Wrigley update: Almost at the finish line!

Hello from week 38 of pregnancy.  I'm waddling around, wincing quite a bit and feeling like a beached whale. I feel huge, yet there is a dress from when I was pregnant with Lauren, which I remember outgrowing when I was 8 months pregnant then, and it fits me just fine now so I'm not as big as in 2006.  A week and a half ago, when I was at the midwife appointment, I had not "dropped" yet, and with a bellybutton check at Jill's baby shower (Jill is my friend who is due on 10/26), hers was lower than mine and she had dropped.  This past week, our bellybuttons were level again and the nurse-midwife said Wrigley's head is low in my pelvis, sitting right on my bladder.  TMI, but this is why I wake up 5 or 6 times in the night to go to the bathroom. 

Even though his head is low, his legs must be long because he is still able to kick me in the ribs and in fact, is doing that right now as I type.  We are pretty much ready for him, equipment-wise.  Today I got an infant bathtub and Moses basket, washed out the bedding and set it up so that he can sleep in there when I'm downstairs on the couch.  I finally installed the infant seat base in my car, but if the carrier is snapped in, I have the move the seat forward to fit and then *I* can't fit around the steering wheel with my belly!.

I had a panicked hour browsing the car section of Craig's List and checking my (measly) stock portfolio to see what bigger vehicle I could afford.  Really like having a small sedan, don't want to move into SUV or mini-van territory over one eansy weinsy tiny infant, but can't drive crunched up.  Then Jill reminded me, the belly will not be there when the baby is, all will be fine.   So my car can stay...for now...until the broken locks (must lock each one by hand) and the musty smell on the carpet and the shudder when I apply the brakes, and the occasional inopportune times when the key just will not turn in the ignition until I am about to cry out of frustration and then it finally works (easily, as if it had been working properly all along), and all the other little things add up to eventually drive me nuts and then I get a new one.  But nope, I'll probably keep it until something catastrophic happens to it.  So I better figure out the carseat configuration soon!

But back to the giving birth, labor plans, etc. I'm at the point where I am not making social or work meeting plans for the next few weeks because I don't want to be unplanning them.  With Lauren, I didn't feel the first contraction until 12 hours before she was born, then that first one jolted me awake, they came every 5 minutes and I was off to the hospital.  With Wrigs, I have been feeling them all month, but no pattern to it.  So when I think about the birth, I envision lying in bed asleep, then waking up suddenly.  We have this scenario rehearsed.  Our friends Minty & Lawrence are on standby, so we can drop Lauren off at their house on the way out to the hospital.  Then my parents will come up and get her from their house and take her back here.

But if I go to the hospital during the daytime while she's already there, Lauren is going to stay at her school all day through naptime and afternoon class, until my parents can pick her up there.  If it happens this weekend, tomorrow or tonight, Ammy is here and can just watch her.  The thing is, I don't think he'll be born in the next few days because I have felt this exact same way all week and nothing icky has happened yet.  Also, no nesting instinct, which last time I didn't think I had but in retrospect, I was seized with the urge to paint the ceiling of the kitchen, which I don't feel like doing every day!

Anyway, that is the latest and greatest with the Wrigs.  For any interesting news, keep checking this space!

Guest post from my dad: 10 Things to do at Friends' Houses

For those of you who said you would really like to meet my dad, read the list below.  Maybe you want to meet at *his* place!

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You're probably not going to want to post this on your blog, but here are 10 things you can do while visiting friends' houses:

   1.  Reprogram their robotic vaccuum cleaner to go on in the middle of the night.

  2.  Stick a toothpick in their front door keyhole and break it off.

  3.  Replace the sugar in their little bowls with salt.

  4.  Place a bottle of Budweiser hidden on the top shelf of their freezer.

  5.  Tuck a sausage behind the cushion of their sofa.

  6.   Put their house up for sale on Craigslist really cheap, then ask the buyers to call late at night because you work until 11 p.m.

   7.  Print a "Quarantined" banner and tape it to the bottom of their garage door. (They'll never see it because the door is shut when they are home and only open briefly when they leave).

    8.  Turn their backwash plumbing switch on for the swimming pool and see how much water will drain out during the normal filtration cycle.

    9.   Put an open can of tuna on their engine block and close the hood.

   10.  Change the message on their answering machine to:  "You have reached the Contra Costa Sperm Bank.   To make a deposit, please press one, again, again, again, again, yes, again, again, oh baby, again, again, almost there, again."

Guest Post from my dad: Flu Shot

On Saturday, your mom and I went to Chargers' Stadium to get our flu shots.  You drive around the outer perimeter of the stadium parking lot until you come upon some tents. After you show the proper identification, they give you flu shots while you drive past.

You never get out of the car during the hour-long process ...unless you need to use the porta-lets.

You can imagine how much trouble I got into.  Halfway through the caravan, a nurse stopped us and asked

if we were here for flu shots.

"No," I said, "We thought we would get here a day early for Sunday's game."

At the next stop, the asked if we had any allergies to shots.

"Shots!" I said.  "I thought this was the Elks Club car wash."

So it went until we finally got up to the front of the line and my cell phone rang.

It was a recorded advertisement advising me that I was now eligible to have my arteries replaced under an experimental program. No really, new arteries for free!

So I stayed on the line and dutifully hit "1" when it came time to leave my name and number.

I left the name Oscar Predavaducci at 619-9004-44302.

Believe it or not, they called me again on my cell phone this morning to confirm that Oscar Predavaducci had an appointment to get artificial arteries.

I saw this once on an e-mail, but I never thought it would actully work.

I told the lady that she had reached a secure, encrypted phone for the National Transportation Safety Board and that I was investigating at the site of a downed helicopter.

"Do you know anything about this crash, ma'am?"  I asked.

"No, No!" I just called to confirm an appointment with one of our clients."

"Who would that be? I asked.

"Uh, um ... Oscar Predavaducci...I'm not sure how to spell it."

"How well did you know the late Mr. Predavaducci?" I asked.  "Did you have a recent disagreement with the victim?"

"What?  No I didn't even know him.  I just solicit names of people who would be eligible to for our services."

"And how did you get Mr. Predavaducci's private, unlisted phone number that happens to be on the "do not call list"?

"I don't know, my supervisor isn't here right now.  Would you like to call her back?"

"Let me get this straight....You called an unlisted number on the do not call list to the deceased victim of what is now shaping up to be a felony murder.  You did so, crossing state lines, which is a federal offense.  I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask for your exact location and that you remain on the premises until our agents  can get there."

She hung up on me.

How rude can these solicitors be?