29 Week Update

11...

-Walking like a mama duck. Waddle, waddle, waddle. And a slow waddle at that. No more speed walking from the car to the store for me. It's mosey all the way.

-Ordered the crib mattress on Saturday. Colgate Classica I. One more thing gets checked off the stress-over list.

-Loathing the heat and humidity. Especially that it peaks on the weekends and the nice temps are surfacing whilst I have to be at work.

-Set up a New Patient appointment with a local Internal Medicine and Pediatrics practice for the middle of July. I haven't had a primary care physician for a while, despite the other multitude of physicians I've been involved with for the past few years (which only means that I haven't needed non-gyn medical care), and since this is a new practice close-ish to home, with the added bonus of pediatrics, it seemed like a logical choice to me. Two birds, one stone and all that. If I find I dislike the practice, I can always move on, but at least I'm getting in somewhere to start with.

-In other medical news, have not heard from the OB/GYN's office so am working under the glamorous assumption that I am not suffering from (a) Gestational Diabetes (aka the dia-bee-tus, thank you, Jen Nepper), (b) low iron levels, or (c) (and most importantly, if not strangely) the syphilis. Whoo hoo. Party time.

-Down to ONE pair of comfortable flip-flops out of all my shoes thanks to the foot which seems to have resolved itself to being slightly swollen at all times. When you wear a shoe size small enough to shop in the children's shoe department, it's not easy to find adult shoes. But I really must find at least one more pair to alternate with. Apart from the ick factor of their never quite drying out (see heat & humidity above), it gets quite boring wearing the same shoes every day.

-DH finished the deck rails within 90% this weekend. If it had been a 3-day weekend, he would have been done with time to relax on the 3rd day. No such luck. Told him yesterday AM he felt like he had a fever (he didn't) if he wanted to call in sick. He didn't take me up on it.

-Found this weekend that it was no longer worth it for me to attempt to do my toenails myself. Got them clipped and the polish removed, but between some parts getting squished and others unable to comfortably stretch, it was no go after that point. DH's first response to my mentioning this - I'm not going to paint them! - to which I replied - then I guess you don't have a problem with my paying someone else to do it. Backed himself into a corner there. :) So yesterday after work I was running errands and noticed that there was a place near one of the stores where I was shopping offering $19 pedi's Monday-Wednesday - and now my toenails are a near match to either Pepto Bismol or Barbie Pink. Not quite what I thought based on the bottle, but perky enough - and very, very preppy against my green flip-flops (see above regarding lack of shoe options).

-Still have yet to purchase a bathing suit. We may go down to the beach this weekend - if so, I guess I will have to take what I can get. Apparently it's still too much to ask that maternity suits be cute.

-Saturday morning I went through a box of children's books I had put aside after our last move and pulled out the ones I thought were most appropriate for reading-to (none were gnawing on appropriate). Among them: The Secret Garden, Mary Poppins, & a 2-book anthology of Fairy Tales from which my parents read to me. Losers: Piers Anthony and C. S. Lewis. Those can come out in 12-13 years, or more. Heck, I still don't get C. S. Lewis (plus he brings flash-backs of the "easy-A" religion class I took in college. Not so much when I don't understand the way the professor teaches - my linear thinking rarely intersected with his much more spiral presentation [imagine an asterisk * laid over an 'at' sign @]. I made it through, but it wasn't pretty.) I don't expect our daughter to love to read as much as I do, but I sure hope she's more into it than her father.

~~Cue turn from light and fluffy to some more heavy stuff~~

-Speaking of whom, while discussing his thoughts on how much time he thought he would take off work, admitted that thanks to the workload he's buried under and the timing of the Little One's arrival, he's feeling a little resentful that he's not going to be able to have a "real" summer vacation this year. As much as I hated to hear that, I really appreciated his not holding something like that inside to fester until it blew up into something ugly and unexpected. (FMLA really isn't an option thanks to the amount of ongoing work associated with the current project he is involved with.) The answer to the original question was most likely a week or the better part thereof when she arrives, and then another week a few weeks later, after the grandmothers have come and gone, so we have some more family bonding time and adjustment before I am left. alone. to deal with a newborn.

-My plans: still semi-undecided, but I'm thinking as long as my boss and his wife are okay with my bringing the Little One with me, I'll work a couple mornings or afternoons (whatever schedule works out better) a week, starting back whenever I'm ready between 6-8 weeks and then reevaluate after 6 months. DH really does not want our kid(s) to be in daycare, and we are lucky to be able to have my not working full time be an option, so this seems like it is a good compromise for me to keep working enough to feel like a human adult, and for his non-daycare wishes to be adhered to. In addition, I may work with a computer guy (or gal) to set up a remote log-in to the office computer so I can access everything on there while at home and add another cellphone to the company plan so I can answer the non-research questions without having to be in the office. Both of which options allow my participation in the work world part-time without screwing over my employer with too much extra cost since I'll go hourly and most likely be much more efficient than I am now working full-time but spending very little of my time in the office actually doing work "stuff." (Example: Blog writing on the company dime. For shame.)