Last Day of Work...

As of tomorrow, the state is finally going to recognize me for what I am... "disabled".
Although to some, the thought of being done with work for over 3 months might seem enticing, I am honestly not excited about it...yet. I am not sure what I am going to do with my time, but I told my students to look for me lurking outside the bushes at school.

The one problem I know I would like to tackle in the next week or so is the enormous job of keeping my husband fed when the new baby arrives. I am planning on cooking for a few days straight, and finding meals that I can freeze in individual storage containers that he can take out and eat when he needs his 11th meal for the day. I am also going to pick up the take-out menus and some gift cards for local restaurants so he can order food occasionally as well. It's a fair trade-off. If I keep him fed, he helps with pretty much everything else around the house, so I need to make sure I can keep up this arrangement when the work load is going to triple.

Another Dr's. appointment on Wednesday, at which point they are going to pull me off the medications to stop contractions, so after that, there will be no stopping labor if it should come. We'll see what happens!

Help?

So Charley talked to his friend Adrian today, who just had a baby less than 3 weeks ago, and the overall theme of the conversation was HELP WANTED! Adrian suggested hiring a maid, a dog watcher, and enlisting anyone with nothing better to do to come help out with the baby. Not to mention figuring out how and what to eat for a few weeks while adjusting to life with the new baby. I think Charley and I knew this would require some work, but I think it scared him a little!

So despite the down-turned economy, the good news is Charley and I will be accepting applications for employment openly, but please note that you will have to pass through an interview and background check before you will officially be hired. Either that, or we might resort to begging at some point!

Kaelyn's Room

I love having a computer again!

Here are some updated pictures of the nursery. We still have a few details left, but nothing that can't wait in case she decides to come early. My mom is sewing a window valance, we still need some closet organizers, but things are starting to come together!

NASTY!

This is what my foot looks like at 3:00 everyday. I promise this is not from a corpse. It is my foot, and although it repulses people, I am actually quite proud of it!

Due to request, here is a somewhat updated picture of the belly. This was actually taken about 2 weeks ago, so the belly is bigger now, but I thought I would post this one first.

Charley and I, and Erin and Jeff, went to a "parent's" swap meet today that was awesome! It was a local organization that puts together a gigantic venue for people to come and sell their new and used baby supplies. There were probably 200 vendors there, and we found some great stuff! We aren't exactly sure out of all the stuff you register for what is essential and what you can live without, so we bought a few things that we didn't register for fairly inexpensively to try out. We got one of those jumpers that attaches in the doorway for $8, a brand new shopping cart cover, an activity mat, and Charley's favorite, he got one of those Kelty backpacks (they look like hiking backpacks for men, but you put the baby in it!) Apparently they are very expensive, but we got a bargain at $15! We had a great time!

Ok, we FINALLY got our new computer. We had to order it, wait for it to ship, wait for a company to transfer all of our data from the old computer to the new one, take it to work to load the Microsoft package, and finally, it is in the back of my car ready to take home.

Stay tuned for lots of exciting news and pictures, inlcuding the picture of my foot which looks like it belongs to a 400 lb. corpse. Exciting Times! I hope to have some new posts this weekend!

My first trip to the 5th floor

I again apologize profusely for not posting recently, but our computer crashed and it took about 2 weeks for Charley and I to settle the Mac vs. PC debate. Good news is I won that little battle, so the new Dell should be arriving shortly, but no pictures until then.

I had an interesting day last Wednesday. It started off at 7:15 in the morning as I went frantically back up the stairs to get something I had forgotten. Unfortunately, I was wearing flip-flops and about 3/4 of the way up the stairs, my foot did not manage to land exactly on the stair, causing me to fall out of my flip-flop and fall down the stairs. We have a wood banister that runs about half-way up the staircase, so in falling, I hit my back on the wood molding that runs along the base of the stairs.

While laying on the bottom of the stairs, my husband, in his infinite wisdom, proceeded to tell me that the dog had saved my life. He reasoned that it was a good thing that Gromit had chewed the corner of the molding into a dull rounded edge, otherwise, I might have landed on a much sharper corner. Hmmm... remind me to thank the dog when I get up.

I didn't really think too much of the fall, since anyone who knows me well would probably not consider this occasion out of the ordinary. But when I arrived at work, all the concerned women said I needed to call my Dr. immediately. So I did. Only to be met with the phrase "you need to go check yourself into the 5th floor." The 5th floor, for those like me who have no idea what she was referring to, is the labor and delivery wing.

Really long story (5 hours) short. I checked myself in. The baby's heartbeat was fine. They noticed I was having contractions about every 4 minutes. I got a shot to stop the contractions, but it makes you feel like you have just ingested 12 pots of coffee. 20 minutes later I got another one of those lovely shots. 20 minutes later I got a third shot. Although the contractions were probably not "real" and not a result of the fall, they have to be careful and now I am on medication every 6 hours, which includes waking myself up at 2:30 a.m. to take the medicine which is allegedly supposed to relax my uterine muscles, but I still have these "practice" contractions all day long.

The good news, however, is that I got a nice tour of the 5th floor, so when the real event happens, I am now familiar with the territory!

30 weeks and counting and the adventure continues!