33 Week Update

7...

We celebrated the 4th of July with a long weekend at the in-laws house on the North Carolina Outer Banks (OBX). Left home Thursday night* and enjoyed 3 full days of glorious weather before returning home Monday afternoon and getting stuck on (1) the bridge off of the island for no apparent reason and (2) the Monitor-Merrimac Bridge Tunnel just before the tunnel thanks to a breakdown inside the tunnel and a mini-van driver ahead of us who chose to break for the light instead of going through. At least the second only lasted a few minutes, but it could have been ugly had the breakdown been an accident requiring assistance to come from off the bridge.

Family politics and fireworks almost always occur when DH's family spends more than a few hours together - in this case DH's soon to be 28 year old, but going on 8 year old brother got his panties in a wad and went flying out of the house at 4 AM one morning - I've mentioned before that he has problems, but if you want to be treated as the adult your birthday says you are, you need to at least attempt to act like one and not like a kid throwing a tantrum with access to an automobile. I seriously want to tell him to grow up - but I know it would just make things worse since he seems incapable of reacting to any criticism in a civilized manner.

Moving on...Little One is spending more and more time with her foot up under my right ribs. That's not so bad except that the torque from her pushing travels along the rib and around to my back where the rib attaches. The only thing that seems to help is moving from sitting upright to laying on one side or the other which changes her position enough to remove the pressure. Unfortunately I can't spend my days at work laying on my side! DH was talking about trying to take another long weekend down at the beach between now and her due date but I'm not sure I can bear the car ride again if she keeps this up. I know I'm bitching about it more than I did the morning sickness - at least with that it was over and done with, this is much more constant!

My MIL did bring the car seat to the beach, and as I suspected, it is not the exact model I had wanted - but it's close enough to give it a try. Instead of the Keyfit 30, it's a plain Keyfit with the 22lb limit. Guess when it's time for a convertible seat we'll be installing it rear-facing, though an 8lb difference means it's likely we would have to do that anyway. And it's not exactly the green/tan color I liked better, but the blue/green. Whatever. I give up. If we (I) end up hating it we can always buy the other model. (My MIL is very good on the guilt-trips...she should be Jewish.) It was slightly surreal to be driving home with a car seat in the back seat. It also gave the dog a taste of what's to come, no more full access to the back seat for her! I can't remember if I mentioned it, but we received the extra base from my cousin and his wife last week, so that's one more item off the list of necessary items. And the start of another necessary thing - thank you notes!

Our Baby Classes start on the 11th which I failed to realize, until the leader called last night to confirm that we will attend, is NEXT SUNDAY. But the 11th, it's in July, which is so far away still. Wait, this IS July. Aaaaaggggghhhh!!!



*Thursday night I came home to an attempt by our pup to turn the carpet and area rug in the family room into modern art thanks to her accessing and puncturing a ziplock bag containing a tub partially filled with exterior latex paint left over from DH's still to be fully finished deck rail replacement project. DH's fault for leaving it on the laundry room counter for two weeks within reach of the dog after the last time he left paint in there like that and dog got into it as well (which I did tell him about, but since the bag wasn't punctured and didn't leave the laundry room apparently didn't sink in)? My fault for not noticing it for two weeks and moving it myself? The dog's fault for being an inquisitive type when she's bored and finding it after two weeks of ignoring it? Who knows.

It was one of those "man makes plans and God laughs" moments - I remember distinctly thinking on the way home that I needed to finish the last bits of packing and then I really wanted to put my feet up for a while before DH got home. Instead I walked into the house to see a sheepish dog and a mess of off-white paint on our tan carpet and red area rug. Little One was not a fan of the fit of hysterical sobbing I gave into about 10-15 minutes later when I realized that the paint was dry enough to make it hard to clean up. And that's as much as I want to say about that now that I've gotten the carpet cleaners scheduled to come in two weeks and confirmed that we have enough extra carpet available which can be used to patch the affected area if they don't succeed in removing the paint. She's gotten into things before, but this is by far the most potentially expensive to resolve.