No Rest for the Pregnant.

I slept sitting up last night. Actually, "slept" is hardly the right word. I "dozed"...no, "rested" last night sitting up. The heartburn was pretty awful as I went to bed, and then throughout the night the contractions kept waking me up. They weren't painful per se, it just became harder to breathe as my entire thorax constricted for minutes at a time. Sometimes the baby would even try to squirm during these episodes. *sigh*

This meant I stayed in bed late this morning ("late" for me on work days is 6:00am). Which meant I drove to work. Which meant I overpaid for parking, which means I am going to be in very big trouble with my spouse. Happily I brought home-chai instead of visiting Starbucks, so the trip downtown will still be a net gain...by about $3.00, but who's counting!?

31 Weeks.

So, like, what happened? If this baby goes full term she'll be here in...9 weeks? That's like...two months. What the hell.

Anyway, little Violet has made tremendous progress these past weeks and months! She's now about 3.5 pounds, and 18 inches long from head to toe! (!!!) She's very strong and active (as evidenced by the constant feets/knees/elbows bruising my belly and ribs) and we're confident she'll be a delightful little person just like her brother.

My stomach is stretched unbelievably. It's difficult to imagine she will gain another four or five pounds. I don't know how there can possibly be enough room.

I also have braxton-hicks contractions all the time, and am quite convinced that she will be here a little early. (But watch -- now that I've put that in print, she'll be 10 days late. :D)

Anyway, we're plugging along nicely as baby grows and grows (and Mommy too). We're getting really excited about meeting our little girl!

Preparing Her Escape

We went to the hospital yesterday for a follow-up ultrasound. Here's what we learned:

1. The baby is now pointing in the right direction (down). I don't know why she wants to be upside-down for two months, but there you go.

2. The placenta, which was inconveniently located between baby and outside world, has moved into a more strategic position. This is very good news for us because it significantly lessens the chance that Nicole will need a C-section, which, while it is pretty routine, is still surgery and therefore kind of a drag.

3. The baby has been confirmed as a girl. Apparently, there are more false positives on girls than boys, for obvious reasons, but this was the second ultrasound tech to say "yep, looks like a girl". Which is good news for Grandma Gail as she's spent the last few weeks sewing "VIOLET" into a quilt (although we may have been willing to go with "Vincent" to spare her having to completely start over).

My Kingdom for a Girl Scout.

(Cookie, that is.)

I am so put out. Where are all the girl scouts? They sold cookies for what, like, 3 days? How am I supposed to make it through this pregnancy on only ONE lone box of thin mints?

If I'd known they were speed-selling, I'd have bought in bulk.

Wretched little pony-tailers. Harrumph.

(Face) Firsts

Last weekend, Wilson showed us that he'd figured out a new trick. Nicole and I were in the bedroom cleaning and Little Man was running around the basement. At one point, we noticed that he was being very quiet (during awake times, that means "up to something"). I went to investigate and found him... In his crib! I called Nicole and took him out and put him back on the floor so he could show us how he did it, which he was very happy to do: Grabbing onto his crib, he'd climbed first up the rocking chair footstool (which also rocks), then up the armrest of the rocking chair, at which point he threw himself face first over his crib wall and landed (also face first) with a smile on his mattress. It was an impressive performance and one I would've had repeated for videotape if it wasn't for the "how I broke my neck" impression of the landing. Afterward, we did a little baby room reordering.

Ooops.

We were very sorely mistaken. McSheep's name is not, in fact, McSheep. It's BAAAA! Not "baaa" or "Baaa" but "BAAAAA!!!" (complete with exclamation points).

Josh clued into the fact that Wilson had named him yesterday or the day before. And it's reasonable. Wilson knows what a sheep is, and what a sheep says. But we think it's pretty hysterical that the first creature Wilson named was done so with its own punctuation and volume control. If we want Wilson to go get McSheep, we have to say, "Wilson, where is BAAAAAAA!!!?" We sound like idiots, but he knows what we mean!

Good baby!

Punching Babies.

So apparently we failed to apprise y'all of Wilson's first schoolyard fight. Yes, it's true. At daycare a few weeks ago, Wilson came home sporting his very first black eye. While the daycare didn't see the altercation, so they aren't 100% sure of the details, their best guess is that Wilson was playing with a toy and another kid tried to take it away. Wilson resisted, and during the tug-of-war he won, but got the toy in the eye as it sprang out of the other kid's hands. Wilson was also bitten during this "fight".

Not to worry. It's actually not the first time a kid tried to take something from him and he resisted, resulting in a bite mark. We're glad he isn't timid with other children, and if that means he comes home with some swollen eyes and teeth marks now and again, we're okay with that.

We're sorry the pictures don't reflect how truly brutally purple his eye became. It was totally cool. But we're sure there will be a next time! Good baby!

New Pictures.

Hey folks, here are some photos from February and early March. We're trying to get back up to speed on recording Wilson's antics. We also need to get some belly pictures in before a) it gets too hot and b) I get too fat.

A few quick notes on the photos before you go:

• Can you tell Wilson likes to read?
• His black eye got much, much blacker after we took these.
• The raking pictures were taken about 14 seconds before we were devoured by ravenous mosquitos.
• Yes, those hideous brown and orange monstrosities are my shoes, and yes, I like them.
  

Wilson and Friends (3/10/08)