35 weeks

EDIT: i completely miscalculated the information on this post. my due date is actually only 33 days away! whoops.

i

today i made a chain.

39 more days to 40 weeks, people!

hopefully these next 39 days* will continue to be as positive and relaxed as the last week-and-a-half has been 

(i'm diggin the stay-at-home wife gig, bytheway).

still, i'm wondering when the JUST GET THIS A BABY OUT OF ME urge will kick in.

* i do realize that baby may take up to 42 weeks to get here, buuuuuut with some recent developments in our summer plans, it would just be a heck-of-a-lot more convenient if she came before then. i'm hoping a 40-week countdown chain will send her that message.

funny/weird

FUNNY. falling asleep on the lovesac around 7:30 pm and refusing to move and/or get up when jacob tries to take me to bed later in the evening. and so the poor guy gives up, puts on his pajamas, and just sleeps there with me. when i finally awoke and returned to my normal senses, i took him to bed.

WEIRD. that time the guy on the train (sitting right across from me) collapsed in the aisle and...oh yeah...STOPPED BREATHING. what followed? passengers attempt to resuscitate him, a nurse performs CPR, people are on the phone with 9-11, some guy asks the train host if they have defibrillators, vomiting, the train stops, the paramedics rush on board and wheel him away. I continue to sit in shock through this entire episode. I mean, when the Sunbeam falls into a freezing-cold stream at the ward campout, I know how to be heroic—but THIS? Luckily the guy ended up being ok—no thanks to my emergency-situation skills. More like WEIRD/TRAUMATIC/HORRIFYING.

FUNNY. the birth film event last weekend was very much like a bridal fair, but for pregnant ladies. there were tables and booths with vendors everywhere. at many of these tables there were free treats for the taking. on one of these tables, there was a plate with little scones and muffins. yummmm? I took one and ate it—only to realize a few minutes later that i had been eating off some other person's plate of refreshments. to my credit, i hadn't been to the refreshment table yet to see what was there. and heck. that lady had a mountain of goodies piled on that plate! really, i was doing her (and her unborn babe) a service. still, i cringe with humiliation to think she saw some strange prego-girl scarfing her food—and probably right in front of her. SHAME.

WEIRD. hoping to win the raffle drawing for the free birthing gown (you know, so I can look SUPER ADORABLE while i'm giving birth and stuff), but instead winning a free acupuncture treatment. i don't know anything about acupuncture. i don't even remember submitting tickets for the acupuncture drawing. does someone like me really need acupuncture? ACUPUNCTURE.

FUNNY. when women who work in my building tell me that they didn't know i was pregnant or that it's "not obvious." how am i supposed to take that? i think my baby would have to pop out and smack you in the face to make this any more obvious.

WEIRD. learning what some of the drugs that they use on laboring women are actually made out of. apparently, cervidil is made from pig semen and pitocin is merely cow oxytocin. But are they free range cows? And it's local? this vid never gets old.

FUNNY/WEIRD. my belly button is all but gone. jacob really enjoys this. i'm still coming to terms with it.

FUNNY/WEIRD? this pic:

i think i stole this tee from my little brother forever ago. i have a thing for black + metallic gold and looking like a thug. hope he doesn't mind that it's now a part of my maternity wardrobe.

33 weeks

I think this baby is getting bigger by the minute.

I don't know how fashion bloggers do this—have their husbands take pictures of them all the time. At least for me, it's really uncomfortable. I also have a REALLY HUGE belly sooo... maybe if I were hott and had a closet full of J. Crew it would be cake. Mmmm... cake.

I never realize how big I am until I see these photos, and it's always a shock to my brain. Considering the fact that our bathroom mirror is too tall for me to even see my belly (maybe if I'm standing on my tip-toes) and I only glance at a full-length mirror to make sure my clothes match before running out the door at 6 in the morning—I'm basically the opposite of those little, yappy, wannabe-tuff dogs that don't know how tiny they are. I'm just the pregnant mama who doesn't know how HUGE she is, which is probably why I've been bumping my belly into a lot of things/people/furniture lately. Sorry baby...

Anything new?

Jacob and I finished our hypnobirthing class, and I am honestly going to miss it. I wish I could keep going every week until the baby comes. I always learn something new and leave feeling uplifted and confident. It was also fun seeing and hanging out with the same group of expecting couples for the last 5 weeks.

A part of the hypnobirthing curriculum is listening to a 15-minute track of "positive affirmations" at least once every day. Sounds kinda weird. It was at first. But now I love it. I have to admit, listening to countless positive statements about your pregnancy and body + visualizing things going well just makes you feel good inside. Over the weeks, I've started to feel some of my anxieties diminish as well. I think it's working...

Jacob has expressed that he really wants to "catch the baby." Do OBs even let husbands do that in the hospital? Does it require special skill and training? I mean, all he has to do is not drop her, right?

It honestly doesn't feel like much has changed in the past few weeks (besides the steady increase in girth). I'm still feeling pretty great—especially knowing that I only have two more days of work/commuting. If that weren't the case, I might feel differently. To say the least, I'm a little exhausted of being the "pregnant girl" on the train, on the bus, and at work. With friends and family, at church, and even in public—it's been cool. In fact, I probably have an overly-inflated sense of self-importance and awesomeness about being the "pregnant girl." For some reason, the work and commuting scene puts me out of my comfort zone. Maybe because I'm not allowed to have food at my desk.

I have a huge list of all the things I want/need to do before this baby comes, and plan to use my 4-6 (possibly 8) weeks off of work to get 'em done. The list has become rather extensive, and I'm not even sure I'll be able to complete all of my tasks.

The first thing I plan to do? Sit in a tree and snipe all the slackliners at Kiwanis Park. Okay. Obviously some of these tasks are more serious than others. But honestly. Can you think of anything better than an 8-month pregnant woman in a tree shooting a bunch of hipster/rock-climber/zoobies with a sling-shot (or some kind of harmless weapon) as they attempt to tightrope between trees?

I, for one, cannot.

Magic Song: TEDDY BOY

I plan on singing this to baby someday soon...

"Teddy Boy," Paul McCartney

Baby don't worry your mommy is here

takin' good care of you-ooo-ooo!

TOMORROW

The girl scouts are coming to sell their bounty!

awwww yeah!

A few incheresting facts:

+ Ever since my mom served up some Samoas and Thin Mints at my baby shower in AZ last month (it was girl scout season there), I have been daydreaming about these babies CONSTANTLY. I've even had "GIRL SCOUT COOKIES!!!" marked on my google calendar for weeks. I hardly even use that calendar... until now.

+ I also daydream about ALL the sweets imaginable ALL THE TIME. This is not normal for non-pregnant Holli, but a daily indulgence for pregnant Holli. Is this what an addict feels like?

+ After seeing Wreck-it Ralph last weekend, I've been thinking about that candy land from the "Sugar Rush" game a lot.  Like, thinking about living there. And changing my name to Vanellope.

+ Delicious foods that Jacob made this week: hummus from scratch, chocolate cake with buttercream frosting from scratch, navajo tacos (i kinda helped with this one), chicken bbq wraps with bacon, my breakfast every morning, etc.  Delicious foods that Holli made this week: ehhhh....?? Ok. To give myself a little credit, I did make a pretty good lasagna on Sunday—but that's basically it. Jacob wins. He's been winning a lot lately.

+ We are attending a birth film event on Friday. Before pregnancy, this is not something I would have foreseen us doing on a Friday night—or ever. We're totally immersing ourselves into this birthing subculture.

+ I hear a lot of complaints from pregnant women about not being able to sleep at night. Surprisingly, I've been sleeping like a rock. I pretty much wake up each morning in the exact same position I fell asleep in. The only thing disturbing my slumber as of late is Jacob's sleep-talking in the middle of the night—"WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?!? WHO ARE THEY!?" It's actually kinda freaky.

+ They say you have vivid dreams when you're pregnant. Mine have been so goofy. Just in the past week I've had dreams of being chased by a motorcycle gang (the Hell's Angels variety), being in a 90s rap group very much like the Beastie Boys, and two consecutive nights of saving kittens from various perils. RANDOOOOOM!

+ One thing I can complain about is that my body feels much more achey and weary than it did a few weeks ago. Sometimes I'm like, Dude. It feels like I spent all of yesterday running around, riding all the rides at Disneyland! But then I remember that I didn't. I'm just sore and tired. And that's depressing.

+ Along that line of thought, here's a scale describing my feelings about general pregnancy restrictions: Not being able to eat sushi = SAD. No hot-tubbing/jacuzzis = MORE SAD. Not being able to do those two things at the same time = MOST SAD. Knowing that if I were to go to Disneyland, I probably wouldn't be able to ride all the rides = MOSTEST SAD.

+ I can't even express how excited I am to be done commuting after next Friday. A few weeks ago, UTA changed all the train schedules so that they would be "more efficient." Well, the only difference I've observed is that we leave ten minutes earlier, but I get to work at the EXACT SAME TIME. In the afternoon, we leave one minute later, but I somehow get home TEN MINUTES LATER. Really, UTA? Efficient? Get reeeeaaal.

+ This guy got another acceptance letter for grad school yesterday:

Jacob—not the puppy (though it would be really cute if a puppy got accepted into grad school for engineering). 

This wasn't exactly an acceptance that we were forecasting. Suddenly we're thinking about the possibility of moving out-of-state? What!? That's crazy! Ok. I really have no idea what's going to happen yet. All I know is that I'm very very proud of Jacob—he's a champ—and feel excited about the monumental changes that are coming our way.

Magic Song: AQUARIUS/LET THE SUNSHINE IN

Do you hear that sound?

melt melt melt melt

drip drip drip

melt melt

drip!

That is the sound of Winter DYING!!!

It's a gorgeous thing.

Kinda makes me want to break into this song...

Not that I actually have a list—but this has to be one of my top 10 favorite songs EVER.

One of the things I look for in a song are excellent changes, and this one might have the best change I've ever heard.

It just turns right over and gets irresistibly groovy.

Like winter to spring—it changes so good.

LET THE SUNSHINE IN!

p.s.

that bass-line in the outro makes my heart go thump!

sooo many things to love in this song.