July 30, 2003. Nothing much going on here, since all we really have left to do is wait. I am 38 weeks pregnant as of yesterday. Dave's putting the finishing touches on the dresser/changing table (we got an unfinished dresser and Dave painted it bright yellow), and I think that will be done tonight. Baby clothes are washed and ready to go, bag is packed, birth announcement envelopes are addressed and stamped. My aunt got us three months of diaper service (I'm so excited about this!), and we get our first diaper delivery next week. So nothing left to do but sit back and relax.
I don't know if I mentioned this before or not, but I got my birth announcements from here. The website's a bit clunky, but the service was fast and the announcements I got are adorable, and much, much cheaper than going the "professional" announcement route. (I got the "Pastel Blue Check with 3-D Pop-Out" cards, with the baby pop-up. I don't seem to be able to link to them.)
July 24, 2003. Suddenly, Fresh Samantha juice has completely disappeared. It has been replaced by Odwalla (which is, sigh, owned by Coca-Cola). I like Odwalla juice, but I really loved Fresh Samantha. The most shocking thing to me is how little publicity there has been about this, since Fresh Samantha was based in Saco, Maine. I would have thought the local paper would have had some story about it. What happened to the people who worked there?
In other Maine news, if you're thinking of camping in Maine, I highly recommend the state's new website, CampwithME.com. Not only can you make campground reservations, but you can actually pick your site. Much easier than calling, waiting on hold, and then leaving it up to fate as to whether or not you get a good campsite.
July 23, 2003. Dave and I took a little mini vacation the past four days. We figured it was our last chance to take a carefree, baby-free trip, since as of yesterday I'm 37 weeks pregnant, which means the baby is officially "full term." First we went to our friends Cat and Doug's farm, which is about two hours north of Portland. Here was the view as I sat out on the lawn to read and knit:
That's one of two barns there, with mountains in the distance. Dave went and hiked a mountain every day, while I lazed around on the lawn or went swimming in the lake. After two days on the farm, we switched venues and went to our friend Jessica's parents' cottage, which is about two hours up the coast from Portland. Here was the view from there:
We poked around Rockland, and spent a lot of time just staring at the ocean. It was all very nice, and I forgot how great it is to sit around and be forced to relax. It was such a luxury to spend hours and hours reading the newspapers on Sunday morning, and not feel the need to jump up and do something around the house.
So now, theoretically, we are all ready and are just waiting for the baby to be born.
July 18, 2003. My mom and aunt were just here for a few days to visit, which was great. My aunt lives in Colorado, so I don't get to see her very often. We walked around downtown Portland, got pedicures, and last night cooked up some lobsters. I'm pretty sure last night's lobster was the biggest lobster I've ever eaten. Yum. I also made a blueberry pie, which was amazing. I'd never made blueberry pie before (shocking!) and wasn't quite sure how it would end up, but there was no need to worry. I had no idea that you add tapioca to thicken the filling. I'm psyched to have another pie to add to my pie repertoire.
Mom and Aunt Sandra were both surprised by the ridiculous size of my belly. It's strange -- sometimes people tell me I look tiny, and other people say, "Wow, you must be ready to go at any minute!" All I know is I can't really reach my feet anymore, and I keep banging my belly into doorways when I misjudge my circumference. Three and a half weeks to go. Yikes.
Mom and I took our two cars to a AAA car seat check to see if I'd installed the car seats correctly. I've read about a thousand books that say that 80% of car seats are installed incorrectly, and put the kid at risk of death, etc. etc. And that you have to read every single word in the owner's manual before you even thinking about installing the car seat, even the parts that are in Spanish (ok, kidding about the Spanish part). So I sat down and read through the manual, and couldn't help thinking, "Huh, seems pretty straightforward to me." Sure enough, I had installed the car seats exactly right. I guess it's just a liability thing. The only thing they corrected, actually, was strapping the bases in more tightly, but that was more a strength issue than a matter of doing it right or wrong. Still, I'm glad we went to get them checked, so at least I know they're right.
One last thing, that has nothing to do with any of the above. Last week the doorbell rang, and there were three kids at my door. They said they had a dog walking business. I told them that we don't have a dog. One of the kids said, "We also have a selection of dog-related merchandise" and they laid out a bunch of baskets with all these things they made themselves. Bookmarks, pads of paper, ornaments, and a bunch of other things I don't even remember. I bought two bookmarks for 25 cents each:
They cut out dog pictures from magazines, pasted them to paper, decorated the paper, laminated it, and added a tassel. I thought it was completely adorable. They had quite a selection to choose from; it was hard to decide. Cute little budding entrepreneurs.
July 7, 2003. We had a lovely holiday weekend, though it was a bit hot for me. It was only really 90 degrees, which is hot for Maine, but I think I'm running about 20 degrees hotter than everyone else at this point. On Saturday we took a hike to try to find some breezes.
You can tell I'm hot because I've got my hair pulled back in that Sade hairstyle. The summit had a stone tower to climb (which is what I'm standing on here), and once I got up there, I didn't want to leave. It was so nice to be able to look out over all of the surrounding mountains and feel some actual wind. Eventually, however, we were overrun by a pack of 12-year-old girl campers, so it was time to go. I have to admit I have a fear of 12-year-old girls moving in giant packs.
Tomorrow, I've got five weeks left to go until my due date. This is still so strange to me. Sometimes I don't feel pregnant at all. I feel like if you said, "Tomorrow, you'll meet a camel walking down the street" I might believe that more than "Tomorrow, you've got five weeks left before you have a kid."
Last night we started hypnobirthing, which is another tool to relax yourself during labor so that labor is shorter and doesn't hurt as much. Sounds good to me. I had signed up for a group class, but it was canceled because there weren't enough participants. Luckily, the private classes sound better anyway. It's the same price, you only do two classes instead of four, and the teacher comes right to our house (I don't know if that's normal, or just because she happens to live about a block away from us). Anyway, we both really liked the teacher. I liked the part where she said Dave should massage me every night from now until birth. She also gave us some tapes to listen to every night before we go to bed. I think it's all pretty interesting. I'm certainly willing to try whatever I can to make my labor quicker.
July 3, 2003. We finally got a break after the heat wave we had last week. Peatie is taking advantage of breezes in his new favorite sleeping spot: under the rose bush.
