So, what happens when Ava skips a nap?

I'm flying solo this weekend. Rob's at his annual fantasy football draft/golf/manapalooza in San Diego, so I very purposefully sought out Meaningful Activities that are Fraught with Redeeming Social Value. Quite frankly, the idea of waking up to a completely unscheduled blank slate of a day with Ava scared the hell out of me. So we went here as I had it on good authority that it would be a great way to spend an hour or two.

It was awesome. SO perfect. Seriously, Ava scampered around the place like it was where she had spent the last twenty months waiting for us to take her there. They have a stage with a whole wall full of dress-up clothes. They have bubble tables and mazes big enough to walk through, and a mock classroom and grocery store and so many wonderful things for her to explore. Yeah, it's located at the corner of Crack and Ho, but I suppose that's part of the whole experience.

So we got there at 10, right when they opened, so it wasn't crowded. We stayed for an hour and 15 minutes, and that put us home right on track for lunch and nap. She ate a gigungous lunch, yawning and rubbing her eyes the whole time, and I figured that one hour of scampering and frolicking would lead to three hours of hardcore napping.

WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. WRONG.

For nearly an hour, she just chilled in her crib, talking to Elmo and Monkey and Bear and Other Bear, and then she was ready to not be in her crib. She fussed with increasing intensity, and I knew that the three hour nap was not in the cards. When I gave up and went in to assess, she was standing in the middle of her crib like Hannibal Lecter when Clarice first meets him. No sign of any distress or displeasure. Just. Standing. There.

OK fine, little girly-girl. No nap today. Let's go run some errands, as maybe a ride in the car will lull you to sleep.

Nope, nope nope nope. She chattered gaily to the guy at the cleaners and was the life of the party at Target. We got back to the house at 4:30, and that's when she started to get twitchy. Any kid of mine is going to have a short fuse, but man, today from about 5:00 on, she was a freaking land mine. Her eyes were so sleepy. She had big awful dark circles (yeah, she gets that from me, too...).

At 6:00, she went feral. She was so tired, she couldn't even walk straight, but when she'd fall over it made her giggle, so she'd do it on purpose (I'm debating whether to google that behavior to see if it's normal, but I'm afraid of what I might find).

Since I'm evidently new to this "mom" thing, I thought maybe a bath would help her relax. Oh dear God. I once tried to wash our cat when I was little. Jughead was angry on a good day, and evidently being bathed was a direct indictment of her self-cleaning abilities. Today, Jughead looked up from Cat Hell with one smug green eye, and mrowred with victorious condescension as she bowed to the new Empress of DON'T PUT ME IN THE GODDAMN BATHTUB.

At 6:45, dried, pajama'd and cuddled, Ava put herself to bed, an hour and fifteen minutes early. I truly believe that she figured she had put me through quite enough.

Um, yeah. Busy.

You'll be delighted to learn that we are still alive. SHEESH.

In the past month, Ava's picked up probably 30 words, and many of them are neither profane nor part of a demand (sometimes "Sit!" comes out "Shit!" and we're pretty sure she's saying "Sit!" but it could really go either way). At the end of each day we are exhausted and astonished by how much Ava there is going on at any given moment.

Our strategies as parents have changed. No more do we ask "Do you want to go to bed/take a bath/eat your dinner?" because 99% of the time the answer is No!. The other 1% of the time is a big Yes! and we'd better make damn sure the bed has a sheet on it/the bathtub is full and bubbly/food is on the tray and has cooled enough to eat or there is hell to pay. So instead of asking, we preface every.single.sentence with "It's time to..." and that seems to work. For now, at least. I'm quite confident that it won't last forever.

She has such breathtaking tantrums. The first real doozy was probably a month ago, and I was just stunned. She just flipped her gourd for no. good. reason. and I watched it like it was in slow motion. Rob comes in and he's like "What the hell?!" and I'm all "No idea..." and after about five minutes she was done and it was over and she was OK like nothing had even happened. So now when it happens, we make sure that injury is unlikely ("Clear the perimeter!") and we let her just work it out. If we're at a restaurant, then it's "Check!" and we get the hell outta there. We go about our business, have a conversation, and once she sees that we're not buying into it, she stops. She just freaking stops like "Oh, OK then, can I have some juice?" and we're all "yeah whatever here you go" and we're fine. We pick our battles so very carefully... We've learned that the morning and evening routines are critically important and there are no variables--we go to parties and we're the first to arrive and first to leave, and that's fine because by the time we leave we're so tired from chasing her that really, it's OK, we'll catch you next time. But stuff during the day is kind of flexible. Nap should start by 12:30, but sooner is fine. Meals are kind of arbitrary--she eats either NOTHING or EVERYTHING and there's no way to know in advance which it will be. All those people who say "Just be consistent!" and are all chipper because they know it all? Yeah I want them to come over and spend 24 hours in our house being consistent and let's just see how well that goes.

The Daycare Ladies give us a daily report at the end of each day--just a summary of how she ate, when she napped, the particular intricacies of her #s 1 and 2, and then they write a little blurb about any noteworthy happenings or behaviors. In the last month, the blurb has gotten interesting:

• "Ava exhibited a lessened tolerance for her peers today". (I'm not sure what this means, exactly, but I didn't have to sign anything so she didn't bite or hit anyone.)
• "Before naptime, Ava searched through everybody's cubbies looking for binkies and blankets, which she gave to all of the baby dolls as she tucked them all in."
  
• "Ava loves to paint!" (I read that, and then I looked up and she's covered head to toe in all the colors of the rainbow, happy as can be)

And so on.

She's 18-1/2 months old now. We had her last Well Baby check last week. That was a big one for me--it's like she's officially Not A Baby anymore. Ooof. And she's so not a baby anymore--no more binkies, eating food with a spoon at mealtimes, very specific likes and dislikes. She loves Mickey Mouse and Elmo with a love that is pure and true. Those marketing gurus at Disney and Sesame Street know what they're doing. And yeah, we're suckers, because she now has a stuffed (non-speaking) Elmo doll.

Next weekend, I'm going out of town with some girlfriends, and I. Can't. Wait. I haven't spent a night away from Ava EVER. I'm all cool and offhand about it on the surface ("Eh, she'll be fine!") but it's going to be very weird to be away. We'll drop her off at daycare on Thursday and then I won't see her again until Sunday night. Whoa. That's a lot. And I know she will be fine--Rob is amazing with her and she's totally a Daddy's girl. They'll have lots of fun and she'll be able to run around all weekend looking like a hobo (honestly, I don't know how he concocts such awful clothing combinations from such cute clothes...).

So that's where we are. There's not a lot of glamour happening. We have a School Friend birthday party this weekend--Ava's friend "Lexi" is turning 2. I don't know which one she is, but the invitation has Tinker Bell on it so I'm going to do my best to put something awesome (and sparkly? sparkly seems like a good way to go...) together.

Our cups runneth over.

We're blessed. We know we are. We have jobs (although the terms of mine are currently the subject of discussion at a special session of the legislature), our bills are paid, our house is warm (insulated, I imagine, by the stuff on all of the counters and tables...) and we are healthy (unless you count colds). At the end of each crazy day, Rob and I look at each other and say it out loud, how lucky we are.

Ava is a little girl. Not a baby, not even a little bit, anymore. She knows more words than she says and her personality is really coming through. This morning I went in to wake her up, and she looked at me like "WHA?", handed me her monkey, and pulled the blanket over her head. That's my kid all right ;). We're working with Daycare to transition her to the Toddler Room. She is down to one bottle a day (right before bed) and she's losing interest in that pretty quickly. She can walk all the way from the car to her classroom. In the Toddler Room she will eat her meals at a table, instead of in a high chair. She'll nap on a cot instead of a crib. They have two hours a day of outside play (weather permitting...) which she is going to LOVE.

She's so big. I look at her on the rare occasions that she falls asleep in my arms, and I can only see glimpses of the baby she used to be. She's stretching out, so the rolls of little chub on her legs are going away (booooooo...). She is going to be a handful, I think. Already, she makes it clear when her world isn't what she wishes it to be. She doesn't like too many people, so we're watching her carefully as she moves from the familiar team of Daycare Ladies to a new group. She'll be OK, I know. But we will need to help her learn how to be OK and stay OK.

Right now, I have 3 close friends (you know who you are, ladies) in various stages of pregnancy. It's so cool to be on this side of it, like I'm in on a secret. It's such a big deal. One will have her baby next week (!!!! so excited!!!) and we can't wait to meet him. Seeing my friends go through this after having done it myself makes me realize that no, we're not ready to do it again. I'll say that again in case you missed it: no, we're not ready to do it again. Not yet. It's too big. We're good with where we are right now.

If This Happens For Every Tooth, I'm Going To Need A Bigger Wine Fridge.

This is going to be a terribly interesting summary of Ava's first fever, which will also serve the purpose of reminding me about what to do when future fevers happen. Blog = baby book.

So Friday morning we got up and Ava was warm. Rob noticed it first. We took her temperature and it was 98.5 under her arm which means her core temperature (I just learned this phrase, thank you Auntie Nurse Amy) was 99.5. She usually runs about 2 degrees cooler, so we knew something was up. She didn't sleep worth a damn last week, so between that and a higher temperature, we figured it was teeth. When her bottom teeth came in over the summer, she ran a little warmer than usual.

At 4:00 Daycare Lady called me at work. We were on deck to take advantage of a delightful thing they occasionally do at Daycare called Parents Night Out, where they host a slumber party and watch movies until 10:30. Their threshold for Calling Parents and Sending Children Home is 101 degrees, and Ava hit it. OMG. So I wrapped up the week, shut stuff down, and picked her up a little early. I walk in, and they all look at me like "There's Little Miss CrankyPants's mom now." Evidently she spent the day glaring at everyone. Parents Night Out (a nice relaxing sushi dinner, in our case) was abruptly cancelled.

Over the course of the weekend, Ava's temperature steadily rose. I got some great advice from the aforementioned Nurse Amy, and another BFF called to give some fantastic info about fevers and Baby Tylenol (a freaking miracle drug...) and between the two of them, we felt pretty confident about what to look for and when to start calling doctors or running to the ER.

Saturday sucked. She just flat didn't feel good. Poor little boopy, she tried to play but quickly realized that she preferred to sit quietly and cuddle. This was alarming. Saturday night she woke up at 3 and the thermometer stopped at 101.9 which adding one for armpit (even simple math at 3AM was very trying--I'm going to put a sticky on the thermometer that says "just add 1"). Had it hit 102 (meaning 103...) that's when you call doctors or run to the ER. But it stayed at 101.9. She didn't have any other symptoms, either. Just a freakishly high Fever Of Unknown Origin (OMG DO NOT LET ME GO ON WEBMD AT 3AM). We could feel the heat radiating from her poor little head. It was awful.

Today she was better. No fever at all since we got up this morning. She just went to bed, and is a nice cool 97.5 (oh just do the freaking math...). So we're all better, and very optimistic about getting some sleep tonight.

Last night (it counts as "last night" rather than "this morning" because I did go back to bed after she went to sleep) I suddenly felt like a mom. As upset, uncomfortable, unhappy, and generally pissed of she was, she held on to me because Mama Makes it Better. There wasn't a lot I could do about the fever, but she didn't care. She couldn't rest in the crib, but she calmed down and was able to fall (and stay) asleep in my lap. She was holding on to me with one hot little hand, and holding on to the binky with the other. Mama and Binky. We're a good team.

She's OK now. I'm still taking her temperature at every diaper change, but she's cool to the touch. And it's weird--suddenly, I can tell if she's got a fever just by putting my hand on her head. I've always wondered How They Do That. And I still don't know. But now I can do that too. Because I'm the mama, and Mama Makes It Better.

Oh and that freaking tooth better be the best goddamn tooth ever to break through a gum when it ever shows up.

Perhaps The Answer Is More Obvious Than That

There have been times in the past 6 months where we proceeded with much fanfare and confidence in an entirely incorrect direction. Early on, we tried to stop hysterical, purple-faced crying with a binky and a 3AM car ride, under the auspices of "She's tired, and this will soothe her." The appropriate solution to such a situation was, in fact, feeding her.

And then we had a terrible issue with "How are we going to keep her from getting spit-up all over her clothes and causing a rash if we don't change her quickly enough?" Yeah. That's what bibs are for, genius.

The most recent example of the view of the trees being blocked by the forest is in the previous post regarding orange food. Ava did not sleep on two days when she ate orange food. Ava hates orange food! No more orange food! Hooray!



I'm reminded of a scene from one of my favorite movies:



Orange food is like the cans. Ava is the guy with the gun. And we're Navin Johnson.

Hey, Einstein, maybe she's teething. Maybe the reason her sleep is changing is that she's 6-1/2 months old and her freaking teeth are coming in. Maybe her little mouth is starting to hurt because underneath the surface of her little gums ARE TEETH.

Oof.

In a related story, Baby Tylenol is a marvelous solution, allowing her to sleep, which allows us to sleep. And since sleep begets sleep, she is now back in the habit of sleeping through a big chunk of night. And so are we.

More Kool-Aid, Please

I have joined a cult.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not a joiner. I'm not a people person. I don't like daily affirmations and I really get suspicious of anyone who is too enthusiastic about anything.

But my house was a mess. Not like on Clean Sweep, which I actually cannot even watch because it makes me angsty. It was more of a consistently piley cluttery step-over-stuffy sort of environment. And that stresses me out, especially when I'm carrying a baby in one hand and an armful of stuff in the other.

Enter the Flylady.

Flylady wants us to have a clean house. Not OCD clean. Not clean at the expense of your family's sanity and all your spare time clean. Flylady believes that if I spend 15 minutes a day tidying up and one hour a week with a vacuum and a duster, the house will become clean and stay clean.

Flylady emails me friendly reminders about things like "rebooting the laundry". Cute, huh? Rebooting it means that if it's not folded and put away, I need to get off my tuckus and move it one step closer to that status. Flylady wants the last thing I do every day to be a ritual Shining of my Sink. Not a metaphor. A shiny kitchen sink is the key to a clean house. Flylady wants me to sort the junkmail before it even gets inside the house so it doesn't pile up. Flylady wants me to set a timer for 15 minutes, walk into the Room of the Week, and, working clockwise (NEVER COUNTER-CLOCKWISE ONLY CLOCKWISE), I should hum a merry tune whilst "blessing my home" with cleanliness.

What pisses me off is that it works. Instead of spending a big chunk of time every evening stomping around with a Swiffer and clearing off the table (again) and getting frustrated with what doesn't get done, I spend less than half an hour focusing on whatever today's mission is and then I'm done.

I'll be damned if the house isn't clean and the laundry isn't folded and put away.

Sometimes she gets a bit Thankful To Our Lord, and the stuff she has for "WOHMs" (work outside-the home moms, as opposed to stay at home moms) is obviously attached as an afterthought, but I like that she advocates the creation of a system. Her methods require the creation and implementation of routines, and that makes me very happy. I love systems and routines like nobody's business.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go shine my stupid sink.

A Typical Evening.

When I was pregnant, Ava had a definite schedule of activity from the moment I first became aware of her. For most of the day, I'd feel little movements here and there and not much at all in the afternoons. Then at night, right when I'd be ready to go to bed, she would come to life.

Ava has maintained that schedule. Observe.



I know it's long, but it's worth watching until the end, isn't it?

This is essentially what happens every night. This was filmed between 10 and 11PM last night. As you can see, she finally wore herself out and we all got about 3 hours of sleep after that. Rob and I frequently discuss how wonderful it will be when she gets over that subsequent feeding, which generally comes around 1:30AM. Oof. It's a tough one, because it's probably half an hour of actual food consumption and then an hour or more of Ava wide awake and wanting to play. The graveyard shift makes for a long night and an even longer next day.

Fortunately for her, she's super cute.



Seriously.

I blame the lactation hippie.

It's hard not to be the crazy mom. There's so much that we just don't know about what is and is not normal. Any snake oil salesman can come along and tell me that Ava is missing out on XYZ and we need to buy/sell/do ABC in order to make sure she's OK and I will bite.

Case in point: Wednesday, I met with a lactation consultant to get some pointers about nursing and such. Ms Tie-Dyed In the Wool Earthy Chunky Organic Granola immediately sets forth assessing what we're dealing with (namely, The Girls, if ya get my drift) and how we can help Ava have more milk and less formula. Before I can even say "age of Aquarius", I'm buying a new nursing pillow ("My Brest Friend"), a ten-day supply of herbal supplements to help increase my milk supply, and am on the phone with the pediatrician's office to schedule an immediate appointment to take care of Ava's tied tongue, which is a HUGE impediment to her successful latching-on and will result in her NEVER BEING ABLE TO BREASTFEED OMG WE NEED TO FIX THIS STAT. As luck would have it, we can get in at 4:30 that same day! Hooray! Never let it be said that my baby girl suffered for my lack of action.

OK, so I drag our tired butts to the doctor's office, which, fortunately, is super close to home. Two hours later, we return home with the knowledge that yes, she has a bit of a connection betwixt her tongue and the bottom of her mouth, but, in the words of our Very Wise Doctor, "if she can latch on to a bottle, she can latch on to a breast." Furthermore, in 25 years of pediatric practice, he has never corrected such a thing, nor even seen one that he thought was worthy of referring out to a specialist for correction. He then patted us both on the heads, gave me a lolly, and sent us on our way. And when we got outside it was raining, which was the cherry on the cake of that crazy stupid day. Poor Rob. He was waiting for us when we got home, and he pulled my exhaustedly sobbing self out of the car, somehow got Ava into the house, put us both in comfy pajamas and declared Wednesday over.

I didn't intend to go insane and be That Mom. Really. At no time did I insist that My Child Needs Immediate Attention. It just worked out that way. Thank God we found a doctor who takes things like this in stride and is able to keep a straight face and reassure me that, really, there's nothing wrong with our kid and we can relax about her nursing. She's fine.

Good lord. This post-partum hormonal thing sneaks up on you. I mean, I knew that stuff would get to me in new and exciting ways but I had no idea how quickly I would go from "I'm fine, we're cool" to "OMG WHY IS THE WORLD SO AWFUL?!" So now we have some rules about how my errands are managed; namely, no same-day add-ons. If something new comes up, it can wait until tomorrow or next week or whenever.

This morning I took Ava to the lab for some bloodwork--just a follow-up for the PKU that they performed last week in the hospital. Routine stuff, kind of unpleasant as they do what is called a "heel stick" and it's probably 30 seconds of aggravation for babies and two days of anxiety for moms (even moms who are working very hard not to be high maintenance). Again, she's fine, resting comfortably, and I celebrated the completion of the blood draw with a diet Coke and a fancy cupcake.

I was talking to my friend Tina today about this hormonal thing that's happening. I feel good and I don't feel overwhelmed (read: this is something I'm pretty sure I can handle). But the second anyone asks "So, how are you doing?" I get a bit teary and pherklempt and I have to take a second to get on top of it. Tina recalled feeling the same way--super tired, but generally OK until someone asks if you're OK and when you start to think about just how much Everything has changed you feel overcome by how amazing and different and hard and wonderful it all is and how it all changed in one exhilarating minute (must stop, getting weepy...).

Rob's back at work and that's been an adjustment for everyone. His first day back was Wednesday, and that made for a long Tuesday night and a tough Wednesday morning (even before the hippie). We had a better night last night, as Ava decided that sleeping after each bottle would be acceptable to her. That made a huge difference, as when she sleeps, everybody gets to sleep. I'll still take a nap in a little while, but it doesn't feel like such a necessity today ; rather, it's kind of the way my naps used to be back B.A. (Before Ava) when I was just lazy instead of justifiably tired ;).

Oh, and the herbal supplements that Sunshine Von Acid Trip recommended seem to have helped with the milk supply. Go figure.

Anything can be a lullabye.

First, please note the time this was posted. It is currently 5:56 AM and I've been up for about 2 hours. On a Saturday. Compliments of one 6-pound unborn child, I might add, who seems to be interested only in making it known that she is becoming increasingly uncomfortable where she is and is ready for a change of scenery. More on that in a minute.

I got up so that Rob can get some sleep (and he is doing just that). I'll catch a nap later. But what do I do to get this kid calmed down so maybe I can catch just a few more Zs before the sun comes up? Run the Swiffer around to pick up the dog hair kills about 10 minutes. Not hungry. Don't feel like reading. Maybe there's something on TV. VH-1 is showing videos for once, and wouldn't you know that Britney Spears' new one is in high rotation. It's a catchy little tune--watch it here. I've realized that the more I move around, the less the baby seems to. This is doubtless going to become very important in the coming months.

So I rock out along with Ms Spears, singing along with the parts I know, dancing because nobody is watching (thank God, because there's a lot going on when I dance lately). And the kid calms down. She switches from actively rolling around in there with arms flailing (you can SEE the shape of a leg moving around) back to the restful sleep that I've come to treasure.

What's the lesson here? Perhaps that tiptoeing around a restless baby, with a quiet house and not a lot of movement, is not going to be the only solution for getting her to go to sleep. Sure, the singing and dancing may not always work, but it is officially going to be a part of the repertoire. Anyone who has witnessed my karaoke can attest to the fact that an audience only adds to my enthusiasm. So there we go.

Since I'm up and posting, here's what else is going on. Speck is "transverse", or breech. At my last OB appointment we determined that she needs to flip over if she's going to do the traditional "make like a baby and head out" thing. And that needs to happen soon. If it doesn't, then I'm a candidate for a C-section. This doesn't exactly thrill me, but this isn't about me having my ideally envisioned birthing experience. It's about this baby safely entering this world, and if that has to happen in an OR with a melon baller, then that's what we'll do. I see the perinatalogist on Wednesday for another ultrasound (more pictures!) and the OB on Thursday, and between the three (four, if you count our star attraction) of us, we're going to start coming up with a plan of action.

We've also done a bit more prep, besides the continued purchase of cute little clothes. We now have pictures on the wall of the nursery (terribly important, as our child must live in a properly decorated environment) and I have an appointment to meet with a pediatrician. A good friend (Tina :) ) recommended hers, and he's got an office that's just across the highway from us. I'll do some research on what sort of questions to ask (open to suggestions here...) and Rob and I are going to talk about what we'd like to know--such as how understanding will he be when we freak out about something that may or may not be freak-out worthy--and we'll go from there.

It's now 6:19 (hey look, the sun's coming up...) and I think I can crash for a bit longer. If not, I can always queue up some Britney on youtube.com, and she can help me nurture the kid. Shake it, Brit.

Nesting. Check.

We're learning that there are varying degrees of "We're Ready". Last week, we were physically ready, with a place to put a baby. And that was a relief. So this week, we've had some time off together over the holiday so there has been quite a bit more Getting Ready.

Meet the official, finished (except for pictures on the wall) nursery:


The thing hanging down from the little pink shelf is a ribbon for barrettes and hair stuff. So cute that it almost hurts to look at it ;).


A very comfy chair, with gliding footrest. Some assembly was required.


That bookshelf was mine when I was growing up. It initially (like in 1980) was pink. Then teal (1986ish, when everything was teal), then a very unpleasant green (I don't know what happened there...) then kind of a neutral beige. It is now pink again. It's the circle of furniture life, and it truly does move us all. We stripped it down to bare wood, and it's now ready for the next generation of color experimentation.

This has been kind of a tough few days. I'm not sleeping very much (yeah yeah practice for when the baby gets here, just hang on, just you wait, blah blah blah) and so it was nice to have some time off where I can just sleep when the mood strikes. She's moving around a lot. I'm kind of high maintenance myself (just ask Rob...). Speck is taking my very carefully-cultivated Princess-and-the-Pea thing to new levels. It's becoming very clear that she has a narrow definition of what is comfortable, and I am at her mercy right now. More than once in the wee small hours of the morning, I've thought wistfully about a day that I'll be able to hand her to someone (like Rob...) and maybe score five minutes of comfort on my stomach. I know I'll miss how amazing it has been to have her all to myself--except for the times when Rob gets brave enough to put his hand on my roiling belly until she shoves it off. But I think We're Ready for the next phase to begin. Remind me that I said this in 6 weeks when I'm running on 8 minutes of sleep and my unwashed hair is permanently fused to the scrunchy holding it out of my eyes.

So that's what the expectant parents are up to. And here is the expectant dog:


Freshly groomed and hoping that someone will come to grab that duck out of her mouth, Gracie also patiently waits for the new arrival.

We Don't Know Nothing 'Bout Birthing No Babies

Well, we didn't. Yesterday was our Childbirth Education class. We've heard mixed reviews about such things, so our expectations were pretty low. My OB recommended that we go, just because we haven't done this before and we might learn something. And we did. Quite a bit, actually. The teacher was a Labor & Delivery nurse from the hospital where we'll be delivering (check it out). She's been doing this for almost 30 years, most of which have been here in Vegas. She was a cross between Julia Child and Cloris Leachman. Very knowledgeable, lots of good information (like "Don't forget to bring lip balm" and "Make sure your car seat is installed before you show up to have a baby") and instructions. She warned of possible complications without being an alarmist and gave good advice about what to do if Something happens. She also gave us her home phone number, and invited us to call anytime with questions. Nice. We also got a tour of the hospital and now we know exactly where to go and what to do and say when we get there. They let us pre-register so we don't have to go through the whole admissions process. It was a long day, but we were pretty impressed with what we got for our 35 bucks.

This morning we put the stroller together. It's been sitting in its box for 3 months, and it was time. Not the most difficult thing in the world, as it was mostly intact. It folds up almost flat, so we won't be tripping over it for the next 2 months (HOLY CRAP TWO MONTHS OH MY GOD). There's a way to fold it up smartly with one hand that I haven't quite mastered yet. I'm going to be the over-excited expectant mom who practices folding up the stroller ;).

We have officially stopped sleeping. Not entirely, but we're down to about 5 hours a night and we're not sure why. I suppose there will be days ahead where we'll look back fondly on five hours of generally uninterrupted sleep and wish we could get that much again, but right now it kind of stinks. Waking up at 4:30 makes for a long day, and the earlier we go to sleep the earlier we wake up. So this morning, on this fine Sunday when we don't have to work and there are no real commitments at all, we were up a good 2 hours before sunrise. Yuck.

So what's next in our preparations? Finish painting--just touch ups, mostly. Paint the bookshelves, assemble the crib (note to self, buy a crib mattress), stuff like that. I've talked to one day care center--yes, we'll have to put our child in full-time day care and while we're not thrilled, there are several good options available--and we'll meet with a couple more before we commit. There is a ton of very small clothing that needs to be washed before anyone can wear it.

On paper, we're about ready for Speck's arrival. In reality... we'll figure it out as we go :)