playing catchup...

It’s been quite some time since our last update. Let’s do a little catch up – shall we?

Late September brought a trip up north to our northern California shower. We took a leisurely drive up the coast, stopping in Ventura (overnight), Monterey, and San Francisco.

While in Monterey we visited the aquarium – which took us all day to go through – and yet I somehow thought it would be larger. My favorite part of the aquarium could have been the jelly fish exhibit. While they are not cuddly looking – like the otters – the exhibit was beautiful. I wouldn’t like to meet any of the jellies out in the wild, but behind glass they were quite the sight to see. I finally got to see the box jellyfish that I’ve heard so much about in all my trips to Australia. For those not familiar, it’s a little tiny jellyfish that has so much poison that just a little touch from it can put a person in excruciating pain. The box jellies were tiny, and it’s hard to believe something that small and fragile looking can cause so much trouble – however, since most everything in Australia can be deadly I will not ever test my theory. Craig didn’t even approach the glass to take a look at the jellies. The years of education and warning to stay away from them at all possible costs apparently even applied to the ones behind glass.

In San Francisco we stayed at the Sir Frances Drake. It is best known (to me at least) as the hotel with the doormen who dress up in Beefeater costumes. It also has the starlight lounge on the roof (which we didn’t get to this time around – being pregnant and in a lounge can be depressing.). The main reason for stopping in San Francisco was that the Australian rules grand final (the super bowl of Aussie rules football) was going on and one of the local Australian clubs was hosting a party. The place was packed, and the beer flowing, but we managed to find a couple of chairs to watch the game from. As I may have mentioned earlier – the game was a slaughter. However, since neither Craig nor I had a preferred team we didn’t take it personally.

The shower went over very well – from my perspective. I got to see a lot of family and friends I don’t see all too often due to living in southern California. The baby got lots of wonderful things and has already managed to be spoiled, even before being born.

Fast forward a little bit to October. All of our doctor’s appointments went well – and the doctor mentioned on more than one occasion that I was ‘perfect’. I made sure to note each and every time she said this and pointed it out to Craig each time – just in case he didn’t hear her. I taught the last of my classes in October, and got my desk and work space all packed up for my months away. October was the last month I’d be working in the office. As I was not terribly comfortable in the desk chairs in the office and I have a good boss, my ‘office’ was now at home.

October also brought our southern California baby shower. We hosted the event at the club house at our apartment. Quite a lot of people showed up, and everyone seemed to have a good time. As with any party that an Australian was hosting, the beer was flowing. I had my sodas and enjoyed my non-alcoholic wine. (I pretended it was the real stuff, which somehow makes it taste better.) The baby once again got spoiled by the generosity of our friends. The prize of who came the furthest to join us goes to Alicia – who lives in New Mexico – but came to the party via Chicago. In addition to her travel, she helped with food shopping, food pickup, balloon wrangling, keeping the pregnant woman sane and entertained, and designed the much complimented labels on the favors handed out.

Once the parties were all taken care of Craig and I started to focus on the remaining baby necessities we had left to take care of. We wrangled the two car seat bases into each of our respective cars. The ‘key’ we were told by the installation manuals (that we read, cover to cover) and an instructive DVD was to make sure the seat could not be wiggled more than an inch in any direction. We followed this direction to the letter, and I am proud to say that neither car seat can be wiggled in any measurable way in any direction.

The remainder of our ‘necessities’ have been gathered, and the hospital bag’s contents are being assembled in one very large suitcase. I suspect when we finally show up at the hospital the staff will have a giggle at our expense and our HUGE bag.

So now the plan is to wait for wiggly to decide it’s time to show up. At 38 weeks he/she is fully cooked and ready to go – if only he/she would be ready to go! I’m not as worried about labor as I was previously – which both encourages – and confuses me. I suspect it’s some hormone that is designed to calm me down – which I am perfectly happy to accept. My body has managed to figure out this pregnancy thing without my mind getting in and confusing matters – so I figure it knows what it is doing.

Keep your fingers crossed for us, think baby being born thoughts, and if anything interesting happens we’ll let you know.