Week 30 (1/30/10 – 2/5/10)

Sign of the Week, “daddy.”

On Monday I was off of school for the snow. My friend and I were supposed to give a presentation to our staff for the In-Service Training Day but since we were not there I didn’t have to…all that prepping for nothing. Oh well, the day off was nice. I got things done around the house. In the evening, Eric and I had the first part of our “Parenting Newborn” class. The first part of the class was presented by a pediatrician. The strange thing was is that he was one of the doctors that our OBGYN had recommended. When I had gone to the OB last time I had asked him to give me recommendations and he had suggested a few. As I listened to the pediatrician speak tonight I didn’t make the connection it was him until he passed out his business card. What a coincidence! During our break, Eric and I introduced ourselves to him and told him about Dr. Morgan recommending him. We told him how we had planned to come to him for a pediatrician interview soon. He shook our hands and told us to come and check out the office and meet with him again. We were very happy to have had a “sneak peak” on his beliefs/philosophy/etc. during his presentation. He actually had discussed in a part of the presentation what to do and say when you interview pediatricians! The second part of the class was done by a nurse who gave us lots of valuable information about newborn care. Eric practiced diapering our baby. We used one of my old baby dolls that I dressed up in a gender neutral outfit with a yellow cap!

On Tuesday, Groundhog Day, I was off of school for the snow again. Our friends’ son, Tristan, came over to hang out with me since he was off of school too. I worked on filing papers and gathering paperwork for tax preparation. It was nice to have the time to get it done. Later that night Eric and I attended the first part of our “Childbirth Education” (no longer called Lamaze) class. There were 7 couples in attendance. We had a great instructor who was very informative and kind. We had to do an icebreaker to start the night and found out that we were the only couple that didn’t know the sex of our baby. The lady thought that was neat and said that nowadays there is usually about one couple per class that doesn’t know. She gave us an awesome suggestion for delivery day, to have Eric ask the nurse and doctor if he can be the one to tell me the sex of our baby when he/she arrives. We thought that was great and are going to do it. We also found out that there was another girl in the class with the same exact due date as me and she’s a teacher too! Eric (a.k.a. my labor coach) was responsible for getting me an exercise ball among other things. The instructor had all of us pregnant ladies sit on them. While all of the women were sitting, legs spread, on their balls I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I turned around and faced the front of the room instead of toward the circle at the other participants. The instructor asked me what was wrong and I told her that this totally went against my “Miss Manners” class that I took so long ago when I was a little girl. Everyone in the class laughed but what they didn’t realize is that I really did mean it (y’all know me!) Oh well, the ball was pretty comfortable but would definitely be more comfortable in the living room of my own home, where I can sit however I want! So as you can see in the picture the legs stayed closed the whole time on the ball! When we left the class Eric decided that he NEEDED Taco Bell. I was joking him and his cravings because I had already fixed dinner and it was waiting for him at home but he just had to have the Taco Bell instead, he said he had been thinking about it all day. Funny how he’s getting all the cravings…chocolate ice cream, tacos, etc…and I’m not!

Well as you know the Groundhog predicted six more weeks of winter…and believe it or not we were out of school again today. I was loving it because I had another day to relax but I know that parents are chomping at the bit to get their kids back in school. This morning I had to take our dog to the vet to get her teeth cleaned. I felt the mommy hormones kicking in when I had to sign consent forms for her to be put under. She was looking at me with the true “puppy dog eyes” when the vet took her out of my arms. Luckily she came through the dental work just fine and rested on the couch the rest of the day. Today I also ordered the cradle and cradle bedding for the baby. I also e-mailed the lady back from our church about having our little one baptized in the early summer. The daughter of the religious coordinator for our church was actually the cantor at our wedding. When I told her that Eric and I were expecting and wanted to have the baby baptized she let her daughter know. The nicest thing was that in the e-mail she sent me back she said that her daughter wanted to know the date of the baptism so that she could cantor that for us as well. What a nice thing to offer! The other cool thing that happened this week was that Aunt Linda found my Christening gown that she had made me. I honestly didn’t know that it was even still around. I thought that it had gotten lost somewhere. She was in her closet looking for a particular thing and behind it was a bag. Inside the bag was my cousin Troy’s Christening outfit and my gown that she had totally forgotten about as well. Originally I had planned to take my wedding dress and have someone make a Christening gown for our baby out of that but now I’m thinking that I might try to incorporate a part of my wedding gown material in with my Christening gown. Aunt Linda and I are going to look into fixing it up! What a real surprise!

On a pregnancy note…Baby Thames is moving very dramatically these days. Some days I feel like he/she is doing somersaults. I also feel activity during different times throughout the day now. I used to feel most activity at night but now I feel it all the time. I talked to the instructor at our childbirth class this week about the “tightening” I have been having. She said that if I am having more than 4 in an hour then I need to call the doctor. So, I have been trying to be more in tune with exactly how many tightenings I’m having and how close together. So far so good!

We were back to school on Thursday and found out that we have to make up one of the snow days on President’s Day.

On Friday I had a lot of “tightening” in the early afternoon. I sat down and that seemed to help. I am definitely going to tell the doctor about it when I see him next week. I also got “shortness of breath” reading a chapter book to the kids today. I thought, “Wow, I’m really out of shape or the baby is really taking a toll on my lungs these days!” When Eric got off of work he was able to get the new changing tower (remember the other one had been damaged and we had to order a new one) and put it and the hutch together. It looks great in the nursery! Mrs. Thames and I were going to check out a few baby boutiques after school but the weather started getting bad and I didn’t feel like going. Instead, Quila and I went home and snuggled up with Eric for a 3 hour nap!