visit with my mom. Got to get the scoop on all kinds of baby questions I had lingering, as well as letting Parker give her a nice kick! So nice... Also had a fabulous evening with Tim and his friend Suzie- a fun dinner and then THIRD ROW CENTER seats for Sunday in the Park with George. It was amazing to be so close that we could see the actors' eyes well up durring emotional moments. We felt very spoiled.

Had fun taking pictures in the backyard. Mom & Lance were having so much fun on the slack line that I decided to have a try, even with my balance being off. I felt fine up there, but when I finally got down, Lance admitted he had been so scared the whole time. It's hard to remember that when I push my body, I'm also taking risks with someone else's wife & daughter.











Rozo and I had fun showing Lance our tummies the other day. And she's already eaten one of Parker's stuffed animals (with a little help and egging on from Lance). I guess everyone celebrates new babies in their own way!



Now totally exhausted. Back to more naps after the action packed couple of days which left my body TOTALY wiped.

xoxo

Week 32... Only 8 more to go!

Week 32 means that Parker is roughly 3.75 pounds and about 16.7 inches long, and growing!

Oh my god. I have so much homework to do and an OUTRAGEOUS amount of resistance. Hence, blogging...

This morning I bit the bullet and bought a ton of stretch pants and long t-shirt dresses. I am so hot that I am willing to turn into a circa-1986 teenager for comfort's sake. Style be damned.

I am DONE with people asking me if I'm carrying twins or am going to give birth any day now. I am not that big! Yes, I'm much bigger than before, but Lance & I watched a pregnancy documentary yesterday and all the women actually at term were WAY bigger than me. I don't know what people are thinking when telling a pregnant woman that she couldn't possibly get any bigger... I'm sure I've said stuff like that before and NEVER AGAIN!

On a good note, that documentary was pretty intense. I can't see a birth without bursting into tears at the intensity. It is so powerful, even if it's just strangers! I can't imagine watching Parker make her way out. Tooooooo much for me.

Lance is finally getting better after a bad bout of stomach flu, or something along those lines. He's been so miserable and it's so nice to see some spark in his eyes and color in his cheeks again. Let's hear it for time, rest and Pedialite.

Really excited about Mom coming for a mid-week visit. And for the work party next weekend. It'll be great to have friends over and get the house all ready for Parker. It makes everything seem much more real.

But of course I won't be able to enjoy/attend any of it if I don't get my homework done. But, geez, who can study when the sun is out, the birds are chirping, and a baby is almost here?!

xoxo

Numb...

Dear lord... I have just spent 2 hours updating our Target.com registry. I got a great onsumer reports-ish book from a friend and read about how much money a lot of the stuff we first picked out wasted and how we should register for all kinds of other things (ie. solid color high-thread count=good; cute pattern polyester blends=bad). The book also drove the message pretty hard that receiving hand-me-downs is a good idea on everything BUT cribs, so I registered for one of those too. But geez louise- there are so many damn things to look at in order to get through target's website. Numb numb numb... Also, my friend told me to register for things like diapers, which is all well and good, except a lot of these websites won't let you register for diapers PLUS we still can't decide between cloth vs biodegradeable disposable vs cheap, more leak-proof environment wreaking pampers. Apparently in the first 6 weeks we can expect to go through an average of FOURTEEN diapers a day. This just sounds totally insane to me. FOURTEEN. Ugh. How the hell does anyone figure out what they need and where to get it and how much of it? It just makes me numb, numb, numb... Plus I have to pee. AGAIN.

xoxo

MAKE WAY FOR BABY!

Just invited my theatre family to come help get the house ready for Parker on April 27th. Hopefully I'll get to see some friends and get to practice requesting/accepting help at the same time. Plus, I need an adult party while I still can have one!

Staying home from class today because my body can't handle school and taxes at the same time. April 15 is QUICKLY approaching and some clients have been waiting for a looooooooooong time.

Got black-out curtains that are remarkably good at keeping out light & am finally getting a full-ish night's sleep. Thank god. I thought I was going to die for a while there.

Body REALLY feeling the effect of having someone sitting on its organs, especially the bladder and blood vessels. Even sitting is starting to hurt if I do it for too long. I can't remember if I put my pregnancy theory on the blog or just said it to some people, so here it is again: the universe makes pregnancy both LONG and PAINFUL so that when it comes time to give birth, women are actually excited about the excruciating pain involved in GETTING THE BABY OUT!

xoxo

WEEK 30!!!!!

How did that happen? We're 75% of the way there- only 10 weeks to go!!! Apparently Parker should be about 3 lbs and 16 inches from head to toe. Wow. All that, rolled up in my tummy.

It's been exciting talking to some of my friends about planning a shower. I'm really looking forward to celebrating bringing this baby into the world. And to actually seeing my friends, who are more of a fantasy than a reality for most of the time. A least I got a charger for my headset so that I can call people while driving again. With so much work and so little qualioty sleep, driving tends to be the main time I have free to talk!

Have to get Lance to take a tummy picture. We were going to take one underwater at a pool party yesterday, but the pool wasn't ready. Guess we have to find some other water; it's a good thing we live on an island.

Ok. Back to the MASSIVE amount of work to finish this weekend. God I love tax season coming RIGHT in the middle & end of midterms...

xoxo

Can I just say one more thing?

I just looked at Parker's profile from the Jan ultrasound and I can't believe someone so real and so cute is GROWING INSIDE OF ME and is going to be out in my arms in a couple of months. It is unreal and fills my eyes with tears of joy, excitement, and expectation.

And Parker kicks in agreement. Holy cow.

Ok. To bed! To bed! To bed! (or at least to uncomfortable library couch...)

Dork Dork Dork

I really need to get over this perfectionism. No matter how much I chant the mantra "Strive For Average," I still have a hard time keeping things right-sized. For example... Today I had to give a 10-15 minute oral report in one of my classes. FORTY MINUTES LATER I shut up, after having sped through or skipped about a third of the presentation slides/material I had prepared. And I was worried that I was going to look stupid for having a shallow/incomplete report. I drove the teacher and the class crazy with the barrage of over-information, as well as kept my pregnant body from getting enough sleep for a few days preparing this sucker. AND I have other assignments that are now late because I put them aside while focusing on this report. I am a dork dork dork. Overachieving dork. I really hope Parker doesn't inherit this perfectionist streak.

Otherwise, things are good. Have to get Lance to take another picture because this round tummy of mine is out of control. So much fun! The third trimester hormones are taking their toll on my body, even bringing back some of the nausea, but the ballooning-baby-belly is worth it. After seeing me trying to walk-off an upset-tummy-spell, my instructor/advisor at school suggested I take it easy to give my body a break- maybe even drop a class or a teaching gig. When will I ever listen to someone who says that? In the mean time, I'll commit to taking a nap in the library before my 6:30 class. Even though I promised my friend I would call her today. Nighty-night.

xoxo

What a relief...

Had a check-up with the OB today and had to follow0up on the insurance saga beforehand. SO HAPPY to report that my new COMPREHENSIVE Oxford insurance plan kicked in yesterday, so that all the testing that the horrible insurance company denied will be accepted from now on. I just wish we had known months ago that we would need different insurance, so we could have saved literally THOUSANDS of dollars. Live and learn...

Parker's heart is pounding away and my uterus is apparently up to my rib cage. I remember when it was exciting that it was above my pubic bone. Way to swell, Parker! I can't believe she's getting this huge and over the past 3 weeks I've only gained half a pound. Unbelievable.

Now that I'm in the 3rd trimester, I alternate with all the doctors in the OB practice so that I will know the on-call doctor in advance before they come to deliver zee bebe. Today I saw Dr. Gray, who I think I saw once a couple years ago- anyhow- I liked him and felt safe. He was very excited about telling me everything he was going to do before he did it & very precise. Dr. Simonson usually just feels where my uterus is and says "Looks good." He was all about the measuring tape. I wonder what the next one will be like!

I once again have an obscene amount of work ahead of me. I got sick out of the blue on monday morning (I blame the bagel store's cream cheese) and missed class, so I have a week's worth of homework due tomorrow. Thus the catch-up blog entry.

I never reported on Easter. It was really nice. Some good old friends and some good relatively newer friends came over for a potluck. We had an awesome spread and lots of good conversation. There were 2 little ones there. Rosemary did her beset to terrify one of them (Stella) who was NOT so into a rottweiller at equal eye level who wanted very much to lick her in the face. I hope parker gets used to it quickly, because this dog sure loves kids, especially their taste.

Each family had a different color egg to hide in the back yard (so that it was ok I didn't have time to hide eggs, no one would know where all the eggs were, and it's fun to take a turn as the easter buny) and whoever found one of each color first won the egg hunt. Cindy and Tony ended up heading home with the grand-prize-bubble-gun. Cindy won it, but Tony was already planning how he was going to use it in a film.

I think we just finished up the leftovers a day or two ago. We've been feasting on spinach/broccoli casserole, quiche, lemon bars, fancy breads, and using leftover pico de gallo and black bean dip to make huevos rancheros. The fruit salad and cinamon rolls never made it past easter sunday. Yum yum yum! I want to have a potluck every week. PLUS most people left their eggs here, so we've been opening them and eating more chocolate and jelly beans than any two (and a half) humans should.

Speaking of chocolate, the afterschool kids made brownies today, so that when we showed up to teach circus it was all we could smell. I immediately went home and made some here. CAn I just say that brownies are GOOD???!

Ok. Enough prcrastinating. It really is long past homework time.

xoxo