Things that make pregnant girls happy.

Yeah, so if you haven't had these yet, you're missing out. If you live somewhere without access to them, I'm really sorry. REALLY sorry.

Brownie is cooking away, and showing no indication of vacating the premises. Procrastination is apparently a hardcore genetic trait.

Back in September...

My good friend Lauren (who is already Auntie Lala to precious little James, and will be Auntie Lala to the Brownie as well) came into Atlanta for a little reunion weekend before, you know, our lives change forever. That's us in the top photo. She was able to arrive in time to attend a fabulous shower thrown at the MonkeyBean Mansion. Having friends who are photographers is very helpful, and Melissa ROCKS for taking these amazing pictures, even though it meant she didn't show up in any of them. BOO! I'll let them speak for themselves, with just a little captioning for fun.

Here you see Kinsley, with her extremely awesome cupcake, and also the tissue pompoms that Melissa & Julie made - three of them are going to be installed today (!) in the baby's room.

And here are Julie & Natalie working hard on making little bibs for the Brownie. You can almost tell that Natalie is pregnant in this picture, but now she's not! (Baby Avery arrived on the 18th - yay!)

A little depressing French music for your morning...

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

Soon and very soon...

...bunches of things will be checked off the non-baby-related to do list. They all swirled around this week (ugh), so after I present at the National Council for the Social Studies conference tomorrow morning (and you KNOW folks are just lining up to see a 9AM presentation on a Saturday), the work that's left can largely be called "fun."

Until then...

Because Amy asked so nicely...

Here is the most recent decent picture of the Brownie. We've had one more since this one, but even the midwife who "took" it said that it looked more like a Halloween decoration than a baby. Turns out this 3-D technology isn't perfected, and if some other body part is in front of the face, you get a spooky image. This one is actually from September - sorry.

At this point, the Brownie was head up (boo!), but now s/he has complied with modern medical practice, and is head down, so that's one less reason to end up with a very unwanted c-section (yay!). At the last appointment, I also got to watch him/her doing practice breathing, which is pretty cool to see.

We have had several lovely showers, and people have been very generous, so we feel like we're in good shape for the Brownie's arrival in about a month. I managed to forget the camera at every single one of the showers, so I am at the mercy of others to have the time to download photos and send them to me. I am being patient, since I still have photos from APRIL on my camera. Ugh.

I am aiming for massive progress in the Brownie's room this weekend - we moved a bunch of furniture out and did some rearranging on Halloween (in between giving uncostumed teenagers one piece of candy each - boo again!), so it's almost time for the decorating & organizing, which we all know is my favorite part, vastly preferable to actual cleaning. You might get lucky and get to see the results of that in photographic form, but it also might be March before that happens.

Happy Wednesday!

Assorted news.

To answer the questions of our adoring fans....

I am feeling fine. Not great, exactly, but fine. Way better than earlier in the summer when sleep was my sole activity. I am VERY fortunate to have work that allows me to sleep a little bit later, and work in bursts rather than sit in a cube and try to function. And, of course, it is MUCH easier than feeling this way with a roomful of seven year olds.

The Brownie will be a surprise, gender-wise. Everyone has varying opinions about what they think, some based on actual evidence (the overabundance of female cousins in our families) and some based on proximity (everyone else is having a girl so I am having a boy). It will be interested to see who is correct!

Name wise, things are up in the air. Because we both teach, a LOT of names are eliminated due to unfortunate connotations. Of course, I never intended to give my child a name with three capital letters and multiple apostrophes, but even those old standbys like Justin and Joshua bring back shudders. (All elementary teachers know that the J-names are never a good sign.) One friend of ours is calling the baby Oswald. I can also guarantee you that is not on the list.

I am so ready for it to be fall that it's not funny. I am saying this even though I do not have one single pair of maternity jeans that fits, so my jeans-and-sweater uniform is potentially going to have to be on sabbatical this year. We'll see what happens.

Happy Wednesday!

Hello, Internet.

(For the two of you who were worried, the mail lady battle continued, but I persevered. The mail box has now been relocated to the other side of the porch, and the "tree" is no longer Public Enemy #1. I just roll my eyes at the mail lady.)

Questions on Sunday afternoon:
1) Why do I get six or seven bug bites every time I am outside for longer than 10 minutes? Note that this is not pregnancy-related; it has happened for years.

2) Why did a bunch of yellow jackets decide to build their nest inside our bedroom window frame? Operation Yellow Jacket Removal is in progress, which means I have to sleep in the other bedroom. I do not like change.

3) Is the destruction of Yellow Jackets any indication of the result of the UGA/Tech game come Thanksgiving weekend? At that point I will be 9.5 months pregnant, so I doubt I will care.

4) Why is growling suddenly the preferred method of communication for my Sunday School class? I do not like having to say things like, "Speak, don't growl," repeatedly.

5) Why are vanilla malts not considered part of a balanced diet? There has to be a way to put vitamins in them, so that they are like broccoli, only yummy.

That is all for now.

Note to the mail "lady"

1) Delevry is not a word.  It is spelled d-e-l-i-v-e-r-y, which I would think you should know, given your line of work.

2) The "tree" in question is a hibiscus plant.  It's not currently blooming, so I'll give you an exemption for not being able to identify it from its leaves alone, but by no means does it look like a "tree."

3) It is not in your way. At all. And yes, I am going to cut it back, as requested by your stupid note, because otherwise you won't deliver my mail, and I'm not in the mood for that. But know that I am VERY underwhelmed with you.  Just as I was underwhelmed with you LAST summer for demanding that I trim this very same plant WHILE IT WAS BLOOMING.  You claimed the bees were going to "get you." Newsflash - bees will leave you alone if you leave them alone. I swear, I must not have taught your flailing around crazy self in second grade, because if I taught my students anything, it was to LEAVE BEES ALONE.  I digress.

4) You should be grateful that I am working on patience, because you almost got attacked by a crazy pregnant lady, had I not taken a deep breath and counted to 1293837423847438748.

The end.