blips and bloopers: 37 weeks pregnant

Long time no type, eh?

All's well here; (at the extreme risk of grossing you out) my cervix is still in lock-down mode. Gozer isn't going anywhere anytime soon, which is good because both my doula and my mother are going to be out of town this weekend!

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Two weeks ago, my family hosted a couples baby shower, where most everyone wore a Halloween costume of some sort. Hours before Mr. Hubby and I were going to leave our house, we told our dog Suki "car ride to Grandma and Grandpa's house for party".

BIG MISTAKE

Suki immediately trotted over to her collar and leash, and upon, hearing "no, wait" she went to her window perch and looked outside, presumably to see if Grandma and Grandpa were in the driveway. Fast forward half an hour to Mr. Hubby being in one bathtub and me in the other - Suki barged in each bathroom multiple times to give us exasperated sighs, and ultimately settled on wandering the hallway whimpering and crying. As cruel as this may seem, listening to a beagle/Japanese chin pout is actually very funny. Perhaps we could have gotten away with not immediately delivering on the promise of a car ride, or a party, but adding Grandma and Grandpa was going too far.

When we arrived, we decorated the house in black, orange, pink, and light blue, which may sound hideous but is fantastic for a Halloween-themed shower. True to family form, it was a fantastic party; a fire pit in the backyard complete with hot dogs and marshmallows, beer and wine for the guests (I rocked the root beer), an ecstatic Suki-pup wandering around off leash (we were confident she wouldn't wander far from a party involving food-mooching opportunities), and relaxed conversation.
My smartie-pants brother-in-law modified the "guess the baby food" game by adding copious amounts of food coloring to the jars - purple infant mac&cheese is more disgusting than words can describe.

Absolutely everyone we invited at least stopped by for as long as their schedule (or tired toddler) would allow. None of the men present (other than Mr. Hubby) had ever attended a baby shower before, and I was especially glad to demonstrate that there is no need for baby showers to be stuffy, boring-as-hell affairs.

That evening, Mr. Hubby returned home so he could get to work early the next morning. My sister, brother-in-law, Suki, and I decided to spend the night at my parent's house - all of us were too tired to consider driving over an hour to get back to my house. Given the hissy-fit that Suki threw earlier, I should not have been surprised that I was rejected at bedtime; she chose to sleep between my parents - diagonally, because they were either too naive or too charmed to stop her from hogging the bed.

The best part of the past two weeks is that I was able to spend two days with my sister Alie and my brother-in-law. As if throwing a shower wasn't enough, the woman helped me clean my fish tank! And it was her idea! Talk about love.

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Last Friday, a friend of mine from work hosted an office baby shower for me (yes I've had _three_ total). It was sparsely attended, but I had a very good time regardless. I think/hope the problem was that we gave people paper invitations in their mailboxes, rather than emailing them. I knew that a few people had schedule conflicts that afternoon, but did expect more than three people (out of 12 invited) to show (6 attendees total, counting me, the hostess and her adorable 3 year old son). I did receive a very apologetic email and gift from a gal who thought the party was this Friday, a explanation and gift from a gal who had an appointment at the same time, and a apologetic explanation from a friend of mine who has a very young child (she's completely not allowed to gift anything to me since I've already received an absolute glut of gently-used baby supplies from her).

I'm not writing about this to pout, but rather to point out how fantastic pregnancy hormones have been to me lately: under normal circumstances, I would probably feel stood up, unliked, ignored, whatever - but instead, I simply don't give a crap. I do feel bad for the hostess who put time, money, and effort into throwing a party for a bigger group, but as it turned out, I got to really visit with everyone there and had fantastic leftovers to take home that evening.

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On Saturday, Mr. Hubby and I go to be stats-takers for my derby girls. This was the first home bout I have attended without being the volunteer coordinator. I thought that I would feel disconnected, or less "important" to the bout production, but I *loved* every minute of it. Three 20 minute periods go by in a blink when you're keeping track of who is on the floor and what they're doing at any moment. My teammates played a phenomenal game, and lost by two points, which is a ridiculously close margin for roller derby. I'm convinced that they would have won if there were a few more minutes left on the clock.

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These days, besides continuing to work full-time, I've been keeping myself very busy getting ready for the baby to arrive. I visited a lactation consultant today and bought new parts for a gifted (used) breast pump. Yesterday, I started packing my hospital bags, and my project for this weekend is to make sure I've got all the baby toiletries/medicines/gear I need so I don't have to send people out on errands once we're home from the hospital. (Okay, slightly fewer errands . . .)

And, I kid you not, at this moment I'm getting fantastic mommy practice:
as I type this, my friend's 5.5 month old is draped over me, fast asleep. What particularly cracks me up, is that she has to straddle my belly in such a way that her foot visibly moves when my baby delivers a good kick.