9th month

my due date is oct 18, so i now have one month left. well, as it's week 36, four to six weeks left, and i'm counting on six weeks until d-day. starting on monday, i'll have weekly midwife appointments. sleeping has been really rough. i went to bed last night around 12:45am, and just couldn't sleep any longer past 6:15. i got up, surfed online a bit, and then went swimming. it was the second time this week... i went on tuesday for the first time since may. being in the water felt good, but i felt a little like a tugboat with my huge belly. coming OUT of the water was not fun at all. that's when i suddenly noticed the difference between my belly semi-floating in the water, giving my abdominal muscles a rest, and having to support the whole extra 20 pounds. i wish i could be that weightless all the time.
i'm still working on the teaching project, but it should be done sooner than i had though, as i discovered the efficiency of copy/paste options. other projects i need to do include putting wedding photos - the ones taken with the little cameras on the tables - into an album, and cooking a bunch of meals to be frozen. we have our last childbirth class this weekend at ohsu - childbirth a-z. it's 10-3 tomorrow, & 12-5 on sunday. pretty intense. we're feeling pretty ready at this point, and i'm definitely ready to eat carbs again! here are some pics of some kind, thoughtful gifts from some of my students...

dad's birthday

on saturday night, we celebrated my dad's birthday. he actually had his birthday while in italy, so this was a belated celebration. i got to cheat on the diabetic diet, and enjoyed the strawberry birthday cake.

sleepless.

every night, now, it seems i get up around 4 am & stay up for an hour or two. sleeping gets just too painful. my hips, belly, & everything else just hurts too much to continue lying down, and i'm just not tired. so i get up, surf online a bit, & then get back to work on a teaching project. i have yet to have found a scale book i like for my students, with the fingerings i want, and i'm tired of wasting lesson time marking in fingerings & writing things out. so my big pre-delivery project is creating my own, using the "sibelius" software. it had a bit of a learning curve to it in terms of figuring out how to adapt it to my needs, but i think i have everything ironed out now, after some long searches on chat rooms. it's a rather large project... something like close to 66 pages i need to create, and each page can take up to an hour. it includes one octave & 3 octave scales, arpeggios, 3rds, 6ths, & octaves in each key, major & minor. lots to keep me busy before junior arrives. my hands & arms are already sore from this weekend's typing. fun times. and i didn't help things by peeling & slicing this summer's harvest of apples from our apple tree. they were too wormy & small to prep using the apple peeler/corer/slicer, so i had to do it all by hand. so far it's made 3 fillings worth of apple crisp. i froze the fillings in freezer bags, but molded into 8x8" glass pans, so all i have to do is take them out of the bag & dump on some crisp topping & then bake. ready-made dessert for after baby mothra is here. of course i'd much prefer to eat them now, but that's illegal with my diet, so i'll have to wait. j was super busy this weekend, mainly occupied with trying to fix some problems created by an electrician, installing the infant car seat bases in our cars, assembling a cradle loaned to us by friends, & other random chores. he got a lot done, though, and got to play at beacon rock all sunday. i hope i can sleep soon. my teaching schedule, although lighter than last year, is still enough that i feel i barely have the energy for it, especially with my sleeping. i'm lucky to be able to sleep in in the morning if i DO have really bad insomnia, but it still makes me feel groggy for the rest of the day. the little monster has been really active lately. lots of hiccups, and lots of squirming around.

moby-vinny wrap

we just got a moby wrap in the mail. it's the type of baby-wearing carrier we'll use when baby mothra is first born. here's a picture of my very very first attempt to follow the directions of wrapping it into form, and vinny is trying it out. it held him pretty securely, but i obviously did an AWFUL job of wrapping it, and need to practice a lot to improve my technique (and time!) before junior arrives. and having a big baby belly makes it that much more awkward. it's a really really long piece of fabric, and i really wanted to get one in a burnt orange color, but i figured this sand color would show less cat hair & spit up & whatever else. it'll be handy for shopping outings, but clearly i'll need to wrap it all up around me before leaving the house, as getting that thing on in the car or outside in the rain would be really frustrating. don't worry - baby mothra will be slipped in on-site AFTER riding in the car in the car seat. we also have a mei-tai for when the monster gets a bit older, which has three different changeable panels.

sunriver wedding

here's a pic of me in the sunriver hot tub. of course, i never got in farther than just standing up, for junior's safety. my maternity bathing suit no longer covers my huge belly. :(
i'm afraid to go swimming in public now. i don't know if it's appropriate to bare one's belly...

sunriver wedding

last weekend we drove down to central oregon for the weekend. we stopped in bend to see b, c, & j, and had lunch with them. my j had lots of fun playing with little j... he's going to be a great father! c & b gave us lots of baby clothes & a bassinet, so we're all set for junior to arrive. after lunch, we drove to sunriver. we were sharing a house with two other families, all there to celebrate our friend c's wedding. there was a bbq on friday, and the wedding was on sat. here are some pics... little j on the run with his stroller, a poor injured deer we saw on a walk (one of three - they're all over the place in sunriver!), little baby k on the run, some pics of the married couple, my handsome hubby, us, and our friend k.

g.d. update

i haven't been blogging much, because i haven't really been doing much. just teaching, trying to organize the new school teaching schedule (have included half hour breastfeeding breaks for after baby mothra arrives), & get the baby stuff in order. weekends have mainly been filled with chores or movie watching. i had a midwife appt last thursday, and she gave me the go-ahead to just check the blood sugar once a day, at varying times. she also said i could be a little more lenient with the diet. i'm measuring normally, so the little monster isn't getting too big. a friend tipped me off this week about a diabetic bakery in town, and i immediately checked it out. they had huge napoleons that had 4 carbs, and cream puffs that had 11 carbs, so i picked up a few to try. so far they haven't affected the blood sugar levels, so i guess they're ok to eat. they're really good, although a little cream heavy, and will help get me through the end of the pregnancy. 5-7 weeks to go. he's due oct 18, but i bet he'll come on nov 1, just to make me as uncomfortable as possible...

italia

here are my parents, before their trip to italy. they just returned on tuesday from a rick steves tour to venice, florence, and rome. it was their first time to italy, and they had a fantastic time! their puppy, pepper, was really happy to see them when we picked her up.

g.d.

this is my glucometer. the test strips are in the container on the bottom, and they go in the thing with the screen on the top. the thing in the middle is what pokes my finger, and on the left side are replacement pokes. it's fun.

burgerville

this is how i eat hamburgers from burgerville - with fork & knive, as the buns (& ketchup) are illegal on my diet.