My mother has arrived! So has our new stroller! We drove to Evanston to check out Vogue Fabrics, decided to forego the Botanic Gardens and instead picked up the new Peg Perego stroller at Lazar's Furniture. It is wonderful! It is the red Si Peg Perego and so perfect. It fits perfectly into the Black Pearl. I"m not sure what the Black Psarl thinks of it, but it is here for the long haul.

I hate doing this...seriously hate it. We have registered for baby things. At Pottery Barn Kids, Uncommon Goods and Land of Nod. None of the items on these lists are made in China. We worked really hard to make sure of that. I'm posting this info if any of you are interested. If you are not interested, just ignore this.

Looking at the calendar today I realized that we could have a baby in less than 3 weeks! It's a good thing the crib and dresser arrived yesterday - made in Thailand and lovely. I think they fit the room and the decor very nicely. I'm still not sure what exactly we are going to do with a baby, but I figure that will all come to us like it has to everyone else in the world.

We bought extra toilet paper today since we know we will have more guests than usual in the coming weeks. We have cleaned out books, clothes and other things to make room for the inevitable onslaught of baby things. I am still not convinced that a baby needs all this stuff they say we need. I am reading a fantastic book on the marketing and advertising that companies shove onto pregnant women and new parents to get them to think that they need every single thing on the market. We were at Target the other day and there was a machine/tester kit that tested breast milk for alcohol. Now excuse me for being obtuse, but if you are breastfeeding shouldn't you kinda know if you've been drinking or if there might be alcohol in your system? Or, here's a thought, maybe you shouldn't be drinking at all if you are breastfeeding. The things they try to sell, really.

So as you can see, I'm taking my grain of salt with everything I'm reading. I had another ultrasound last week and the stubborn baby has moved in the right direction and already weighs 6.5 pounds. I have only gained about 10 pounds total. So I'm no more of a blimp than I was at the start of this thing! Yay!

A freind recently commented that people's addiction to facebook has cut back on blogging. I think she's right in my case! Here I am in what is supposed to be a very exciting time of my life and I am not telling anyone about it!
So here you go...

I've been going to the doctor once a week for about a month. I'm almost 36 weeks pregnant at this point. Everytime I go to the doctor they tell me I'm such and so weeks and 6 days. I'm just one day shy of 36 weeks, why can't I already be 36 weeks??? Everything is going well though. About 5 weeks ago I had an ultrasound that revealed a very clear profile of something that is definitely Martin's child. Of all things the baby looks like it has a slight overbite. The ultrasound also revealed the baby was in a breech position. Well, I worried about that for about a minute and then to my relief the doctor told me today that the baby's head is in the right place, ie head down. So maybe my childbearing hips are not for naught!

We ordered a crib about 8 weeks ago from a nice place nearby. When I called Friday to find out about the furniture's whereabouts they couldn't tell me. They did say that furniture usually takes 8-12 weeks. My mother, who was visiting, was immediately suspicious. According to her, when my father had ordered his Prius they could tell him what boat it was on from Japan down to the longitude and latitude. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but she was convinced they had lost my furniture. Yesterday they called to tell me that it was on a truck and would be at the store by the end of the week. So we'll see if they say anything else about where the furniture was, but I'm sure they won't admit it if they lost it somewhere between here and the great mysterious beyond.

My mom and her friend Patsy came up a little over a week ago. My mom drove all the way from Pensacola in a rented van and picked Patsy up outside of Birmingham. They brought my Papaw's rocking chair and guitar as well as the curtains and diaper stackers mom made. They are all adorable! It's nice to have things that are more personal than Babies R Us stuff. Mom painted the baby's room a very pale green that looks perfect. We all went downtown one day to look at ridiculously priced strollers and then saw a play at the Goodman Theatre called Rock'n'Roll by Tom Stoppard. It was about the Czech Republic and included a large amount of Pink Floyd music. It was pretty good but an odd concept.

So today I went back to work to get things in order. No one has been hired to do my job in the fall. It's interesting. I can't wait to see what is going to happen.