My Funny, Funny Family

35 weeks

We had our final baby shower today. It was so much fun and we got some really nice things. We have really been lucky. With all these gifts, there remain only a few essentials for us to buy for the Monkey. Which is good because we will need our money for surviving my months without pay.
Bert threw the shower for us at her apartment and just about everyone we invited came, except for Dave and Alli who just had their baby 2 weeks ago so we weren't exactly expecting them. Bert had decorations outside her front door, flowers and decorations inside, and she made all kinds of yummy food and TWO cakes and of course, punch. She had made really adorable invitations with rubber duckies on them, so to keep with the avian theme she bought little yellow peeps and put them on top of the punch. they totally sat there on all the foam and it was really cute. Sensing the duck theme from the invites, i made ducky shaped sugar cookies, which was way harder than I expected. The dough was practically impossible to work with and i was using a homemade cookie cutter erik fashioned out of wire, which was very clever of him, but it was more difficult than using a real cookie cutter.
Wendy and Kay, my two other pregnant friends, were both there, and we all had a good old time talking pregnancy. Actually since I'm a trimester ahead of them it was mostly me answering questions. At one point Kay asked if i was getting tired of talking about myself, and I was like, no way! Since all i think about is being pregnant and the impending delivery and motherhood, it was great to get together with people who are really interested in my ramblings. Kay is due in September and Wendy is in August, so hopefully i will get to hang out with both with our babies before i go back to work in the fall.
One of the games at the party was guessing the answers to questions about us and the baby, from when we met to where the baby was conceived (yikes!) One person put Erik's birthday camping trip, another put houseboat. Both wrong, of course. I'm pretty sure the truth is a lot more boring than that.
As usual the monkey barely kicked at all at the party, even though she was very active both before and after. I know that when i am moving around she tends to go to sleep, but after the shower when we were just sitting around in Bert's living room relaxing she still wouldn't do much. It occured to me that maybe when I'm talking it lulls her to sleep, because whenever i'm in social situations she tends to be quiet. I was trying to get her to move so Bert could feel it. She did kick a couple times and Beegs and Wendy got to feel it, but Bert was in the kitchen getting more of the lovely food so she missed it.
We got some really adorable clothes, a cool homemade hat, homemade burp cloths (so pretty i hate to let her use them for their intended purpose!), a couple of really clever books, and some items from our must-have list such as the boppy breastfeeding pillow and the baby gym, and the baby bathtub. We also received a tree that is to grow up along with the monkey, from Sarah. She said it won't need to go into the ground for a few years, which is good because we may not have a yard for a few years. All we really need now are the Baby Bjorn and car seat carrier, which i have seen on Craigslist, rocking chair, whcih is probably also coming off craigslist, a few odds and ends off our registry, which we have gift cards to pay for, and a video camera. We need a few more infant-sized clothes, but Tom at work has promised me lots of tiny girl clothes as his baby, born right before Chrismas, grows out of them. We will probably not have to buy a single item of clothing until Christmas then, because she has LOTS of 3-6 sized clothes and plenty of 6-9 too.
As people were saying goodbye at the shower a few wished me luck in the delivery if they didnt' see me before then. With less than five weeks till my due date, and with me getting out less, I realized that I probably won't see many of them until i'm a mother. it was a strange feeling, kind of like saying goodbye. when i look forward to the end of pregnancy, i think more about leaving work, my parents arriving, and the delivery itself, than i do about being a mother and having an irrevocably changed life. i think i just can't really get my head around that one, so i focus on the changes i can understand.
Erik and I made our birth plan last night. This is how we spend our saturday nights these days, pretty hot, i know. We're using the form the doctor gave me, and mostly just using it to explain a few requests we have related to hypnotic childbirth, like asking the staff not to offer me pain medication or talk to me while i'm having a contraction. The one request that i'm not sure will be approved is delaying eye drops and tests for an hour so we have time to bond. I'm not sure what their policy is on that, but I the Dr. Sears baby book said that you should really delay the eye drops because they blur the baby's vision and during that first hour after birth is when the baby will be awake, taking a good look at Mama's face, and imprinting. After an hour, Dr. Sears says, they fall asleep, so you have to make use of that hour.
You know, i have been lucky enough to have a very easy pregnancy, but let me stop and complain for a minute: I am so itchy! I feel like i used to when i came home from camp as a kid all covered in mosquito bites. Some of it is from stretching skin, i'm sure, but i've also broken out in hives all across my chest, and i get these itchy red patches all over. i just had to stop typing and put hydrocortisone on the bottom of my foot. dr. said to use that. all this is totally normal, of course, i guess because of hormones, although i'm not totally clear on that.
OK, whining session's over. I won't even go into how sore my hips get at night, to the point where i have to get up and walk around even when i DON'T have to go to the bathroom. On a more positive note, one of the dads at erik's work, a fellow subaru owner, showed him how to properly install the car seat. now let's hope no one wants to break the car window for that. they did break our window 2 weeks ago, and tried to steal the stereo, but succeeded only in breaking it. they did take a Maglight, a burned copy of Fast Food Nation, and Hazel's "Mozart for the Developing Mind." Poor kid isn't even born yet and already a robbery victim. But really, all they got is so not worth the cost of a broken window. if only we could have paid them to go away instead. and apparently the alarm never went off.