The baby

The baby is due in 16 days - eeeek!  How is it that you can be pregnant for 9 months but it all still seems so surreal.  I have been feeling pretty good and I suppose things are going well.  No real problems.  The baby has dropped down into position - so the good news is that I can breathe after walking up the stairs, not so good news is that the baby is doing a headstand on my bladder.  Oh well.  I prefer to breathe.
Another good thing is that Christmas shopping is done.  I should remember that this is easier when it's all done ahead of time for next year when there is no baby birthing time bomb about to go off and get it all done ahead of time anyway, I say that every year though.  I switched practices with this pregnancy and am now seeing midwives and I think they are great (and very funny).  It's so much more relaxed than the other practice, I guess things just take care of themselves and they just check in occasionally to make sure things are OK on the outside.
There are 3 potential midwives that will help me deliver at MCV Hospital.  The first one I met was younger, she was OK but not the warmest log in the fire.  The 2nd one I met is fantastic, she is an older British woman and she kisses me on the head and squeezes my arm on the way out the door.  She is like a friendly Nanny McPhee.  The 3rd one I only met last week and she was great too. Our friends had her on duty while they delivered and apparently he thought his wife was dying and she was knitting in the corner.  So, it'll be an experience.
I'm finding it hard to wait here at the end.  I am stuck between thinking - let's just get this going and hold up, I'm not ready yet.  Very conflicting.  The boys seem to be excited though and Sam kissed my belly before he went to bed tonight.  We moved the boys in together and they seem to be doing well. Oliver is assigned to the top bunk by Sam which I think he doesn't love,  but he likes being in the same room as Sam so it works OK.  The baby's room is right next to the boys' room so we are hoping (against hope) that they won't all wake each other up. I do hope that Oliver adjusts well to the new arrival.  He still misses Sam when he's at school so I think it will be hard for him since feeding etc takes so long with newborns.  If I make it to my due date, the boys will be on winter break when the baby comes, which is tough for me, but it will make it better for them.

I would love to post a belly shot in here but can't seem to figure out how to access it and I haven't got the patience to try and find it - next time

Jack Jack

Douthat State Park

It was a very long summer. Late Spring I found out I was pregnant. I was so sick with this pregnancy, from morning until night. I felt icky all day and then around 4:00 I was positively ill. Luckily Joel usually came home around 5:30 so I only had to survive an 1 1/2 before I could go off duty. We decided to call the baby Jack Jack. Sam and Oliver were very into The Incredibles at the time and because I was so ill we called the baby Jack Jack to explain that just like the movie, our little baby could turn into fire or a ball of lead and make me very sick. This was as clear as we could make it. I would tell them that Jack Jack was on fire and that meant I needed to be left alone until he turned back into a regular baby. I realize that it probably only made sense to a 5 and a 3 year old but at least it worked.  We have been debating about whether or not to move Oliver into Sam's room and when I talked to Ollie about it he said, "I don't think that it would be very good to have him in there and then turn into fire."  I guess the explanation needs to be clarified so that he doesn't actually think that our baby will burn our house down.

This summer was also a ridiculously obscenely awful heat wave. I don't really like being hot at the best of times and this was just the pits. Joel always says that he doesn't really understand why it snows when he can't go and play in it, I have to say the same about the hot weather. This summer it was so hot you couldn't play outside, so while it was nice to look out the window at the beautiful day it wasn't really useful. We may as well have been in a blizzard but at least then you could have bundled up, you can only take off so many clothes before someone calls the cops.  It did have the World Cup in it which is a fun time in our house

Brookgreen Gardens

Once I found out I was pregnant I signed the boys up for every imaginable camp to try to give them something to do while I felt so awful.  We joined the pool, which turned out to be a necessity.  We went to Charlotte to see Phish, Asheville to see fireworks on the 4th of July and Pawleys to see the ocean.  Sam started swimming laps at the pool and Oliver got his own big boy furniture for his bedroom.  Now it seems that it's getting chilly and with every drop in temperature my mood is improving. Now, I am going to have to come up with a new web address for the blog now that we are going to be the 5 Simpsons...

Yay!

I'd forgotten my log in, but here I am (clearly need to blog more often). More to come...