Showers, Showers, Everywhere.

Events that go smoothly do not good blogging fodder make. Not that I wanted it to go any other way. I had a great family baby shower this past Saturday. The food was great, and the company was great. I have uploaded pictures to Flickr. Unfortunately I only have pictures of Clinton and me opening presents – so if you happen to have attended and have any pictures of other people who were there, I’d like to get those and you can email them to me at the address in the sidebar (I will not publish them publicly unless given permission to do so.)

I have gone from a completely unprepared feeling, because we had nothing baby related to speak of, to feeling a little bit like a baby store puked in our living room. Seriously though, we got lots of good stuff, and I can honestly think of only 2-3 things I would go buy at this point, before he makes his first appearance – and with the gift cards, we did, in a way, get those things too. I am now looking more forward to having the crib painted so that I will have a place to put some of this stuff away. Oh, what’s that? A tropical disturbance in the gulf bringing lots and lots of rain all this week foiling any painting plans that might have been? Thanks, universe! Ahh, well – it will get done one day.

Belly Shot 30

(Blogger's uploading photo thing isn't working, so you'll have to click on the link and it will take you to Flickr)

Week 30.

I have roughly 2 months to go.

I also had to buy new pants this week. I guess the tags were pretty serious when they said they were good through the second trimester. And I don't suppose hiking your pants up every 10 minutes lest they fall off is a sign of a good fit.

We went to JC Penney's and got a pair of denim capris and a couple more work shirts for me, and then headed on to Motherhood Maternity. I'm not a huge fan of Motherhood Maternity - they seem kind of pricey. But since none of the other department stores in our mall carry maternity clothes I didn't have much of a choice.

Motherhood Maternity could use some doors for their fitting rooms, the heavy curtains they have seemed fine until a 3 or 4 year old of someone else's walked in on me...not once, not twice, but 4 times. Each time she came in I said "Excuse me!" Clint told her "You're in the wrong dressing room." And finally, what got her away from me was a stern "Seriously, go find your mother!" (Who was standing around out in the store eating ice cream.) At least I wasn't really exposed.

The good news is that now I have 2 more pair of pants that should last me through the end of this pregnancy, and I'm actually quite happy with the pair that has this on the bottom of one leg.

Grosscola!

I had my 1-hour glucose tolerance test today.

There was a moment of freak out in the office after I peed in the cup. They didn't tell me what was going on, but they asked me what I had for lunch. There was much shuffling around of things and back and forth trips to the bathroom by the nurse and lab tech. I asked what was going on and they said their preliminary test strips said I might have a bladder infection so they were going to do a culture. If it was positive, they would call me, and if it wasn't, then they wouldn't. I said, "Huh, you'd have thought I would have felt that." Then they discovered that the next lady also had a bladder infection - with no symptoms. The strips had gone bad. No bladder infection for me. Yay!

I drank the Glucola - which tasted like Sunkist - with too much sugar in it. It's not something I would like to be able to buy in the grocery store or anything, but it really wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be. Clint's favorite nurse told me that the lab lady had given me the worst tasting of the two and that she wouldn't have done that to me. This was the first appointment I went to without him and she asked where he was.

The doctor filled out Clinton's paper work so that he can take sick time when the baby comes instead of vacation.

I confirmed our decision to use Dr. Gmoser for a pediatrician (I also have a call into his office to get that paperwork started.) She said she really liked that group, so that makes me feel even more confident in our decision.

I told her we were not going to do the cord blood registry and she said there is a program where we could donate the cord blood to MD Anderson, so we're going to do that. Actually, all along I wanted to donate it more than store it, so that we could help further the science, so that worked out perfectly.

She said she wanted us to take a Lamaze class, and that she didn't care which one or where, or even if we took it at the Woman's Hospital. We're still going to go with the Woman's Hospital one though, because they also give us a hospital tour, and I think that may be pretty beneficial.

She measured my belly...I can't remember that outcome. I heard the heartbeat. She felt around and determined him to be head down. I gave 2 tubes of blood to the lady who gave me the gross drink and I headed out the door.

I go back in 2 weeks.

Tomato Soup from Scratch

Yes, I realize they make tomato soup you can open the can and pour in the pot and warm up, or tear open the envelope and mix with water and boil. But as an experiment, I thought I'd try to make tomato soup from scratch.

Using a recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook for Fresh Tomato Soup. I left out the few dashes of hot pepper sauce (because I didn't have any), and I traded basil for parsley.

Before:

During:

After: (I didn't take a picture of the whole finished product, because I forgot, but this is what was left over.)

Verdict: It's thicker than we're used to, but has a good flavor, next time I'm going to seed the tomatoes and possibly add a little more water.

Belly Shot 29

One of the things a lot of preggo bloggers seem to do is post a weekly pic of their belly. I took one at 17 weeks, and then promptly vetoed that idea completely. However, I am now 29 weeks along and I can actually say I feel like I look pregnant and not just chubby. I would say I don't mind the picture, but i think you can tell from the look on my face, that I'm not completely thrilled by the whole idea. At any rate, here we go.

Week 29 Belly Shot

Nothing Happens For a Reason

On Friday we went to have Cletus removed. I didn’t really mean to name it Cletus. It was merely a suggestion of the type of name I was looking for. I figured he’d been hanging out for 12 years, so he kind of deserved a name. Clint has been referring to his cyst as Cletus ever since.

Cletus didn’t really bother anyone but Clint’s mother and me. At least he didn’t up until this past year and he started rubbing Clint the wrong way. I can’t really be sure whether he was getting bigger or not, although Clint claims he probably was – because now he got irritated by clothing – which he never did before. Anyway – suffice it to say – it’s a happy good-bye.

Or....it would have been. His appointment was for 1:45 and we got there early - cause I have pregnancy mush brain and lost the appointment card and couldn't remember if it was 1:15 or 1:45. Anyway, we walk in and the place is empty. Apparently, the doctor had decided to change all his appointments to the morning and the staff, rather than calling the home number, called Clint's work number. At 5:15pm, the day before the appointment...when he had left at 5:00, not to return. And then they called again at 11:02am, saying they wanted to make his appointment for 11:00...So Clint's mad. Cletus got a 6 week reprieve due to other issues with our next 2 off Fridays. And Cletus will now be departing on August 18th. I have the before pictures, but I'll save that for the before and after when I have an after.

Parents of the Grand Variety

I wrote a post about Clint’s grandfather before he passed, but I never posted it. It didn’t feel right. It felt like a goodbye letter to him, and that if I posted it I was giving up on him. I never gave up on him. He was one of the most loving people I have ever met. The very first day he met me and every time he saw me from that day on, he always had a kiss and a hug for me.

During our visits to his house, in the days preceding and just after his passing, there were piles and piles of paper to go through. Stacks of Father’s day cards from past years, Thank You notes, Christmas and Birthday cards, computer printouts of jokes, some one-liners he’d written down so he could remember them. One of the things Jody handed to me was a poem. It’s a poem that I’ve read before, entitle Dash. I have copied the first 2 stanzas here – and it gives you an idea of what it’s about, for the full text, click here.

The Dash (1998)

(Original copyright 1996)

by Linda Ellis

I read of a reverend who stood to speak

at the funeral of his friend.

He referred to the dates on her tombstone

from the beginning...to the end.

He noted that first came the date of her birth

and spoke of the following date with tears,

but he said what mattered most of all

was the dash between those years.

Jim Alton Wood had a very eventful dash. I don’t know a lot of these stories, and I just found out a few in the days since his passing. I had no idea that he was on the USS Yorktown (CV-5) when it was going down. That’s a giant piece of history right there. He tried to record some of his stories for us, so that we would have some of that history.

I only came to know him in the past 9 years, and I will never forget him. His actions spoke louder than his words. He was active in his church, he never said a mean word about anyone, and in general was a very good man. Clinton and I had hoped that Landon would get to know him, and he’d have same the influence he had over Clinton. Though, I have no doubt in my mind that he is in heaven watching over.

He will be missed.

Jim Alton Wood (January 1, 1923 - June 21, 2006)