34 Weeks

We had another fun-filled weekend this past weekend. My mom was here helping me get everything ready. What would I do without her?! We put the baby's clothes in his dresser, set up the baby monitors, cleaned mine and Patrick's bedroom from top to bottom and set up the cradle, put together the pack 'n play, the stroller, and the carseat. We ran some errands, and even went to a baby shower!

My friend LeAnn, with the help of some other friends from school/bookclub, threw me a baby shower at the home of Phil and Martha (the couple that leads a small group discussion Patrick and I go to once a week.) . It was a mixture of friends, many of which didn't know each other, but I think everyone still had fun. We played a couple of games, including one where you had to name the baby versions of animals. For example, what is a baby whale? Apparently, the answer is not a fish. What is a baby swan? It is not an ugly duckling. These are just a few that I got wrong. I only got 6 out of 14 correct. I'm not sure what this says about my maternal skills. But, like someone at the shower said, at least I'm not a veterinary obstetrician. The other game that we played was to guess how big my belly was. A roll of toilet paper was passed around and you had to pull off the number of squares that you thought was the length around my waist. Let me tell you, some people think I have a BIG belly, including my own mother. But my friend Mary, an expectant mother herself, got it pretty close! I got a lot of really nice things at the shower. Everyone was so generous and thoughtful. I got a bunch of stuff that I still needed, so that was awesome. And some of my very talented friends made some special gifts for the baby - my friend Megan made a quilt and my friend Rebecca knitted some sweaters for the baby, and Liz is knitting a baby blanket (once I pick the colors!)

At the shower, my friend Lee came over to talk to Michelle Risher and I. Michelle is originally from New Olreans as well. Lee said she used to have a roommate from LA and that she always used to talk about this stuff that people used in LA and Lee wanted to know if it really existed. Lee said she was going to be really embarrassed about asking if we didn't know what she was talking about. Before she could say what it was, Michelle and I looked at each other and said, Boudreaux's Butt Paste! Lee was like, well, I guess it really does exist! I told Lee that I have a very large jar of Boudreaux's Butt paste ready for the baby. We got a good laugh about that. Here are some shower pictures:

Me and LeAnn

Baby's first baseball bat from Martha


Quilt from Megan




After the shower, my mom helped me put everything away, wash some more clothes, sheets and blankets for the baby. Then she and Patrick and I spent the evening trying to put things together. Here's the thing. I consider myself to be a reasonably intelligent person, but putting things together for a baby tends to make you question that. The directions on these things, like the stroller, car seat and pack n' play, consist of badly drawn cartoon images of pieces, and very short instructions, such as "Snap!" Snap? Snap what to what? What is that a drawing of? It definitely felt like it took longer to put everything together than it should have. Eventually we managed to figure everything out, we think. Hopefully they won't all fall apart when we put the baby in them.

Now, most of you may know that I'm not exactly a neat person. I tend to have a lot of clutter. Patrick had said he wasn't putting the baby's cradle in our bedroom until I cleaned it. His definition of clean and my definition of clean are two very different things. I thought it was clean already. But my mom got in my bedroom and whipped it into shape so that we could move the cradle in. Now that I look at my room, I see how nice it looks. It feels so good to have such a clean room! I had gotten the bedding for the cradle at my shower, so we put that all together and got it set up in our room. Its a big cradle, but the only thing we had to move out of the room was a nightstand. Its right next to our bed so all I have to do is stick my hand out and rock the cradle to get him to settle down and go back to sleep.



I think things are pretty much ready for the baby's arrival! He should weigh almost 5 lbs and is probably about 18 inches long. His fat layers are filling out and his central nervous system and lungs are continuing to mature. I go to the doctor again tomorrow, so we'll see how things are progressing!