Baby Fever!

Well, it's official! John and I have caught the baby fever. Now, I know what you're thinking...Shouldn't this have happened 9 months ago? I think it's safe to say that we've both been in a sweet state of denial for the past several months. But, some recent occurrences have led to the realization that we will have an outside baby within weeks....eeeek!

1) Let the nesting begin! While previously nesting for me has entailed organizing ticky tacky things like what the best way to fold baby washcloths is (yes...I can't believe I have time to think about these things either), I now have real things to figure out...like where is this crib going to go and what is the best way to get bright blue paint out of my hair? John and I went kind of crazy on the baby's room this weekend. I painted and he put in the new wood floor and baseboards. We also got the crib set up (after it took us 45 minutes to realize that part of the instructions were written incorrectly...oy!) Now that the baby actually has it's own room in the house, it's becoming more and more clear that the kid is bound to make an appearance and demand to see it's new digs sometime soon. Luckily, I hear newborns aren't too picky when it comes to interior designing.

2) Our good friends Brian and Brittany just had their baby yesterday morning: Morgan Alexandria...and she is the CUTEST little girl I have ever seen. John kind of went into a state of shock after seeing the pictures of her. I think it was a combination of too much cuteness in one sitting and the realization that pregnancy really does most often lead to an infant.

3) I can now properly identify almost any body part the babe choses to poke out of my belly. This is a real kick! (pun...intended!) Last night after dinner, a casual chat in the living room with the family turned into some real entertainment, courtesy of the baby: Belly watching. The baby is so big and so active that my stomach tends to lurch about like someone jumping on a waterbed. Let me tell you, this is highly amusing...until I can't talk through it anymore. One of the babe's new favorite activities is to push out with it's feet on my side, squish it's back all the way to the other side of my belly and use my bladder as a punching bag simultaneously. This is cute for the first 5 minutes. Unfortunately, I ate oreos after dinner last night and that meant it was party time for at least half an hour. Anyway, what this all means is that this baby had better cool it's jets for the next 3 or 4 weeks (unlikely) or the time it takes for me to be screaming about getting the kid out of me is coming quite soon. I could just stop eating oreos, I suppose, but that's not something I'm willing to sacrifice at the moment.

4) Last, but not least, I will be officially full term on Friday. Not that I think this baby is coming early, (I've been way too comfortable for someone as far along as I am) but just the fact that no one's going to try to stop me IF I go into labor...that's realism for you! So, start placing your bets on when Baby Schweighardt will make it's appearance...and if you want any insider tips, I can be bribed with oreos.

A Good Time Was Had By All

We had a crazy weekend at the Schweighardt house! The main highlights were a trek to Badger Mountain (which John and Jeff both climbed this time) and an awesome Baby Shower/Barbecue. (I'm happy to report that there were no s'more-related injuries)

Here's the link to some pictures of the festivities:


http://picasaweb.google.com/GGamelin/BabyShowerBBQ

...Because I have purchased a new camera!

I'm uploading a new belly picture in honor of my new digital camera. John and I had a discussion this weekend about things to get done before the baby arrives and it turns out having an operating camera took priority over most things. I figured my mother wouldn't care if the baby had no place to sleep, no clothes and no diapers...if she doesn't get to see a non-pixelated picture of her grandbaby within the first hours of its' birth...things will get ugly. I'm seeing images of the local authorities and Child Protective Services showing up at the hospital to arrest me on the grounds of being a bad mother. Of course, the lesson in all this is: Always listen to your mother.

Baby Thor is now a little over 34 weeks old. We've been going back and forth in a little argument about who has rights to the space under my ribs for the past few days. Let's just say: this battle ain't over. Although, I'll admit that it is difficult to drive and push a little wiggling butt out of your ribs at the same time. Luckily, the babe and I have set our differences aside and decided the only thing that will make both of us happy today is a delicious pulled pork sandwich for dinner. (It should be the Gamelin motto: Food makes everything better) I've never been much of a crock pot cook, but we'll see how this one works out. If anything goes wrong, luckily I can just blame it on the crock pot, since it's doing most of the actual work anyway.

I honestly can't say I've achieved much since my last post. John and I have been keeping to the Tri-Cities for the most part. The family has been steadily working on our pool room/ kitchenette project to get ready for the big BBQ this Saturday. I, personally, tend not to make a lot of quick progress on anything lately, as my brain seems to be on hiatus pretty frequently. Needless to say, I've toned down my long-term goals for before the baby gets here. My main priority now is to nap as much as possible. After that, I spend most of my time trying to remember to a) write things down on a list so I remember to do them and then b) remember to look at the list that I have made of things to do. In between these two grueling tasks, I tend to get side tracked by shiny objects or obsessively organize silly things like our Q tips. And since no one wants to hear about how my dry erase markers are now organized by color, I appear to have accomplished very little. But let me tell you, this pea-sized brain is racing!

Since I have nothing to brag about (Aside from incubating the coolest person you will ever know), I'll brag on my husband who climbed a MOUNTAIN yesterday. And surprisingly, today at work, his legs feel like he just climbed a mountain! His new vendetta is to get in shape before the baby gets here, hoping this will translate into having more energy for the little sumo wrestler to suck out of him. Also, apparently, getting into shape in 6 weeks involves climbing mountains multiple times a week, and I remain a supportive wife because he lets me sit at the bottom of the mountain, eating snacks, waiting for him to come back down.

I wish I had a picture of the afore mentioned mountain and more importantly, how John's head cleverly appears to be the same size, but this all brings us back to the fact that I didn't have a working camera until yesterday afternoon. Instead, I'll show you proof that John's head is at least as big as Haystack Rock...and that was the face he made while climbing up his mountain.

Belly Update

In Belly News:

The baby is getting bigger (most likely around 4 lbs) and my doctor still thinks I'm boring...Both of these things are great. I'm now in the final count down: around 7 weeks left (give or take two weeks) and I'm just trying to remain boring.

I really can't complain much: The baby is crazy active as always, but it's nice to know that it's doing well...or plotting it's escape. I can still sleep enough to feel rested most mornings and I'm staying active enough not to feel like a bump on a log...all while somehow avoiding those pregnant lady cankles and sausage fingers.

To all this, I say: We'll see how I feel in another month. In the mean time, I'm wholeheartedly embracing the sleep and the blissful ignorance of not knowing what it's like to care for a newborn!

A Pirate's Life For Me!

Call me Ishmael! I am setting off on a great blogging journey and not for the obvious reasons most of you would suspect, such as being able to keep family and friends updated on the state of affairs in the great state of Washington. No, this blog is a shameless attempt to gain enough readership to merit sponsors on my blog who will pay handsomely to have my subscribers exposed to their advertisement. The resulting millions will then be transfered to a college fund for our children, thus leading to their careers in either professional sports or world domination. (I'm holding off on any other retirement plans until this one falls through.)

In other words: Mom told me I should start a blog. I think she may be under the impression that this will someday lead to a live video cam, strapped to my forehead, focused on her grandbaby 24 hours a day...but lets not get ahead of ourselves.

I guess it's kind of appropriate that I start this now, since John and I have just celebrated our 1st Anniversary. We went non-traditional and decided to forgo most of your typical 1st Anniversary celebrations. For instance, neither of us chose to bestow a present of "paper" upon the other. The only real present we received involved candy and I would like to suggest that be the tradition for at least the first ten anniversaries. According to the rules, you don't start getting into the good stuff until at least the 25th anniversary anyway. I, for one, would be much more content with some rolos and raisinettes than a gift of wool after seven years of marriage. And as far as wool goes, unless we're talking live alpaca here, I'm not interested.

Even if we knew where it was, we also decided not to eat the top layer of our wedding cake. I'd like to think that perhaps it has found a home with all those other lost objects: Maybe it's become buddy-buddy with a rogue pack of mismatched argyle socks from the dryer or The Poky Little Puppy book Joe decided to test the laws of aerodynamics on as a child. The most likely explanation, however, is that my mother will find it one day in her deep freezer next to some freezer-burned venison or frozen blueberries. If that happens, she can have it bronzed and gift it to us for our eighth anniversary. I'm sure it'll taste just as good then.

Other than avoiding traditional anniversary hubbub, John and I spent the weekend in Seattle with John's Brother-In-Law Jeff. We took advantage of the beautiful weather and bummed around Pike Street Market and the waterfront, ate a lot of good food and decided that we should most definitely take a cruise to Alaska, since...lets face it...we're already in the closest state to it anyway: we'd be silly not to.

We also took a boat tour of the locks which was great--definitely worth the bright red sunburn on my nose. For any Discovery Chanel fans, we got to see three of the boats from The Deadliest Catch: The Wizard, The Northwestern and The Time Bandit were all docked in Lake Union. It was like spotting a celebrity in the grocery store; I'll admit to being giddy.

In other celebrity news, John's year was pretty much made when we saw Erik Bedard (his favorite pitcher for the Seattle Mariners) at our favorite breakfast place Monday morning. I told him breakfast with Erik Bedard was my anniversary gift to him. He didn't buy it, so I went back to my happy little world filled with delicious blueberry pancakes.

So, now we're back in the good 'ole Tri-Cities, gearing up for the baby. John's sister is throwing us a shower in a few weeks. As per my request it is officially titled the: Not-a-baby-shower-barbecue. This basically means that I don't want to be exposed to any stork paraphernalia, frilly lace, or games involving the horrifying combination of diapers and chocolate pudding. My plans are to eat barbecued ribs until I think I'll explode, try not to get melted marshmallow in my hair while making s'mores and then happen to open some presents that people coincidentally brought with them for the baby. I'll keep you all updated as far as whether I end up staying awake through the festivities and the inevitable story about how I almost poke *insert name here*'s eye out with a flaming marshmallow.