I think I'm ready

For the first time, I think I can say that I'm ready for Arthur to arrive.  Our floors are DONE (!!!), which was definitely the biggest thing.  The last pieces of furniture can go back in place tomorrow, so our house will finally feel normal again.  We still need to order a new rug, but we can certainly live without that.  Here's what else I have accomplished in the past 2 or 3 days - yes, I actually had all of these things written down on a list.

• Sweep and mop the entire downstairs
• Clean all bathrooms
• Set up the swing
• Set up the cosleeper (more like a bassinet)
• Organize the garage
• Dust
• Clean the kitchen sink
• Clean the microwave
• Finish all of my applique projects for other people
• Freeze some meals - I now have 4 casseroles, 2 bags of soup (each enough for one night), two bags of chili, and 2 meatloaves in my freezer.  There were some cookies too, but those didn't last long; I blame Hunter... ;)

Of course, I still have stuff I want to finish, but at least I feel like the house is presentable and clean.  Now, the question is just when will Arthur make his debut?

In other news, here are some sweet pictures of Eleanor.

Reading the Berenstain bears and holding a balloon.  Because of course you need to hold a balloon while you read.

(Our floors were still a work in progress!)

Not the greatest, but still kind of cute

All worn out after a long day with no nap.

That's a rat, her "Osito", Curious George, and Corduroy in bed with her.

Full term!

I am 37 weeks pregnant now, which means I am officially full term!  I think somebody told Arthur too, because last night he was squirming around like CRAZY and kicking like I've never felt a baby kick before. I was already in bed for the night, but if I had been up with the lights on I'm pretty sure I would have actually seen the outline of his foot kicking me.  He's trying to break out!

Then around 2:00 I woke up and I had a contraction.  I've had a lot over the past few weeks, but they're just Braxton Hicks because they are never consistent and usually I don't feel any discomfort.  Well, I felt this one, and another one 20 minutes later, and another one 20 minutes later.  Of course I was wide awake at this point, trying to figure out at what point do I wake up Hunter, who do we call first about taking Eleanor, etc.  Then I realized I wasn't having any more contractions, it was past 3:30 in the morning, and I should just try to sleep.  If it was real labor, I decided, it would wake me back up.  Well, I didn't wake up until 6:15 and there haven't been any more contractions, so I guess it was just a few more Braxton Hicks.  Still, I think my body is getting ready!  

Hunter is convinced that Arthur will be here in the next week or week and a half.  I've told Arthur that he's not allowed to arrive until at least the middle of next week.  ;)  We're having new floors installed in our living room, dining room, bedroom and closet.  (Yes, we waited this long after deciding to do this back in May or June!)  So, right now there are two couches, a bookshelf, and a table in my kitchen (NOT an eat in kitchen!), a buffet blocking the closet with all the cleaning supplies, and a bakers rack and 6 chairs in my bedroom in addition to the bedroom furniture!  (The bedroom is done.)  Oh, and the majority of our clothes and shoes are still in our bathroom.  We've been sleeping on an air mattress in the playroom all week.  It hasn't all been as disruptive as I feared (I planned really well for this!), but I am READY to have my house put back together.  Tomorrow we should be able to move all the furniture back at least into the right rooms, and by Monday it should be all done!

Personally, I think Arthur is going to arrive on my 30th birthday next Saturday...  ;)   I'm celebrating a week early, just in case!

Anybody want a cat?

Of course, I don't really mean that.  We love our cat, Penny.  It's just that lately we've developed a love/hate relationship.  Ever since Eleanor became mobile, Penny prefers to stay outside.  Unfortunately, if we leave her food out there it attracts raccoons, so we keep it in the kitchen just inside the back door.  I should add that this is about 4 feet from my side of the bed.  Here's a typical day with Penny:

5:45 AM - Penny eats

5:50 AM - Penny meows, loudly, to go outside.  I get up and let her out.

5:51 AM - Eleanor wakes up thanks to me opening the sliding glass doors.  Eventually we both go back to sleep.

6:00 AM - Hunter's alarm goes off

6:40 AM - Penny sees Hunter in the kitchen eating and meows to be let in to eat.

6:43 AM - Penny eats three bites then meows to go back outside

7:30 AM - I get up and go in the kitchen.  Penny sees me and meows to be let in to eat.

7:32 AM - Penny eats three bites and goes back outside.

7:45 AM - Eleanor gets up

7:55 AM - Penny meows to be let in.  I open the door, Penny somehow senses Eleanor's presence, and walks away.

This last scenario repeats about 10 more times throughout the day, no exaggeration.  Occasionally she actually comes in to eat for a minute, but that's rare.  The frequency increases throughout in the day, peaking around 5:30 when she sees me fixing dinner and meows loudly for about 20 minutes while I'm cooking.  Will she actually walk inside the house and eat?  Of course not.

8:00 PM - Eleanor goes to bed

8:02 PM - Penny meows to be let in and eats.  Occasionally she'll come up to one of us and purr sweetly for a couple of minutes, reminding us why we keep her around.  Then she goes to sleep under our bed or somewhere hidden, and the cycle repeats the next day.

*Sigh*  We've had Penny for over 9 years now, since she was a tiny little kitten, the runt of the litter abandoned by her mother.  Of course we're not going to give her away.  Hunter actually used to joke when I was pregnant with Eleanor about what would we do with the baby if she turned out to be allergic to cats?  (Meaning, where would we send Eleanor because of course we'd be keeping the cat.)  She's an important part of our family, even if she is a pest sometimes...

Eleanor's Obsession

Eleanor is currently obsessed with Curious George. She LOVES to "read" a George book out loud and usually cries if we don't take a book in the car whenever we go somewhere. Here's just a little example of her telling George stories. And yes, she is throwing some Spanish animal names in there. Kind of random.

What a day

First of all...

Apparently, the right side of my uterus is the comfortable side.

Eleanor always did the exact same thing.

Today was a long day.  Eleanor went to school this morning and I ran a bunch of errands.  One thing I did was get my oil changed, my car washed, and I vacuumed out the inside myself.  I decided this was a good time to turn Eleanor's car seat around (after vacuuming out massive amounts of Cheerio's that had fallen down in the cracks of the seat), so she is officially forward facing now.  I really wanted to keep her rear facing longer, but our car is too small for two rear facing seats.  Anyway, you should have seen the amazed look on her face when she got in her seat after I picked her up!  She's never complained about rear facing, but I can tell she's happy to be turned around.  It feels a little weird to me now that she watches every little thing I do though!

Anyway, the last errand that I ran before picking her up was to get a few groceries from the store.  There was water on the floor (I'm pretty sure a customer had spilled something and it wasn't the store's fault) and I slipped and fell - pretty hard - on my rear end.  I felt fine, but panic quickly set in.  I wasn't bleeding or having contractions or anything out of the ordinary, and when I drank some juice Arthur started moving all over the place, but I was sore on one spot on my belly and I was really worried about the placenta.  So, I called my OB and they made sure I got scheduled for an ultrasound later that afternoon.  Of course, Hunter was out of town giving a presentation and had left his phone at the hotel!  Thankfully I have great friends to watch Eleanor and a wonderful sister-in-law who was able to come be with me during the ultrasound.  Everything turned out to be completely fine, and as a little added bonus we got to see Arthur's cute face and chubby cheeks!  At 35 weeks 5 days they estimate that he weighs 6 lb 11 oz.

Check out that brain!

(I don't know why this picture rotated, but you're looking at his face upside down.)

Also, the technician pointed out that Arthur is for SURE a boy.  I wasn't too concerned, but confirmation is always reassuring, especially since I just washed all of his clothes.  The ultrasound ran kind of long at the end so I asked Monica to go ahead and call Hunter (poor guy, sitting in an airport worrying) to let him know everything was okay.  She told him that everything was fine, but that there was one little surprise...  "It's a girl!"  She said he got very quiet for a few seconds.  :)

So now it's nearly 11:00 and Hunter is finally on his way home from the airport.  I'm glad I got to see my little boy today, but otherwise this is a day I'd rather not repeat!  I am exhausted!

Eleanor quotes

While running through the house:  "El-nor running like the gingerbread man!"

I climbed into the back of this school bus at the playground, and from the outside I guess Eleanor thinks it looks like a cage.

Eleanor:  Mama is in the zoo!

Me:  What animal am I?

Eleanor: [pause] Kangaroo!

Eleanor climbed into the back of the school bus with me.

Me:  Now you're in the zoo too!  What animal are you?

Eleanor:  A camel!

Me:  What do you think that the camel eats?

Eleanor:  [pause]  Honey

Me:  And what does the kangaroo eat?

Eleanor:  Orange

So there you go, camels eat honey and kangaroos eat oranges.  And since I'm not exactly sure of what either of those animals really do eat, I guess I can't argue with that!  :) 

When I picked her up from school yesterday she had a scratch on her nose.  I asked what happened and she said, "El-nor fall down and the teacher pick her up."  I said, "Which teacher?" and named the two out of three whose names I could remember.  She answered, "Miss Cheryl.  Pick El-nor up with TWO hands!"  I'm glad to know the teacher used two hands!

When Eleanor and I are downstairs I often put my phone/ipod in a docking station to play music. Last night I wasn't home - and I had my phone with me, of course - and Eleanor asked Hunter to play music. Hunter told her that he couldn't because Mama took the music. Her response: "Mama not nice to take the music."  I've been trying to teach her to advocate for herself by saying "that's not nice" if another kid takes a toy from her or something (instead of just crying), but as far as I know this is the first time that she's put the phrase to use....about ME!  :)

And there's no specific quote here, but I love hearing her go around pointing out "Ar-fur's crib" or "Ar-fur's clothes" or talking about hearing "Ar-fur's heartbeat" at the doctor.  She sometimes puts her hand on my belly and asks to feel him kick.  I don't think she understands how much her life is going to change in just a few weeks, but I can't wait to see her meet her little brother!  :)

Eleanor's first trip to the dentist

Today was Eleanor's first trip to the dentist and she did a GREAT job!  I was afraid she was going to be really scared and cry, but she almost seemed to enjoy it!  She now has all but 1 of her teeth and the dentist said the spacing between her teeth is just about perfect.  It will make it easy for us to floss them and, if they continue to grow the way they currently are growing, she probably won't need braces.  Yay!

She enjoyed brushing the creepy fish's teeth.

She made this sad face for about 30 seconds, but then was fine!

Letting the dentist floss her teeth

And getting her teeth cleaned

(And yes, the dentist is about 38 weeks pregnant)

Picking out her prize

All smiles back in the car!  She's showing off her ice cream cone that she picked out...of course that's what she picked at the dentist's office.

We made a quick stop at the park on the way home