We're Counting Down

Since today is almost over, I feel safe in saying I've got 28 days left until the baby comes. Two days after Christmas. I am really getting ready. I mean, I don't sleep so well at night anymore, my feet haven't been their normal shape or size for weeks, and I've got a chest-cold on top of it all (but I keep saying, I'd rather have a chest-cold than the stomach flu!).... Still, I really enjoy all the movement within my tummy. Baby is still very active, and it's entertaining to have the girls lay their hands on me when he's moving around--it's not so much kicking as it is shifting or rearranging. The girls have gotten much more comfortable, too, talking to him through my belly. They love the idea that he'll recognize their voices when he gets out, just from hearing them while he's in there.
We've got the baby's room ready (well, I'd like to get a different curtain rod for the valance that matches the crib bedding, and we need a little bit more border, but everything important is taken care of), we've got diapers, clothes, etc.
I've gone from people thinking I'm having twins (I'm so huge) to people asking if I'm "going to make it" until Dec. 27th. I want to scream "Yes! I'm going to make it! Do you realize that's having the baby a week and a half early?!?" Hormones.... But really, I can't believe I've forgotten how people are towards pregnant women. All the unsolicited comments and advice. I wish people would just stick to rubbing my belly.
I've been trying to get everything in order for Christmas. I got about 85% of the Christmas shopping done in one day, and I'm almost ready to get my Christmas cards out--no postcards this year! I'd like to get everything done as soon as possible (I'm already way ahead of the game compared to past years), so that I can just kind of relax that last couple of weeks before Christmas. I won't be able to really travel anywhere, and my energy level seems to be steadily decreasing. (Last night I went to bed at 8:00--before the girls!)
It's so surreal, trying to imagine what life is going to be like after the baby arrives. I mean, it's not the first time for me, obviously, but it's been nearly six years since I've had a little baby. Going from being so big and feeling the constant movement in my belly, being tired all the time but at least being able to catch sleep whenever I can.... to no more movement within my belly, being able to sleep in any position again, but not catching much sleep at all... I know a lot of people who are pretty active and social right after they have a baby, but I'm thinking (if this is anything like having my girls) I'll be a bit of a hermit for a while.
The countdown is on!

What's new

I went and got my hair cut today. I'm starting to feel, finally, like time is running out before our little boy joins the family! I had cancelled a hair appointment a few weeks ago, because my hair still seemed short enough. Yesterday I realized I needed to get in soon, before the opportunity slipped away from me! Who knows when I'll be able to get in again--I won't be due for another cut for six or seven more weeks... hmmm, that's right about the time our little bundle will be joining us. So I'm probably going to get pretty shaggy!
I'm going in for a massage on Monday. I'm SO excited! My midwife's office offers them for only $25. I asked the receptionist if she'd ever had one (she just had a baby about four months ago), and she said she had and they were fabulous. I asked if they had a table with a hole for my belly, and she said no, that's not actually safe anyway. But she said the massage therapist has special pregnancy pillows that she'll place all around me so I'll feel like I'm lying on my stomach. Honestly, I could just about pay twenty-five bucks just for that! I'm SO tired of lying on my sides all the time. My hips are starting to hurt--I read somewhere that an egg crate mattress will help that, and I know Bridget's got one on her guest bed... VERY comfy, so that might be a purchase here in the next couple of days.
I also need to get Christmas shopping done in the next couple of weeks, so it doesn't sneak up on me when I'm not feeling like going out anymore. PLUS, Lindsay's birthday is the week after Christmas, so for once, I'm going to try to take care of THAT ahead of time as well!
I've been trying to write my novel for NaNoWriMo (see the picture on my profile, check out the website), but it's really slow-going. I sabotage myself, knowing my writing is not nearly as good as I could be doing. I know that the main point made on that website is that you want quantity to start with, not quality. (Goal is: write 50,000 words in the month of November, then go back and edit and touch up, etc., in December and afterwards.) Okay, so part of the problem is that I'm sabotaging myself because I don't feel like the quality is there; but I truly do have difficulty making time for it (e.g. I REALLY needed to do this update on my blog! grin!), so getting any serious writing done is difficult. I'm at least 20,000 behind schedule right now. Yikes! But I need to keep at it. (*Please don't ask me what it's about. IF I ever get it done and presentable, I'll be more than happy to share--hopefully even publish!)
Things I'm really enjoying these days: Pandora Internet Radio--it's free--www.pandora.com; Gene Simmons "Family Jewels" on A&E; MTV's The Duel: The Challenge (Real World/Road Rules boys vs. girls stuff--totally addictive); Still Standing (TV show I can't seem to find on at a regular time right now, but I keep catching back-to-back episodes...); helping the girls count down to Baby (we're at 44 days as of today); the feel of the Baby moving around--like he's got his own swimming pool or something, I swear, he is ACTIVE and doesn't believe in just a gentle kick or nudge here or there!

These are from our trip to one of the nearby Pumpkin Patches... the girls and I went on Halloween Day, since they didn't have school that week. It was SO COLD--I felt terrible, not having put them in their heavy coats. It honestly hadn't been that cold in Lincoln, but this place is just outside of Omaha and it was freezing cold and windy and just plain yucky. But there was no shortage of kids there! And the girls didn't care. There was one section with pirates, and each girl posed in those shackle things--notice how they're each making their naughty, villain faces! All I can say is I'm glad we had two free tickets to get in--I hate to be a poopy-pants consumer, but Vala's Pumpkin Patch is highly overrated: it's too expensive, and you don't even get a free pumpkin with the price of admission or anything. It does cover a huge patch of land, but it seems like you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a snack bar, diner or gift shop! Money is the language they speak there, for sure! The girls didn't enjoy it as much as the nearer Roca Berry Farm, either. Lesson learned--and again, good thing we only had to pay for one of us to get in! Still, cute pictures!!!

Pollyanna, Baby, etc.

First, a few words about my last entry. It occurs to me, now, that I ended up not being very "Pollyanna-ish" in that monologue about how negative society has become. So, to take on a Pollyanna note: I'm glad that I'm able to stay home and watch any movie I'd like... including things like "Pollyanna", "The Music Man", the original "Yours, Mine and Ours", and of course, "It's a Wonderful Life." They may not make movies like that anymore, but thank God they're putting them out on DVD!!!

I'm super excited because I just went to visit the OB who's going to do my C-Section. We'd been hoping he would give the OK to do it on December 28th. (Jim wants the tax break, and I want to be in the hospital during Christmas vacation, so the girls don't have to go to school while I'm out.) It turns out the doctor is going to be out of town on the 28th and 29th.... So, he asked how I'd feel about doing it on December 27th (my in-laws' anniversary). I said I thought that'd be great, but I'd been told he didn't do surgeries on any days other than Tuesdays and Thursdays. He said, "Oh, no, I don't mind doing a Wednesday." Great! He called the hospital, got it all set up, and I'm now scheduled for the morning of December 27th!!! I'm supposed to go in at 6am, but we'll probably call right before we leave, to make sure everything's on schedule. I'm getting excited!!! Only seven and a half weeks!!!

Where have all the good movies gone?

This summer, when Jim's brother was in town, he and Jim and their parents and one of his sisters & her husband and I all gathered out on our deck, drinking and talking. (I, of course, was drinking water at the time... OH! What I wouldn't give for a nice glass--or two--of wine!) Anyway, usually when Jim's folks are around, the talk turns to politics. It just seems to go that way, since it's always good for a debate--Jim and his parents often have different views, or else somebody ends up playing devil's advocate. It's always a bit spicier if John is around, as well.

Except this time, the hottest conversation was actually about how they don't make good movies anymore. All the movies out there (according to Jim's mother, Kay, and Jim actually agreed with her on this) have negative messages or are scary just for the sake of being scary or they just don't have anything positive to say. I think the general message wasn't just about how bad the movies are these days, but how they're indicative of the times we're living in, and how it's just a really bad time and everyone is becoming more and more negative. I tried to play devil's advocate on this one. (I'm usually best off if I just keep quiet!) I think I was trying to say that we are just in the down-times right now. There seem to always be peaks and valleys, y'know, good times and bad, and I was just thinking that things are especially low right now. (e.g. The economy isn't so great, gas prices are horrendous, we're in a war, etc.) But Jim and Kay both felt like it wasn't as simple as that... they both felt that people's values have gone to hell and there's no bringing them back. It's just going to get worse and worse. I pretty much fizzled out after that, as I'm not exactly a historian--I can't really point out exact dates and times when things looked so terribly bad and then got better (other than the Depression, I suppose).

I'm thinking now, several months later, that maybe Jim and his mother were right. We borrowed the movie "Pollyanna" when I had that free Netflix membership. (We also got "The Music Man", which was very fun and wholesome and uplifting, I thought.) Now, Jim had told me about "Pollyanna" when we first met--he actually used to call me Pollyanna. If you haven't seen it, here's the thrust: Pollyanna is a girl who, at the ripe old age of 10, has already had her share of hard times; however, rather than be poopy about all the bad stuff and boo hoo over it all, she searches for the things in life that she can be glad about--playing The Glad Game. She ends up turning this whole town on its ear, changing their bad and/or selfish attitudes into positive and helpful ones. It was an amazing movie! The only one that I can think of that's remotely similar (as far as changing one's perspective about things) is "It's a Wonderful Life"--which I plan to be watching again in the next month or two!

So, now, watching that movie has gotten me thinking: what kind of movies are out there today? What kind of TV shows are out there? What are people talking about in their day-to-day conversations? The movie "Saw III" is in theaters now--that's a gore movie just for the sake of gore. Nasty. And there are probably half a dozen other very scary (probably gory) movies in theaters or about to be in theaters as well. Other movies, like "The Breakup", aren't scary, but in all honesty, have bad values. (I'm being old-fashioned, it's true, but I'm also abiding by my Catholic Faith: living together, without the benefit of marriage, is a sin. Topic for another blog, I suppose!) Movies that aren't scary are often all about how to get into bed with someone else. And at the very least, if they're not about that, they're often about how to get the best of someone else. I saw "The Devil Wears Prada" not long ago. It was pretty good, and with the exception of one instance of fornication (which, at least, wasn't shown but was implied), it didn't have too many bad things going for it. However, the main point of that movie was that you have to be mean to get ahead, even if it means stepping all over the people close to you. The heroine finally chooses not to go that route, but you're left wondering (at the end of the movie) if she'll be nearly as successful as she could have been by staying on that track of stepping all over others. (By the way, "successful" in movies these days is clearly defined as making a lot of money and having a lot of stuff--yet another value I don't agree 100% with.) The TV shows these days aren't any better. I try to watch questionable stuff when the girls are in bed, like "Sex in the City", "Friends", any "Real World/Road Rules" challenges. Even "Hell's Kitchen" has tons of swear words bleeped out of it, and it's obvious people get where they want to by stabbing each other in the back. I'm even finding some of the shows the kids watch aren't that much better. "Hannah Montana" and "That's So Raven" often have people sneaking around and conniving to get what they want, in less nasty ways than grown-ups, of course, but they're still teaching trickery and deceit. Even some of the cartoons, like "Fairly Odd Parents", have people being mean to each other and calling each other nasty names. I try to stand by and make sure my kids know the difference between what's acceptable and what's not. But it's getting to a point where, if they're not watching PBS, I don't want them watching anything!

When I babysit at Jazzercise, I often have a few older kids come in. By older, I mean ages 9 to about 11. I'm shocked at the behavior these kids are displaying already. They're mostly good, but at the same time, they're already trying to act the way kids of my generation did when they were in their early- to mid-teens! I have a 9 year old girl come in now and then who is obsessed with when she'll get to wear a bra. I don't even remember thinking about that until about 12. It seems like kids are trying to grow up faster these days, and I wonder how much of that is coming from the movies we watch, the TV shows we watch, and maybe even the conversations these kids overhear.

Maybe I'm oversimplifying. I guess my point is that, after watching "Pollyanna", it really made me realize there are no (or very few) good, wholesome, family-oriented movies out there. Even things like "The Parent Trap" or "Cheaper by the Dozen" or "Yours, Mine and Ours"--movies that are all remakes of old, wholesome movies--needed to be 'modernized' in order to appeal to current audiences. Some of those 'modernizations' would include things like couples living together before marriage, people playing nasty and potentially dangerous tricks on each other, etc. In the old days, they didn't have to cross those lines in order to appeal to audiences. Thus, I'm thinking that we really are in a bad, negative time, and things aren't looking like they're going to get better... or if they do, it'll be a long time coming.

Sorry... kind of a bummer of an entry. My apologies to Jim and Kay--you were right and I was definitely wrong. I wish I hadn't been, though. Got any suggestions of old, wholesome movies we can watch? I'm over this new stuff!!!

Halloween Pictures

We had a little Diva and an Angel Fairy in our house this Halloween Season. They had so much fun wearing these costumes, and they were lucky enough to be able to wear them not only Trick-or-Treating, but also to a couple of parties and to Boo-at-the-Zoo! They had just as much fun posing for the camera!!!

Baby Shower

A few weeks ago, my great friend, Anita, threw me a baby shower. I hadn't thought (initially) that I needed one, having had children before. However, since I'm having a boy this time, and it will have been nearly six years since the last one, it did make sense to stock up on a few new items. (Not to mention the fact that Jim and I have still been unable to find any of the old baby clothes I had--y'know, that early newborn stuff that's often unisex.)

So family and friends joined together at Anita's beautiful house. We were treated to all kinds of delicious goodies (two different gourmet cakes, pumpkin bars, bite-size ham or turkey sandwiches, chips, nuts, blue popcorn, etc.), and the games we played were fantastic! My favorite was the poopy diaper game: Anita stuck different candy bars into individual diapers, nuked 'em for a few seconds so they'd melt, and then passed around each diaper for us all to determine which kind of candybar it was. What fun, to have a group of women sitting around, sniffing what looks like poop in a bunch of diapers. I know (or, at least, I hope) I wasn't the only one who was tempted to have a taste. We all managed to use our self restraint, though. Sniffing was as far as it went! We also played the game where you decide, just by look (not even scent) what kind of baby food is in each of several baby jars. That was a tough one--you'd never believe how many foods are orange or green! Another game was to guess how many calories were in a huge jar of Baby Ruth candy bars. That was tough--I don't think I was anywhere close. Bummer, too, 'cuz I really wanted to win that jar of candy bars!!! My second favorite game was the memory game. I won't give that one away, as it had a bit of a twist, but I do want to say I got a huge kick out of it!!!

Naturally, I got a ton of great stuff--thanks to all who were there, and to those of you who didn't make it but sent or brought gifts anyway. I'm so very blessed to have such great friends and family! One of the gifts I was most excited about--one I'd even joke was the reason I got pregnant--was my Diaper Cake. Don't get me wrong, I love and am grateful for every single thing I've received. I mean it when I say that I'm blessed--Jim and I were starting to get worried about whether or not we'd be prepared, and now we will be. But the Diaper Cake (which Anita made) is something I've seen given to other expectant moms. It's one of the most clever, yet functional gifts I've ever seen. I was just about beside myself to receive my very own, and it's going to be very hard for me to break down and dismantle the thing to use the diapers. Thank goodness I got a couple of pictures of it! (If you can't tell by the pictures, the 'cake' is accented with little bottles of baby shampoo, baby lotion, baby powder, etc., and at the top is a rubber ducky, a washcloth, and a little key-ring rattle.)