At 29 you'd think I'd know better

woo hoo, I'm at 29 weeks! Almost 3/4 way through (or maybe already, depending on when BabyX decides to make her appearance). So far, I still say it's not as bad as I thought it would be.

The childbirth class through our hospital IS as bad as I thought it would be, and maybe worse, unfortunately. And I signed up for the 7 week series thinking it would be better to spread it out. Sigh.

We spend part of the time pretending like we're in labor and contorting ourselves into different positions on chairs, exercise balls, and the floor. On the bright side, our partners rub our backs. The other part of the time is spent staring at various posters around the room with pictures I'd rather not see, "sharing our feelings" in stupid small group exercises, or watching disgusting movies. And this is after only 2 classes... I can only hope it gets better.

This week's topic is "pushing and delivery of baby", plus as an extra added bonus, episiotomy (if you don't know what that is, do yourself a favor and DON'T look it up), and medication. I will say I am genuinely interested in DRUGS, so I'm wondering if it might be worth showing up late. Because there is no way I am going to watch a movie of women giving birth. Last week's movie of women writhing around in labor pain (with no drugs!) was bad enough. TJ and I actually left the room at one point (and we weren't alone.) Ick.

In a few weeks we'll actually cover some useful topics like "hey what do I do with this thing now that it's here?" and "hey, how do I feed this screaming bundle of joy?". That I'm actually looking forward to.

My company also offers a short list of FREE baby-related classes, so we're signed up for those. The feeding one was surprisingly useful and non-touchy-feely and not disgusting, despite the unsettling presence of a reversible anatomically-correct plush model of a breast. But I did take about 4 pages of notes there (in my awesome new pink Moleskine notebook!) so I'm glad we went.

Once again, I respectfully request that no one leaves any childbirth stories in the comments, unless it is something like "it was so easy, and better than Disneyland". kthxbai!

Wherever I lay down to sleep

Spike is awesome. In any given room of the house, he'll zero in on the comfiest place to nap. I think his first preference is in a sunbeam, because I've seen him lie on the hardwood floor just to get some sun. If that's not available, he'll find the softest, squishiest place to sleep - the couch, or if there is a pillow on the couch, on top of the pillow. He's also been known to sleep in a little nest of clothes at the bottom of TJ's closet. I guess the fleece sweatshirts were too much to resist.

We recently bought Peanut a new bed for our bedroom, because he had been repeatedly waking us up in the middle of the night to try and entice us to go downstairs and sleep with him in Dog Bed (the only bed he's allowed on in the house). Of course, TJ being the softie he is, actually gave in a few times, which encourages Peanut to do this often. But we thought the root cause of the issue might be that Peanut's current bed wasn't squishy enough, and in his old age (all of 7 years old) he might like a more cushiony bed. So we used our handy giftcard to Petsmart (gift from Mom and Dad - thanks guys!) to buy him a big new foam bed.



Turns out this bed is very popular these days. Spike decided to claim it for his own, even though it's about 4x his size. (It's sitting in front of the baby's crib, to give you an idea of how big this bed is.) TJ tries to get Spike to stay off it, but I don't really care, as long as Peanut sleeps in it at night. (Peanut doesn't typically nap in his bed during the day - he prefers to nap wherever he falls down, or in dark corners.) Also, I think Spike looks adorable sleeping in the upper left corner of this huge bed. He sprawls out on it like he's a king.

Peanut is nonconfrontational about sleeping space, so we do need to boot Spike off the bed when it's nighttime. But during the day, everyone seems to be happy with this shared arrangement. You gotta love beagles :)

Dancin days are here again

Another season of "So You Think You Can Dance" is upon us. And I am oddly compelled to watch it. Thank god for TiVo so I can fast forward through all the crying and Mary Murphy's heavily-botoxed screaming.

But it's perfect guilty pleasure TV, and it turns out I'm not alone in watching it - lots of my Facebook buddies do too, and amazingly, some of my geeky coworkers as well. Awesome.

The dancers are pretty amazing - I guess as the series does more seasons, more (and better) people try out. And I can sit on the couch with my round pregnant self, eating pie and watching other people exert themselves. Yippee.

So I'm somewhere around 6 months now and I think I finally *look* pregnant, not just like I'm hitting the donuts too hard. It's still not as bad as I thought it would be, but I'm also still not like "OMG! Miracle of Life!" BabyX and I have a peaceful coexistence, but someday I'd like my normal size feet back.

Thanks to the miracle of the Internet and sheer luck, I've got 30 Etsy orders pending. Which is scary and cool at the same time. So I'm gonna stop wasting time and work on them. Yay.

There is a season

Hey! I think it might actually be spring in Seattle. Or, god forbid, SUMMER?! We've had the a/c in the bedroom running for the past several days because it's 80 degrees plus in the house (and of course our bedroom *would* be on the top floor, with all that rising heat.)

So my friends Carl and Shannon had their triplet babies last week and all seems to be well with them. How exciting!

BabyX is doing fine. If all goes well, we won't get any more ultrasounds, so I just have to believe that something is going on in there. If it weren't for the increasing roundness and weird occasional pokes from the inside of my belly, I still mostly wouldn't realize I was pregnant. Very odd. But this is the best possible scenario for me given my previous lack of enthusiasm for *being pregnant*. (I'm still waiting for the day when Amazon Fresh can deliver one fully-baked BabyX.)

I had a meeting at work today with some of the technical architects that I work with on a regular basis, and told them I was going on leave in Sept. As usual, it was me in a meeting room full of guys, so I knew they wouldn't get all squealy and stuff (other women seem to get all squealy and excited when I tell them about BabyX). But they were very nice about it, and said they would miss me, and couldn't I postpone until December :D So that was cool. It's hard to believe that I'll only be working for about 3.5 more months before I go out on leave for 5 *whole months*. Seriously, I've never had five months off from work or school, since I was about 4 :)

Of course, it's probably not going to be all that much fun, or relaxing. Surely educational, though. And interesting.

But I digress. I finally washed some of the baby clothes I got - the hand me downs from friends and the one new outfit I bought, which was a very adorable dog-print onesie (100% cotton, of course).

And of course, as with all sexist baby clothing, the cute mutt dogs are printed on what's clearly meant to be "boy's" clothes, with their blue and brown accents. The "girl's" clothes are always pink with butterflies and flowers. So annoying. I love pink as much as the next gal, but don't little girls like dogs? If you find a dog at all, it's usually some snooty little poodle, or *maybe* a scottie dog. You never see cute bulldogs or Rottweilers on baby girl clothes. Grrr.

But that's why I love Etsy - there's a ton of cute onesies there, with dashchunds and all sorts of puppies. And geek sayings! So awesome.

My mom is coming this weekend and of course we'll do some baby clothes shopping, and on the list is the Hanna Andersson outlet - lots of bright primary colors and less of the "pink for her, blue for him" philosophy. At full price, it's really expensive stuff, but I'm hoping we can find some cute things at the outlet. Wish us luck!

Give it away, give it away, give it away now

I'm sure there's some more elegant way to cross-post between blogs, but I've written a new post in my 1000 Markets blog about my crafty charity project this weekend.

In other news, my fabulous husband cleaned out our hot tub this weekend so I could soak in it. It's got a temperature control so we've got it set low, because among the other 87,000 things you're not supposed to do when pregnant, sitting in a 101+ degree hot tub is another. They should issue some sort of handbook with a positive pregnancy test - "The HUGE List of Things You Can No Longer Do". Of course, maybe that's a consequence of having kids, too. Sigh.

I'm getting rounder and huger by the minute, but am looking forward to wearing my shiny new maternity clothes.

Must go pack up a couple more Anandi's Laboratory orders. One from Amazon.com (finally, yay!), one from 1000Markets, and one from Etsy. Yippee.