It’s taken me yesterday and today to upload the baby shower pics to Flickr. I’ve been uploading in little spurts here and there between laundry, organizing, packing and going a little nuts.
Friday
Since I’d been feeling really sore and tired (and we were all trying to keep Alaethia in there till the day of the baby shower, at least) Mario was kind enough to drop the kids off for me in the morning, pick Jaylen up and even made me lunch! Ricky’d come over for lunch and came over to chit-chat. Mario said something like, “Look, she’s even got me making her lunch,” and Ricky replied, “Good! She should be pampered!” Alright Ricky!
Saturday
This was the day that I was almost certain I’d be going into labor by nighttime. I could barely walk, I felt an immense pressure in my pelvis and I was sure she was going to fall out. Everyone was worried and had me resting. Although I was in my Nesting stage and had these crazy bursts of energy, I still washed dishes, but Mom did my laundry and I didn’t have to cook. I felt spoiled, but in a way I also felt a little frustrated because I’m so used to doing everything on my own!
I stayed up with Yadira, Elda, and Mary and the kiddos while they got everything ready for the baby shower. They didn’t let me help with that, either!
Sunday
I spent the morning getting ready and then we went over to Mary’s around noon to help with sandwiches. Actually, Mario went in to help, I wasn’t allowed. I’d woken up that night with my wedding rings cutting the circulation from my fingers and I was swollen the rest of the day, so I was taking it easy. Mario dubbed himself the Sandwich Samurai, since, according to him, nobody else could prepare and cut a sandwich as fast as he. I totally wanted to post a picture of him in all his Sandwich Glory but he threatened to empty my whole memory card when he got his hands on it so I changed my mind :P.
We arrived an hour early at the hotel my baby shower was being held at so we could set everything up. Little did we know that we really had to set everything up ourselves–they didn’t even set up the tables or anything for us! Poor Mom and Mary moved everything on their own, and these were tables with granite (I think?) table tops!
People started arriving and we had a good time just chatting and then playing games. Like I mentioned in my last post, we didn’t get to play a few games because we forgot the pads of paper and pencils (and most of the games required things being written down!). It also got a bit crowded, as the hotel failed to mention that they only had 32 seats, and not the 50 they promised Mary. What idiots!
The little sandwiches and veggies were great, although I hardly got a chance to eat well since I was too busy mingling and posing for pictures. Finally, I finally have pictures of a lot of my relatives and friends. Some didn’t make it, but I’ll hopefully catch them later during another get together. I got to see Sally and Mayra, which is always great. I wish there were more visits :(. Pete was also kind enough to send his gift with Sally. How sweet is he?!
The boys were great. They behaved pretty well up until about half an hour before we left. They were becoming antsy since the adults were all sitting around talking so they started running around like they’d lost their minds.
All in all, it was a big success and we received so many nice things for Alaethia :). We have every single thing we need for her arrival and I just feel so overwhelmed with gratefulness for our family and friends :).
John and I went to Target on Monday evening after I’d picked the boys up from school. Mom stayed with them and John and I braved the slippery roads to find, most importantly, the Graco Mikayla stroller and carset Mario and I’d wanted since I first found out I was pregnant. The Target we went to didn’t “carry it” anymore, and two of the other Targets I called didn’t either. I couldn’t believe my luck. I shopped around and got a yellow crib sheet that was on clearance, some cute, girly headbands for Alaethia, a Boppy slipcover (also on clearance), a bottle/ baby food jar warmer and Newborn diapers. I finally decided to call the other Target and I couldn’t get through. When I finally did get through I spoke to a nice guy named Eddie, who told me they didn’t carry the Mikayla anymore, but they did have one extremely similar to it called the Alano. I wanted to take Eddie out to dinner. He put it on hold for me and we hurried over there.
Tuesday
It was super cold on Tuesday (but it didn’t sleet like they said it would) and the buttholes Mario works with all took the spaces up inside the installation bays (garages) so my poor husband was left outside in the cold, literally. He called around noon and asked me to take him a pair of his insulated pants so I obliged. Then Mom, Jaylen and I made a quick run to Target.
That night, Mario and I put the cribset together and after a quiet moment of tying the crib bumper all around the slats he tells me, “It’s going to be hard.”
Thinking he’s talking about being parents to three I tell him, “We’ll be fine. I know we will.”
He says, “No, it’s going to be hard being in love with two beautiful women.”
You can imagine how big I’m smiling and tell him, “Aww, that’s so sweet, Babe!”
And Mario, being Mario, ruins it all and says, “Oh, and Alaethia, too.”
Dork.
I think that was also the night that he dedicated “She’s Everything” by Brad Paisley to me. A combination of that, the songs he dedicated to our kids and my hormones made me bawl my eyes out. I love this man *sigh*.
My stomach was bothering me a lot that night and was cursing myself for not doing her laundry that day or packing my bag for that matter!
Wednesday
I woke up and quickly did a load of Alaethia’s laundry. After dropping the kids off at school, I came home, made Mario breakfast, we picked up his car (John takes it to work and then we pick it up and Mario goes to work) and then I went to my 38 week appointment. Well, Dr. C. has me down as 37 weeks in his notes, but I’m 38 weeks, darnit. Anyway, my appointment was kind of late, so it took forever for them to call me in. I was worried I wouldn’t pick up Jaylen on time. When they did call me in, they freaked out that my blood pressure was high the first time they took it. They took it again and I was fine. I weighed 134.8 this time, which means I lost about a pound. Weird. My sugar was also all over the place; there were 500 somethings (I don’t even know what the name is!) of glucose in my urine, but when they checked my finger it was fine, at 91. Also weird.
Dr. C. did a sonogram and I took video. She’s got such a big head in the sonogram–I wonder if it’ll be the same when she *gulp* comes out?!
She’s very low and upon doing the pelvic exam (ew) he said I was still at 2 centimeters. He said I could go into labor anytime now since I’m 38 weeks, but if I don’t go into labor by next Wednesday, he might consider inducing labor. I’m so anxious to find out if I’ll go into labor on my own or if I’m going to be induced like the other two times. At least we have everything we need now!
I spent the whole day after that packing my bag, doing Alaethia’s laundry, cleaning up, organizing her cart, and made dinner while boiling her bottles and pacifiers. Later, when Mario got home, he put her carseat and stroller together.
I’m so ready! C’MON, ALAETHIA!
I’ve also been messing around with WordPress (and so far, I think everything’s working correctly *knocks on wood*) and downloaded a few plugins like Post Views, Recent Posts, Subscribe to Comments and E-mail Subscription, so you can get notified when I post a new entry if you’d like (the last 3 mentioned are in the side bar). I wanted to get a new theme going, so the stuff in the sidebar can be more organized, but that’s probably going to have to wait. That, and I still, after all these months, have layout block. Sad, isn’t it?
Well, I should get going. I’m about an hour late on starting dinner so I should get to that. Damn me for not buying microwaveable foods, like Hot Pockets. That would SO come in handy right now!