Happy New Year!

So it’s officially 2009, thereby making Spanky Lulu’s arrival a mere 6 weeks away.  While the panic hasn’t set in, yet, we are definitely starting to feel the time crunch.

On the pregnancy front, things are moving along nicely.  My mom went with us this week to meet the midwife so they could meet once before they both showed up for the birth.  My mom was reassured that while water birth babies do appear to be slightly blue, they pink up and warm up rather quickly once removed from the water.  After watching a few home births in the Businees of Being Born, she was concerned that the water birth babies all looked cold and wrinkly.  She and Jason both got to hear the heartbeat and Spanky put on quite a show by getting herself all flipped around into some weird positions.  After a lot of poking and prodding, it was determined that she is somewhere between a breech and a sideways position.  This is both uncomfortable and unfortunate.  She has plenty of time to resume her previously occupied feet-up position before we need to be concerned, but space is at a premium in there and these huge movements are wreaking havoc on my internal organs.  I hope she returns to normal soon.

Only one more week of the childbirth class.  I can’t wait.  The information is generally useful, but the people in the class are stressing me out.  They are super nervous and continue to ask paranoid questions about all sorts of things I would prefer not to think about.

We are definitely starting to amass some super cute baby stuff.  One of the more practical items, however, comes in the form of a craft project.  We have been doing all sorts of research into what kind of cloth diaper covers we wanted to use.  The diaper itself has been decided on, but something needs to go over that to prevent all manner of leaks.  There are a few polyester options, which I am not thrilled with, and then a bunch of more natural fiber choices.  So I gave my mom the mission of trying to come up with something that would work, be inexpensive, and not be an all consuming craft project.  So I introduce to you the first version of Spanky Lulu’s wool diaper soaker.  It’s knitted with super soft wool and the legs should be wide enough to accommodate for the inevitability of her chubby thighs:

We fail

So it’s official.  We are the worst bloggers and we don’t even have a baby to blame for it.  Instead, we can all say that we survived a pretty rough semester and now that it’s over, we promise to be much, much better about keeping you all updated.

Since we last wrote, lots of exciting things have happened!

Jason finished his Master’s program at Emerson!  Yay!  We will call him Master Jason.

We continue to attend our childbirth class, which is kind of rough going.  The best part of the recent class was when we were doing some bizarre hip undulation, labor movement exercise type-thing and the guy next to us farted.  Unfortunately, Jason didn’t hear it, but I did.  And being a beacon of maturity, I could no longer control myself.  I was grateful that we weren’t the farters, only because the guy’s wife looked mortified.  But I really just couldn’t stop laughing, which may be just as embarrassing as the original offense.  I never really learned the hip movements that are supposed to ease labor pains.  I hope Jason was paying better attention.

We had a visit with the midwife, wherein we continue to be progressing along normally.  I have started having Braxton-Hicks contractions, which are a totally strange sensation.  My whole stomach gets super hard and then it is numb and tingly.  I had no idea what they were until it happened while I was getting poked in the stomach by the midwife…and she was like, oh, how long has that been going on…  But it definitely signals the beginning of the end of all of this.  Thank god.

I am not going to post the BabyCenter size updates anymore — I just don’t think they are particularly accurate and I don’t want to think too much about Spanky Lulu’s size over the next seven weeks.  Yes, she continues to grow.  And yes, the bigger she grows, the more difficult she will be to remove.  Let’s leave it at that.

Winter has come to Boston with a vengeance.  We had two big snowstorms in 2 days.  Since this is my favorite weather, I am loving it!  Anything to not have heat and humidity!  I supervised the massive shoveling efforts at our house and even managed to do a few scoops myself.  Nothing crazy.  But just enough to feel like it was really a snowstorm!

We aren’t really taking any time off around the holidays because we are trying to save our vacation days for when Spanks arrives.  So we are doing a super scaled-down version of the holidays this year, mainly because of the lack of time off and trying not to go overboard, as frequently happens in the traditional 599 High Street style.  I have a suspicion that this will be our last low-key holiday season.  Ever.  I have promised Spanky Lulu that we will never, ever make her go to to the mall and sit on Santa or Hanukkah Harry’s lap.

Instead of celebrating, we are supposed to be using this time to get organized and ready for the baby.  So far, we have gotten the big stuff, thanks to the amazing generosity of our families.  So we have a crib, a car seat and some strollers.  But that’s it!  Spanky Lulu is not allowed to arrive any earlier than scheduled, because she will be naked and diaper-less.  Maybe next week, we should get on that!

In other news, I am addicted to acupuncture.  And I am in love with the acupuncturist.  She does amazing work.  She hasn’t removed all of the pain, but it is so much more manageable.  I may have mentioned my constipation issues to her and she was like, let’s work on that.  And now, sometimes, in the days immediately following a visit with her, it is not unusual for things to happen more than once a day.  I will spare you the details.  But it’s real good!

I think that’s it for now.  Happy Hanukkah everyone!  I leave you with this very snowy photo of Jason and I!

Snow day!