The List - Revisited

A friend, who posted a to-do list on her blog commented that she was sure no one was interested in her list. I hope you don't take this as me being rude, but I don't care. I know that if you're not interested, you'll just pass over my dumb list, but since I use this blog as a journal of sorts, the list is for my own benefit.

A few weeks back, I created a list of things to do before the baby arrives. Here's the update.

Here are the things I have to do:

• DONE - get an Anne Frank costume for DJ's report at school.
• finish L's blanket (just cutting the last stray pieces of yarn after securing them) - this'll only take me about an hour to do, so why do I just not do it?
• DONE - one last week of tutoring A for my Teaching Children to Read course
• DONE - a final for this course
• three more chapters in my Family Processes class
• one midterm and a final/one midterm - DONE
• DONE - finish up the family reunion plans (just a matter of making sure everyone knows their assignments)
• IN PROCESS - figuring out food with my mother-by-marriage for our August family reunion.
• IN PROCESS - continual loads of laundry
• DONE? -finish cleaning out the garage
• DONE - plant the garden (mostly oversee the fam as they do this)
• get carpets cleaned
• write a bunch of thank you notes
• DONE - go get a boppy
• DONE - find a basketball hoop for the backyard
• finish reorganizing the file drawer
• DONE - opt out of the fifth-grade party I so foolishly signed up to help for when I was much less pregnant.

I now need to add a few more things:

• Finish burp cloth edging and ribbons
• Cut out, have kids decorate, and finish receiving blankets
• Read Tuck Everlasting with DJ
• Read The Black Cauldron
• Get baby stuff organized
• Sew and tie silky blanket

I now have 24 days to get all this done. I just keep thinking of more to do. Does anybody else do this craziness, or is it just proof that I belong in the Madhouse?

Grocery Smarts

I found a new (well, new to me) site for couponing. You might know I've been using grocerysmarts.com with the Utah Albertson's link, but in corresponding with the obsessive shopper, I found that there's a site that's a little closer and a little more pertinent to us in the northwest. It has stores that are a bit closer to home--happily, it has Safeway, but it looks like it's in its starting phase as most of the store links don't have info attached to them yet. If you shop at Albertson's and Safeway, this is very helpful!

I went to Albertson's yesterday, using this site (it took me about 30 mins. to get everything ready to go) and bought $229 worth of groceries for $70.07. I even found a set of really nice baby bottles for half price in the clearance basket. I usually don't even look there, but they were just staring me straight in the face. I also got a free container of Dreyer's ice cream and a free Redbox rental.

If you're at all interested in taking advantage of what grocery smarts has to offer, here is a video on how to get started. BTW, the site is completely free.

Wait! I Can See It! Yes!!! The Light at the End of the Tunnel!

Went and met with the doctor yesterday thinking it was just going to be a regular old appointment. It was....

...Until Z brought up the word "induction." The immediate response from the dr. was the usual, "Not unless there's a medical reason."

We explained that my labors are rather speedy. She responded just as we had hoped, "Oh well, that's reason enough." Then, what I wasn't expecting....she said a few things and walked out of the exam room. She returned telling us that inductions are kind of tricky to schedule, but we are pending on the schedule. She said she'd let us know as soon as she knew something for sure.

Around 7:30 last evening, I got an email from her stating that we are on the schedule at the hospital for June 30th. Woah! This IS June. I was really expecting early July. Suddenly there's so much to do. Time has really gone fast with this little one.

So, you can all ignore that little rotating baby on my sidebar. We're all set to go. Now, if my body will just get me to the 30th.

The Boy's Got it All Figured Out

The boys are playing out side this moring--A (6 years), T (2 1/2 years) and G (13 years). We got a new basketball hoop for them, and they are having a BLAST with it.

T just came inside. I'm upstairs laying down. He hollers upstairs:

"Maaahm, G's not sharing."

Me: "Oh buddy, how sad, what are you going to do about that?"

T (returns to the back door): "G, mom wants to see you!"

I Know....Whine. Whine. Whine.

I carried all of my boys super low. So much so that when I found out T was a boy at the ultrasound, I stopped bending for any reason. My kids were my benders. If something fell on the floor, there it stayed until some child or other came along to pick it up.

The night before Lachlan's ultrasound, we had an open house in our home. As I went to bed that night, I found an unusual pain in my ribs. Now, you have to understand, I have a strange rib cage--one half is dominant, the other recessive. The right side is normal; the left side bends in like it's dented. My boys hadn't created this pain for me until they were seven or eight months along. We joke around that A had his feet in my ribs for the last month or so. When he was born, the toes on his left foot were blue with bruises, so it makes me wonder, could that really have been true? I don't see how it could've been, but it sure felt like it.

I should have known from the pain in the ribs with Lachlan that this was not the usual sign of a boy.

Here at 35 weeks, Lachlan resides in my rib cage. She has taken up residence and at this point, there is no sign that she's coming out. She pushes on my diaphragm and makes it hard to breathe. My heart races a good part of the time. I just pray that she drops soon.

I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon. I don't think there's anything they can say or do that can alleviate this situation, but about a month from now she'll be out and life will be good.