All is Bright

Everything is going along swimmingly.

I am 95% done with any and all Christmas shopping for which I am specifically responsible.  At some point in the next 2 weeks, my husband will announce that we need gifts for his father and mother.  I will laugh at him and tell him that I asked him a month ago for ideas and would have been move than happy in November to take care of that for him, but not now.  Maybe gift cards.  Or something from amazon.  I really do love amazon.  Really.

I've decided that Christmas cookies are just too taxing this year and I am buying pre-formed dough from Chuckles's school.  I will bake and decorate those sugar cookies myself (with help of children) and pass them off as homemade.  I feel more guilt over this than almost anything because I like baking, however....

I have been having exercise-induced Braxton Hicks contractions, and standing and rolling dough and baking just aren't sounding all that fun this year.  Other non-fun things: climbing stairs, bending over to pick things up off of the ground, and walking.  You would be amazed at how many times per day you do those things.  I am really glad that my job involves sitting for 7 hours per day (or more if I don't feel like walking...my young engineers (minions) will retrieve documents from the printer for me). 

When not exercising, I still feel quite good.  I'm not sore or anything yet, though I am apparently quite large.

We went to a gala on Saturday night.  Many, many strangers asked me when I was due.  The good news is I look pregnant, not fat.  But I thought the rule was you never ever ever (ever) ask that of a woman unless she herself has first indicated that there is a baby in there lest you potentially embarass yourself.  The food at the gala was delightful, but the wine looked deliciously off-limits.  The band was good as well, but dancing is too much like both standing and exercising, so we ended up dancing to 75% of one slow song.  Not nearly enough.  The Stanley Paul Orchestra is one of my favorite live bands in Chicago.

I went downtown for a work meeting.  There was a bit of a walk from the train to the meeting.  I walked very slowly and all was well.  I started to feel a little bad on the walk back to the train, but all-in-all, I am still capable of taking care of myself.  Although, last weekend, I wanted to ride around Target in a motorized scooter. 

Have I ever mentioned that I carry low?  Well, I do.  Very low.  Like between my knees low.  In fact, I cannot wear maternity pants that go below the belly because the only thing below my belly is my bikini area...not really the kind of place you want a lot of fabic bunching up and puffing out.  So, I wear pants with a kangaroo pouch, but I think I might need to hang my jeans up for the duration because even having non-stretchy fabric below my belly now is getting a little...pinchy?

And the outside kids are doing well too.  Chuckles continues to enjoy Cub Scouts and be indifferent toward school (which is fine, really).  He delights in locating the Elf on the Shelf every morning before his brother wakes up.  He also likes to turn on the Christmas tree.

Bobo enjoys his tumbling class, has made great strides in speech (he's using an L sound now, though he's producing it by putting his tongue against his bottom teeth), and is finding numbers and letters everywhere (that's 3 and I am 3 years old).  I keep thinking of him as a baby, but he's not.  He's 3.  Now, if only he would wear underpants....