35 Weeks and counting

At this point in time, I'm counting down, not up. As of today, I have exactly 5 weeks until my due date. I've been feeling...well, like I'm ready to not be pregnant anymore. Baby Samuel is very active day and night, keeping me uncomfortably awake. He often has the hiccups. Meanwhile, I have sore hips, really bad acid reflux, a sweet tooth, and a bad attitude. Here is a picture of me today so you can see this basketball-shaped thing out in front of me (sorry, it's a self-portrait). Compare it to the 22 week picture. I feel like a mutant.

I had a 34 week ultrasound last Monday. Here's what I learned: The baby is growing and healthy. It's still a boy. He has hair. According to head size, I was 36 weeks pregnant. (Great. My kid has a big head.) The baby's head is down, with the spine on my left side and appendages on my right, which explains why I keep getting socked in the ribs and kidneys over there.

Time to start getting excited right? I wish I were more excited...I just know how sleep deprived I will be and can't remember that it didn't last forever. Plus, this time I haven't done hardly anything to prepare. Last time I did a lot of reading, prewashed, folded and refolded a dresser full of cute little pink outfits, gazed longingly at an empty crib and carseat... This time I haven't even thought about actually bringing home a baby. What do I do with my two year old when I'm at the hospital? Where will I put him when I get home? What is he going to wear? Pink? Maybe after the Holidays it will really sink in and I'll start nesting. At least, let's hope!

Google Searches

Since I started tracking my stats in August (using StatCounter), I've noticed some pretty strange internet searches that have landed the viewer on my blog. Here are some of the searches that have led here. Some of them make sense, others not so much:

• My husband is a miser
• Pictures of baby in utero
• I forgot to put in the eggs
• Twilight preview writing
• the minutiae elaine seinfeld stinking apartment
• baby laughing commercial
• 29 weeks pregnant my baby trembles
• free toothbrushes for dentists
• lds women
• his sympathy weight
• celine deon salt lake city
• Is banana bread supposed to be refrigerated
• Supermom funny checklist
• Captain belly flop strikes again T-shirt

Yeah, that's what I thought: pretty strange.

Happy Thanksgiving...again!

Yesterday we had Thanksgiving again. Let's just say I needed the practice and we wanted leftovers. I successfully made a turkey! Last year, we sat down to eat with dinner guests and the turkey was still frozen. Then, attempting to slice it into smaller pieces to cook faster, we sliced through the aluminum baking pan and got turkey juice all over the stove. Lets just say it was somewhat of a disaster...

But this year, the turkey was fully cooked on time (it had 8 hours!) and was super juicy and delicious! Here's what we had for dinner: Turkey (I got a 20 lb turkey for $1.5o with all my turkey vouchers!), honey ham, mashed potatoes, gravy made with the turkey drippings, stuffing, corn, cranberry sauce, Rhodes rolls with lots of butter, and green olives, followed by a dessert buffet including pumpkin pie, pecan pie, mango cheesecake, chocolate truffles, and sparkling cider. Nobody had room for egg-nog. It was de-lic-ious.

In the process of creating this meal and serving 6 adults, one two year old, and a nearly full-grown fetus, we exhausted our supplies of china, serving bowls and spoons, silverware, glasses, casserole dishes, pie dishes, counter space, aluminum foil, tupperware, oven mitts, clean dishtowels, and of course, our appetites. We did, however enjoy good company, stuffing ourselves silly again and again, opening early my first Christmas present of the year (more tupperware), packing the freezer with leftovers, and the inevitable I-ate-too-much stomach ache all night long. We dropped the pepper shaker in the gravy, ate dessert with plastic forks, ran the dishwasher three times, and didn't get to bed until 11:00. We also celebrated Leah's birthday and David's birthday. What a terrific day!

Yes, I take advice from chocolate

I found out I was pregnant with Leah on a Friday. The following Sunday, I snagged a chocolate out of the Bishop's candy jar. This is what the wrapper said:

Celebrate the child within you.

I thought that was really cool. I laminated the candy wrapper and put it in a scrapbook.

So, it's been a busy week. On days when I actually have a car to drive (meaning I drove my husband to work at quarter to 8--before I prefer to grace the world with my crusty presence and morning breath), I have to make the most of my errand-running time, of course working around lunch and nap time. Monday was a doctor's appointment and grocery shopping and car cleaning. Tuesday was filled with Relief Society duties. Yesterday I stayed home and went through paperwork and made piles of things to put away. Cleaning up a mess in and of itself creates an entirely new mess. Well, when I say I did paperwork, I mean I spent several hours preparing documentation for a dozen FLEX account transactions throughout the year. Yes, it was a good thing I kept the receipt for that Pepto-Bismol. Today, I swapped babysitting with my neighbor, and in my hour and a half, I made copies of all the paperwork from yesterday and did some birthday and Christmas shopping. Then, even though my child was now in tow, I went visiting teaching, made a Relief Society drop-in visit, and spent $135 at Sam's Club (and in only 45 minutes!) while my child was sound asleep in the shopping cart. How I wished it could have been me asleep in the shopping cart. I think everyone I passed (and they all ogled that there was a kid sound asleep in the cart) saw the sleepiness in my eyes and the half-speed shuffle in my step.

While at Sam's I gravitated toward the free food samples. One of them was Dove chocolates...irresistible. The lady gave me one of each kind, regular chocolate, dark chocolate, and extra dark. This is what the wrappers said:

You're allowed to do nothing.

Flirting is mandatory.

Celebrate the freedom to indulge.

I was grateful for the validation to indulge, since that was my third chocolate in 90 seconds, and it was the extra dark one. As for the second one, I will remember that when Chris gets home from class.

But do nothing? What a relief! I'm so burned out that I'd love to do nothing! Here's what I could be doing right now: make pies for Sunday dinner, research how to successfully cook a turkey, scrub the kitchen floor, disinfect the kitchen counters, remedy that the kitchen curtains are encrusted with cheerios and toddler face-prints, attack the piles I made yesterday, wrap birthday and Christmas presents, attend the sewing class at church, put Christmas lights in the windows, put up that infernal kitchen cabinet that still adorns my living room, and essentially play SuperMom until I run myself into the ground.

But I'm doing nothing. And I'm allowed to do nothing. In 45 minutes Leah will be in bed and I will put up my feet and commence nothing. I will possibly watch Tuesday's House, flip channels randomly while sipping hot cocoa, read a book, blog, or something equally underproductive, because I have permission! Sorry, but SuperMom is not in tonight!

That's exactly what I thought!

I just got the December issue of the Ensign, and I have to say, the very first article by President Hinckley hit me right in the center. It's called "These, Our Little Ones." I thought it was very powerful and inspiring. Let me share a few tidbits.

E. T. Sullivan once wrote these interesting words: “When God wants a great work done in the world or a great wrong righted, he goes about it in a very unusual way. He doesn’t stir up his earthquakes or send forth his thunderbolts. Instead, he has a helpless baby born, perhaps in a simple home and of some obscure mother. And then God puts the idea into the mother’s heart, and she puts it into the baby’s mind. And then God waits. The greatest forces in the world are not the earthquakes and the thunderbolts. The greatest forces in the world are babies.”

...

Do you want a spirit of love to grow in the world? Then begin within the walls of your own home. Behold your little ones, and see within them the wonders of God, from whose presence they have recently come.

...

The story is told that in ancient Rome a group of women were, with vanity, showing their jewels one to another. Among them was Cornelia, the mother of two boys. One of the women said to her, “And where are your jewels?” To which Cornelia responded, pointing to her sons, “These are my jewels.” Under her tutelage and walking after the virtues of her life, they grew to become Gaius and Tiberius Gracchus—the Gracchi, as they were called—two of the most persuasive and effective reformers in Roman history. For as long as they are remembered and spoken of, the mother who reared them after the manner of her own life will be remembered and spoken of with praise also.

...

Behold your little ones. Pray with them. Pray for them and bless them. The world into which they are moving is a complex and difficult world. They will run into heavy seas of adversity. They will need all the strength and all the faith you can give them while they are yet near you. And they will also need a greater strength which comes of a higher power. They must do more than go along with what they find. They must lift the world, and the only levers they will have are the example of their own lives and the powers of persuasion that will come of their testimonies and their knowledge of the things of God. They will need the help of the Lord. While they are young, pray with them that they may come to know that source of strength which shall then always be available in every hour of need.

...

Said Isaiah of old, “All thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children” (Isaiah 54:13). To which I add, “Great also shall be the peace and the gladness of their fathers and mothers.”

What a great honor and blessing that we have one (and 3/4) children. I only hope and pray and strive to be the worthy mother President Hinckley described that will instill in the hearts of my children the spirit and desire to do good.