"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee"

I think I might end up birthing the next heavy weight champoin of the world. Two nights ago the baby punched me about 20 times in a row and last night when Neil was here she did it again. Its nice to have a witness, now that Neil felt it go on for 20 mintues he knows I'm not exaggerating. And I'm not really complaining, it doesn't hurt at all. I'm always relieved she moves around so much.

The other day I was talking to Neil's grandma and she asked what we were planning on naming the baby. I told her Grace. She made a bad face and said, "Thats not very exciting." I had to laugh because I'm not crazy about her name choices either. She named her girls, Betty Anne, Bonnie Jo and Janet Rosalie. I'm sure if I had said Gracie Lou she would have loved it.

Today I found some fabulous blog spots that had fun projects to make at home. The first was homemadebyjill.blogspot.com and the second was howaboutorange.blogspot.com. I've already made some of the cute flower button cards!

Shopping

Hip Hip Hurray! My spell check is finally functioning! Today I discovered I have been behaving like a fool for the past 6 months. About six months ago Neil and I got a Sam's Club membership. I was dubious at the time, I have a strange allegiance to Costco, but there are not any Costcos within a reasonable distance. Another deterrent was that Sam's is on the other side of a busy busy freeway. In fact the free way where I was hit by the semi, so I kinda fear the area. Basically Neil and I order our contacts at Sam's and buy big food storage items, not as often as we should, OK we've only done that twice. Well, I ventured over there to the Micheal's and then decided to check out Old Navy and then realized, what the heck I'm right here I'll go to Sam's. Oh the deals they had to offer! Sadly, I realized I have been paying twice as much at my grocery store for 1/2 the amount of food! I am a Sam's club convert and I've heard their diapers are a really good deal.

A Day at the Mall

Today I continued my plan to walk this baby out. I spent a good 3 1/2 hours walking the mall with friends. There were 4 of us and I was the only one without a stroller, so we were quite a crowd. While at the mall I bought the cutest dress for the baby from Gymboree. It is whiteish ivory silk with a few tiny purple embroidered flowers on the bodice, it is my back up blessing dress in case I don't find anything I love more. After shopping for a while we took an ice cream break and sat outside on some benches. While we were chillin' this lady with a stroller came up and asked if she could sit with us. She seemed a little strange from the get go and I just got a bad vibe from her. Then she told us all her baby was 15 months and she was 16 weeks pregnant. She then started asking really intrusive questions. The girl was creeping me out so with escape in mind I said I needed to go get a pretzel, two of the other girls said they needed to change their babies' diapers (it turns out they where creeped out too). It was then that the girl told me she had no money for food, no where to live, and no job. I got the impression from her that she was not unuse to sharing this information. Now, I'm never quite sure if I respond to some situations in a certain cynical way because I grew up in Chicago. I grew up hearing to give money to charities not to individuals and there was just something not quite right about this lady. I don't know if I had such a need to get away from her because I am pregnant and felt vulnerable and unsafe or what, but I practically ran away from her. And for the rest of the day I have just been thinking about her poor homeless baby. She told us she had considered putting her daughter up for adoption but then decided not to. I'm sure that child hasn't had her shots, she probably isn't receiving the nutrients she needs from food and I really doubt the lady has been to the doctor about her unborn child. Its just depressing and I feel guilty I just ran away from her. But at the same time I can't deny I felt an overwhelming prompting to flee. So that whole situation has been troubling me and I haven't been able to fall asleep tonight. Anyway when I got back from the mall my cute husband was home and wanted to take me on one last date before the baby comes. We went and saw National Treasure 2 and tried out a new Mexican restaurant. It was really fun and I can't remember the last time we went to a movie. And Diane Kruger's wardrobe in that movie is to die for! This day has just made me realize how grateful I am for my husband, home, and our little baby on the way.

Why my cervix hates me

Today I had another doctor's appointment and this is how things went down.

Doctor: (Enters)
"So how are things going?"

Meredith:
"I am done, I am so over this pregnancy thing. I want my body back. I'm so bloated I didn't recognize my own face in a picture"

Doctor: (Laughs)
"Well, I have some news. I'm going to Mexico a week from tomorrow. So you can have your baby before 7 AM on Tuesday or else stay in bed and hope it doesn't come until I get back."

Meredith:
"Well, staying in bed wouldn't be that different from my current schedule (laughter at M's super funny joke). I would like to have the baby this week. I had an evil contraction on Sunday and some other symptoms (I wont write on line, it would be a total over share) and I think its getting close to go time."

Doctor:
"Well, if your cervix is dialated enough, I could fiddle around and try to get things going."

(Meredith readily agrees to the "fiddling around" and happily envisions having the baby in the next 24 hours)

Doctor checks Meredith

Doctor:
"Well, you are really thinned out but you aren't dialated enough, sorry."

Meredith curses her cervix and leaves the doctor's office to go walk around target in an attempt to get things moving. This plan did not work, Meredith was unable to will her body into labor. Meredith finally admitted defeat and went home.

I'm Sorry: The Saga of the Sandwich

The Setting:
Our Kitchen, 7:30ish

The Characters:
9 month pregnant completely irrational Meredith and poor unsuspecting husband Neil

The Dialogue:
Meredith "I just feeel awful, I can't make dinner"
Neil "Thats ok, I'll make dinner. What do you want? A sandwich"
Meredith "That hurts my stomach just thinking about"
Neil "Spaghetti?"
Meredith "Gross"
Neil "Rice? Mashed potatoes? Cereal?"
Meredith "No ewwww"
Neil "Do you want me to go get you something? Subway, McDonalds, Taco Bell"
Meredith "NO NO NO, just make yourself something and I will figure out what I want"
A minute later..
Meredith "I'll just have some noodles"
(Neil starts boiling water for the noodles, then gets out a left over breaded chicken breast, tomato sauce, cheese, and a sandwich roll. As Neil makes himself a sandwich Meredith smells the delicious aroma)
Meredith "Can I try your sandwich?"
Neil "Sure"
(Meredith hands Neil a knife to cut her off some of the sandwich)
Neil "This is really messy, why don't you just take a bite."
(Meredith looks crestfallen and takes a bite then hands the gourmet goodness back to Neil. Neil finishes his sandwich and Meredith promptly bursts into tears)
Neil "What is going on?"
Meredith, between sobs says "I wanted half of your sandwich, don't you care about me and the baby?"
Neil "I care. I'll go get you a sandwich from subway"
Meredith "Thats not the same, it is too late. You were selfish with your sandwich. I will just eat these plain dry noodles" (more sobbing)

Ok, when this all went down yesterday I thought I was being totally rational, doesn't food = love? It is only today that I realized I was behaving like a crazy person who expected her husband to read her mind. In all actuality hungry pregnant woman = psycho. To make my husband even more of a saint, he called today and invited me out on a lunch date, to make sure the baby and I recieved proper nourishment :)

Something strange occured last night.

For the past few weeks my schedule has been pretty set. It goes like this, do a chore then sit down and recover from said chore. A chore includes anything from doing the dishes, cooking dinner, laundry, or even blow drying my hair and putting on make up. But yesterday I was struck with a bunch of energy. I made a real dinner (this hasn't happened for a while), ate it and then felt compelled to scrub out the bathrooms. I expected to slip into a pregnancy coma after this but to my surprise I was still energized. It then became extremely important to finish scrap booking all of Little Baby Larson's ultra sounds. I think I had an unusual amount of sonograms because I ended up with 10 pictures. Is that normal? Still feeling refreshed I moved on to our honeymoon pictures. Then our pictures from dating and being engaged and I ended my evening printing out a bunch of wedding pictures before finally sucumbing to bed at well after 1 AM. Now I am not really a scrapbooker so I am guessing this was some sort of twisted nesting thing, but it is nice to have all the pictures pasted in and labeled.

Pregnant baby ramblings (sorry kinda boring)

Today was my last ultra sound before the baby is born! With my previous ultra sounds I had to go to an imaging center but this one was done right in my doctor's office. Lets just say their ultra sound machine is a little less than state of the art. I'm not even going to try to scan the picture they gave us because it is pretty much a cloudy mess. But little baby Larson is weighing in at 6 pounds 6 ounces and the doctor predicts she will be about 7 1/2 lbs. when she is born. Oh, and she is head down, I've been living in fear she would be breach, so I was greatly relieved. I also had a fear the umbilical cord would be around her neck but we are all good.

The last few doctor's visits I have been very nervous for the weigh in portion. Neil went with me today with strict instructions to keep his eyes off the scale (which he told me later he didn't do! Bad form husband, very bad form). Lately "the baby" has had some serious chocolate candy bar and McDonald's cheeseburger cravings (I heart happy meals :) and I was just waiting to face the consequences. But by some happy twist of fate I haven't gained any weight the last 3 weeks, I even lost one pound! Now lest some people get confused and start shouting "pregorexic, pregorexic!" my doctor told me it is totally normal and healthy to stop gaining weight at the end of pregnancy and lets face it that pound was probably water weight. While the baby is still gaining weight, extra fluids are starting to leave my body and it is all working out nicely. I just re-read that paragraph and realized I am totally a product of the fat obsessed society in which I live. Sorry, I didn't mean to be annoying, cultural programing strikes again!

Now. lets talk about how addicting the TV show Alias is! When I last had the flu some kind neighbors lent Neil and I season one and two and I am hooked. Where was I when this show was first on the air? Living in a bubble? And where has Sydney been for two years and who in the world did Vaughn marry? I went to blockbuster to try to obtain season 3 but all I could get my hands on was the end of season 4, which I watched totally out of order, much to the dismay of my husband.

And to wrap things up Neil and I watched the musical Carousel recently and that show is all kinds of warped. The last time I had watched it I was probably 9 and missed the whole spouse abuse theme! Neil keeps repeating the line, "Can someone hit you, really hard and it not hurt at all?" In Carousel, if this is in reference to your husband beating you, then the answer is "yes it doesn't hurt at all." Messed Up!

PS: My spell check and image adder are still not working, what is up with blogger?