Week 38--Summer in January?

When I found out I was pregnant and started "doing the math" figuring out our due date, my initial reaction when I found out we were having a January baby was "oh thank goodness! I won't be super pregnant when it's hot!" I hate the heat, I always have, so imagining being 9 months pregnant in the summer sounded like torture. Apparently the weather people did not get the memo that it is NOT supposed to be 85 degrees in January! It is like summer here, I've been in shorts and sandals all week, which just feels wrong! And yes, I think it feels hotter since I'm hauling around a bunch of extra weight. Hello swollen fingers and toes! Other than that though, week 38 has been pretty uneventful. The doctor doesn't seem to think baby is coming anytime in the next 7 days, which is probably best for a lot of reasons, but last night I was awoken with some strange twinges and aching in my lower abdomen which had me convinced labor was starting (it wasn't), so of course I laid awake for the next two hours unable to sleep. Luckily I am in the midst of reading John Steinbeck's East of Eden which is SUCH a good book--so much better than I expected, and long--several hundred pages--so it's keeping me entertained quite well for quite awhile as we wait for baby! So Steinbeck and I were bonding at 2 AM last night while I ate honey nut cheerios. It was quite the party!

I've spent a lot of time this week getting random things checked off my to do list, which has felt quite wonderful. The big baby-related ones are that we got our stroller assembled (and I am in LOVE with it--I cannot even begin to tell you how much I adore this stroller and how easy it is to use, assemble, fold, and carry), and we got our car seat installed. We had a professionally certified car seat specialist install it for us and show us how to work it to make sure that we weren't one of the 90% of people who apparently use their car seats wrong. That really is the statistic from the highway patrol. It was totally worth it to have our new friend Rick over at Baby Town walk us through the exact details of our specific car seat and how it will work in our specific car. If you're having a baby in the Northridge area, I'd highly recommend him--saved us a TON of time spent with manuals and guessing as to whether or not we'd gotten the base tight enough (he says people rarely do). So we're now driving around with a car seat which is making this baby thing seem VERY real! I've also been shopping for my Christmas gift from my parents--a glider/rocker for the baby's room, and I know what I want, it's just a matter of finding out who sells the brand I'm looking for around here. Hopefully I'll be ordering it today though and it should be arriving next week which will be fantastic. Other little things I'm working on getting done this week are things I just won't take time for in the next month or so. Like a hair cut, and maybe a pedicure (I didn't think I'd need one in January but apparently January is the new June here and I'll be barefoot a lot!)

We finally visited the DMV this morning and took our written tests to get our California drivers licenses back and get our car registered, so it feels fantastic having that checked off the list as well. I also realized I was 2 years behind on my family photo albums, and before I get inundated with baby pictures in 2012 I figured I should get caught up. So the other day I finished our 2010 family album and I'm getting started on our 2011 album. I create them on line using Shutterfly.com which has been great, so easy to use, and I love the way they turn out. My goal is to finish the 2011 album and order that before our munchkin comes since once we have him we'll have more photos than we know what to do with! Oh yeah, and I'm also camera shopping this week...we always said we wanted to invest in a nice camera when we had kids. Well we're having a kid soon, so I figured I should actually work on this! So it's been a full week, lots of running errands and on line research, but it's been fun to cross things off the list that I always said I wanted to do.

This Sunday the youth department is throwing us a baby shower at the church which we are very excited about and honored by, so I've been given strict instructions not to have this baby before then! Otherwise we're sharing meals with two different couples which we are very much looking forward to, and I'm hoping my husband gets some good beach time in on Saturday morning--he's been working so hard trying to get things squared away for the month of youth programs so when he does need to take some days off he's not stressed about who is running youth group that night etc. He also moved offices last week and has a great space set up that is much larger than his previous space, so that's been a lot of work too--getting that set up and arranged how he wants it.

Anyways, I'm off to go get dinner started, but I hope you're enjoying your week wherever you are! And that it feels a little like winter for some of you!