Young Baby Young

Baby’s in her 38th week and really, all she’s doing is putting on the final touches.  A few wrinkles of fat on this leg, an extra hair or two on her head, perhaps an extra 1/8″ of fingernail, etc.

I think she enjoyed her Thanksgiving and all of the tasty leftovers.  We’re making a turkey noodle soup today…only to help her plumpen up, of course….  Here are pictures of our delicious day of feasting:

I tried a new angle for your viewing pleasure!

1)  It’s almost Thanksgiving.  This statement fills me with pleasure.  Mom came over today for our 2nd annual take-the-day-off-of-work-and-prep-for-the-feast day.  We (okay, she) made pumpkin nut bread and stuffing, plus we set the table and got things generally ready for tomorrow.  Oooh, how I love Thanksgiving!  Let’s see if we can make this waist go from a modest 43 inches to an impressive 45.  Too optimistic?  Rumor has it that Godfather Dave sees my waist circumference announcements as a personal challenge.  Bring it on!  Anyhoo, as you’ll note from the picture, Mom and I opted for the decorative Rosebud napkin fold this year.  It’s amazing what you can find online.

2)  It’s getting cold around here.  We had our first snow last weekend!  Ugh.  Before Baby comes, we’re being as cheap frugal as possible and keeping the house temperature low.  We know we can’t do that when she’s finally here, so we’re saving money now.  (Actually, we think she needs to learn early on that she can’t always get what she wants, and a 55° house really isn’t that frigid, and money doesn’t grow on trees, and perhaps cranky babies should quit their crying!)  The dogs are totally unimpressed with us.  As soon as they hear the furnace thinking about clicking on, they race to be in front of or on top of the heating vent.  Should we be ashamed of ourselves for discomforting our hounds in this manner?  (Rhetorical question.  We are not ashamed.)

3)  As mentioned briefly the other day, Baby is now in her 37th week, which is technically considered “full term” by the medical people.  That means that if she’s born tomorrow, her lungs should be fully developed and she should be ready to face the world.  She’d weigh around 6 pounds.  The longer she stays in, though, the plumper she gets.  Besides, my turkey’s not done [read: my belly button hasn't started to protude yet], so how can she possibly be ready to come out? 

She’s been causing many Braxton Hicks contractions (which one website describes as “your cervix ripens and the stage is set for true labor”, a description which amuses me.  Ripens?  How poetic)  and she likes to contort herself into odd positions.  For example, here’s a picture (birds eye view) of her being totally uneven inside of me:

No, that isn’t your imagination; she’s stuffed into the left side of my stomach.  If you’re very perceptive, you can see a small swell on the right side where her foot is jutting out under my ribcage.  I swear she finds this game highly amusing.  I guess we can’t blame her — other than heading butting my bladder and twanging her favorite of my nerves, there’s probably not much to do in there.

4)  Lastly, we need to set the record straight: THERE IS NO “Q” IN THE BABY’S NAME!  We know there are a few gullible people out there…we’re a little ashamed to be related to them, quite frankly…so let us announce, for once and for all, that there’s no “Q” in her name and we’re very sorry (uh, not really) for the misunderstanding.  Suckers.

According to my people, one baby shower just isn’t enough — you really must have two.  So last weekend, we were invited to “lunch” at Jane’s and as we drove down the driveway, sure enough, there were all sorts of cars lining this driveway.  This batch of party-goers consisted of the local family.  And dang, can’t our local family people cook up a good table of food!  They’re not too shabby with the gift-giving, either….

 I didn’t get any good pictures of the group (don’t you hate that?!), so all I can offer is this handful of candids, which aren’t particularly flattering:

 This is the final installment of baby shower pictures.  There was some fun-making at Kelly’s expense, but it was her own fault: who gives cards with more than 5 words on them?!  She deserved all of the razzing she received.  She was quickly forgiven, though, because she gave these fun items:

Janis refused to play along with the “it’s a girl; she needs pink” routine.  She found these great Maine-themed baby items, and as is typical of Janis, most are made by local artists:

Lorraine, having had triplets herself, got me the “must haves” for any new mom:

In addition to throwing the party, Jane also got us some very useful items…which I think had a particular theme.  There were 12 diapers to use as burp cloths, a set of 4 flannel burp cloths, and 3 bibs.  Do you think Jane’s trying to tell me something about the genes in this family?!

Marsha and family got us an adorable baby outfit, bubble bath, and a wonderful chennille blanket that is SO soft and matches her room perfectly.  Can’t you picture a fat Pamper-clad butt with “CUTIE” written across it?!

I’d never seen these specially-made swaddling blankets that Jackie picked out for us, but they’re awesome!  Baby fits right in, the blanket goes around, and then there’s velcro sewn on so that it doesn’t become un-swaddled.  I can see this being the perfect nighttime swaddling blanket.  Jack also got us a great teether and rattle.

Picture-taker extraordinaire, Sally, got us a gift that I didn’t even realize how much I needed until I got it!  It’s a called a “Bundle Me” and it’s a warm, fleece insert to fit inside her car seat:

This will be ideal for when we take her home from the hospital.  (I’m obsessed with her being cold.)  Also from Sally: a sweet outfit, a book of nursery rhymes, and Minnie, the cow that represents our Mini Moo creamers at work, for which we were scolded for using too many, much to our great amusement.

Lastly, we had an influx of gifts from people who couldn’t make it to the shower, but still wanted to lavish Baby E with presents.  We got a sweet towel from Beth Jewell and a stacking toy, a great assortment of books and a CD from Brenda Gatcomb, money for the jogging stroller that I’ve got my eye on from Aunt Linda, and a gorgeous Vietnamese tapestry from cousin Mary Brownlow.

So, in summary, the baby shower was fantastic!  Must have been if it took me an entire week to put it on the blog, get the items washed and put away, and write my thank-you cards to everyone.  I’m exhausted….

Sue wasn’t the only blanket-making fool — Chris’s sister Amy also did her part (and more) to supply Baby E with warmth and snuggles.  Above is Amy’s “no-sew” fleece blanket.  I brought it home and the dogs got SO excited — they knew Auntie Amy had made this specially for them — and it was heartbreaking to tell them that Amy explicitly said dogs were not allowed to play with this one.  Poor, poor dog babies….

Amy’s next contribution was this magnificent quilt with two totally distinct sides.  It’s beautiful!  Amy insists that it be used and not just admired, so that’s what we’ll do.  I can envision a three-year-old little girl dragging this blanket downstairs with her to watch her favorite early-morning cartoons.

Amy also managed to find another piece of the sacred dachshund clothing line from Gymboree (Christie sent the onesie, blanket, socks, and hat earlier, which you may recall received a rating of two wagging tails in a sunbeam by Nathan and Natalie).  She is going to look SO darn cute in this!

Each of Chris’s sisters is a cat person, so Baby E’s wardrobe would not be complete without some kiki representation!  Since Amy mailed all of this from Ohio, her box needed a little padding so things didn’t move around in transit.  She had a dog named Darla who had an incontinence problem; Amy had to use Pampers on her.  Now that Darla has passed away, Amy found herself with piles of unused diapers…so she put them in the box as packing material!  I had to laugh as I pulled them out.  Thank you, Darla!

Meanwhile, while I’m taking my sweet time opening each gift, oohing and ahhing appreciatively, my guests are eyeing the cake that we still haven’t cut into.  Had Chris still been in attendance, he would have demanded that the cake be served much sooner!  “Let them eat cake!”  Instead: “no cake for you!”

Mom refused to be outdone by all of these gifts.  She won the prize (well, would have won the prize had prizes been given) for the largest gift bag, inside of which lived this wonderful teddy bear!  She is going to LOVE HIM.  I can’t wait to find out what she names him. 

Also in Mom’s bag of goodies:

Where were we?  Ahh, yes: opening presents.  Marsha’s daughter really wanted to help me unwrap things.  It wasn’t that she wanted the gift — she was just anxious to help me remove the pretty paper.  It was very sweet.

Check out some of the awesome stuff Baby E got: 

 (a Diaper Genie (and refills!) from Aunt Mary Ann)

   (rattles, teethers, and Baby Einstein building blocks from Becky, Debbie, Deb, Sylvia, & Rhonda)

  (how cool is THIS?!  A roll-along musical pony.  OMG, if I could fit on this, I would totally use it as my set of wheels at work.  This came from the same crowd above.)

  (Dodi gave us the much-needed stair gate (to keep baby in or dogs out, we’re not sure which.)

   (Sue was a crocheting fool — look at the beautiful things she made for us!)

  (Christina found the cutest pair of baby Converse online!  According to her, it’s never too soon to have your first pair of Chucks.)

 (as a dachshund owner herself, Christina knew the importance of getting Baby E her own dachshund stuffed animal.  Upon bringing it home, Natalie was quite uncertain about how to treat her miniature Doppelganger.)

Luckily, I have regained my power of speechery, or more aptly, my power of picture uploading.  Sally Hutchins took a gazillion pictures at the baby shower and promptly presented me with my very own CD of them.  How I love this age of instant gratification!

Sally bought the cake for the event — decorated by Dawn Closson, the woman who taught cake decorating class when I took it a few years ago.  (No, my cakes never turned out anything like this!)  Chocolate with delicious frosting, in case you were wondering.

They weren’t able to catch my original entrance on film, so I had to stage a surprised entrance into Jane’s house.  I, for one, think I did quite a convincing job of looking shocked and amazed.  Emmy, anyone?

Attendees included Marsha Connors and her daughter, Anna:

From left to right, we have Janis, Becky, Debbie, Dodi, Kelly, and Christina:

Lorraine, party-planner extraordinaire, and one of her mini-me daughters, Chantal:

Bella was there in all of her finest, so of course Mom and I had to fawn all over her:

Sue Walsh, gracious lender of crib and carseats:

Janis and Kelly (pretending not to notice that they’re having their picture taken — very slick, ladies!):

And, of course, there were the excited Grammy-to-bes and fabulous hostesses, Jane and Mary Ann, Chris’s mother and aunt:

Last but definitely not least, Sister Sarah was the surprise guest of the afternoon!  Sure ’nuff, she secretly flew in from Montana, unbeknowst to me or her mother (although Chris knew, and Lorraine knew, and they were pretty darn quiet about it).  “What are you doing here?!”  I’m clearly quite pleased with my surprise:

So we did some eating:

and some fat belly admiring: 

then we got down to the serious business at hand: gift opening.  My goodness, I’ve never seen such a stack of gifts!  More on all of that in a separate entry.

Whoa.  For once, I’m speechless:

Friends and family threw the most wonderful baby shower yesterday.  I brought all of the gifts home and they more than cover our seating-for-six dining room table.  Whoa….  More details to come when I regain my power of speechery.