8 weeks, 4 days to go.....

Doesn't sound very long, does it?

Things are changing. Work is getting more stressful, but I've only got a few more weeks to tough it out. I finished my technical writing class that my boss made me take last night. The teacher, who was a guy a year younger than me, and jealous that I went to Michigan while he went to Penn State (he never said that, but I could tell. People who attend other Big Ten universities usually seem quite jealous when they find out you went to Michigan) kept asking me why I was taking the class, because he thought my writing skills were fantastic and I could teach the class. But I think my boss wanted me to go, because he's British, and he spells things differently than they are spelled in America, and I think he was trying to tell me he thinks my American spelling is bad. Well, I'm actually a good speller, you live in America now, so get over it. But anyhow, the class was done with last night. I turned in my paper, and the grades are due Monday. It's a little disturbing that he has 30 papers to grade, each 20-25 pages, by Monday, but, alas, I don't make the rules. He kept telling me he's ripping my paper apart when he gets it and he can't wait, because he hasn't taken a single point off anything I've done so far. We'll see what happens. I probably will lose some points, because there are some parts that aren't that good, I could have worked harder on them to make them better, but I didn't care enough to try. If I'm going to lose points, that's where it's going to be. But, that was the theme of the entire semester--"I don't feel like doing this, so let me slap together a few paragraphs and pages and turn it in" and I never lost a point, so, we'll see what happens. I still wonder what he'll get, and if he's really going to 'rip it apart'. We'll see.

The other thing that's different, is the crying thing seems to have let up for the past couple weeks. Now I'm not saying I haven't cried at all in the past few weeks--let's not get crazy here- but I haven't cried every day for about the past month- maybe only 3 times a week or so. Not normal, but much more manageable than before. That's nice.

Eating and shortness of breath are becoming a problem sometimes. I find that I can feel extraordinarily hungry, go to IHOP, order some pancakes, and eat one. And feel full. And when I am nervous, and talking really fast, and in a hot room (Like I was last night giving my presentation to the class), I started feeling a little short of breath, which got better when I sat back down, by the air conditioner, and quit talking.

Sleeping is also a problem, as it's very uncomfortable and I have to pee a lot. But only 8 weeks 4 days left.

We are starting to speculate, just for fun, when he'll come. My mom is guessing September 28th. I am guessing October 6th. Kevin is guessing September 23rd.

Want to join in the fun? Take a guess, it'll be fun to see who's right at the end.

I went shopping at lunch today. They built a new wal-mart next to my work, so I decided to go there and check out the diaper situation. I have a wal-mart gift card from back home (I returned some newborn disposable diapers before I left, geez, I received so many newborn disposables) and had like $42 on there. My mom has been freaking out a little about the cloth diaper thing, because I haven't been able to find any 'plastic pants'. Admittedly, I haven't been looking that hard, because I kinda want to use the fancy-schmancy snappy-velcro-ey diaper covers of today, but my mom is convinced that those things won't work. So I started looking for some so that she would quit freaking out--and haven't been able to find any. Anywhere.

I did buy some from an ebay auction used, and relatively cheap. I say 'relatively' because they were friggin' USED, and I only paid a couple dollars a piece under full price for new. But I still saved, so, whatever. I've heard a lot of good things about this type (they are Bummis whisper wraps) and there was a lot of 28. So I got them. I don't know. I'll try them out.

But anyhow, at Wal-mart today, I decided to pick up some prefold cloth diapers with my gift card, and maybe some pins. And low and behold, next to the prefolds, there was some GERBER VINYL PANTS. Either super girly ones, or super masculine ones. I got the super masculine ones. And limited sized ,they only had 3-9 months and 12 months. Oh, and a 3 T. But I don't want to have to use diapers when he's 3, so, I didn't buy those. But no other sizes. I asked the girl who worked in the baby department about more, and she said they almost NEVER get more of those, because they sell almost NONE of them.

They were a pack of 6 for 2 bucks each. 4 bucks got me 12 pairs of vinyl pants.

*whew*. My mom can finally rest easy.

They were actually much nicer than I thought they were going to be. I thought they would be scratchy and rough and all that, but, they were sort of soft really, and they didn't seem like the rubber I imagined from my mom's description.

I called her when I left, and she was ridiculously relieved. She was like "Oh thank GOD! I was getting so nervous that you weren't going to be able to find them!" It seemed such a strong reaction. It was kinda funny.

Will I use them? I don't know. Will I use the ones I bought from ebay? I don't know. I'm going to have to see how these bad boys work out. Now, since my mom used the cloth diapers and 'plastic pants' for all of us, I don't really have any qualms about using them for the baby--I just thought the other things seemed nicer. But the other things also seem bulkier, so, we'll see how it goes. Thank God though, my mom isn't worried anymore. Like I needed to give my mom more things to be all upset about:).

***WARNING: Next part might be too gross for you, I don't know, consider yourself duly warned****

Had a weird dream last night. I dreamt that I was at my grandma and grandpa's house, with my grandma and my grandpa, with my mom and dad, and Kevin, and my grandpa's wife was there too. (I know, weird that his wife would be there with my grandma, but, whatever). I dreamt that I had gone to the bathroom only to discover that I was leaking pink colored amniotic fluid all over my white capri pants. I came out of the bathroom, and told them that I think something was wrong, because I think my water was breaking, but I was not even 32 weeks yet, so it was too soon. My grandma told me not to worry, that it was just because I had an incompetent cervix.

(Incidentally, a girl in my class told me last night that when she was pregnant, she was put on bedrest because she had an incompetent cervix, and was leaking amniotic fluid, and her son was born a month early).

I told my grandma that I thought an incompetent cervix was actually something to worry about, and I better call and tell my midwife. My mom agreed. Then Kevin suggested that maybe I would just have the baby at about 32 weeks. I told him it was way too early, and he told me that his newphew was born at 32 weeks, and is fine (which is true, she had a c-section at 32 weeks because of pre-eclampsia). I told him that I really didn't want to have the baby at 32 weeks anyhow, I wanted to wait until it was born.

Grandpa's wife suggested that I have my cervix sown shut then, because she heard that people do that now. Then she started washing dishes. Like a mountain of dishes.

My dad said that we had to leave, because we were late for church. So we started leaving the house to walk to a church, and Kevin's mom joined us while walking. Kevin told her I was in labor. I told her I wasn't in labor, I just had an incompetent cervix, and needed to have it sown closed. She told me I should just have the baby now instead. I told her it was way too early. Kevin mentioned again that his nephew was born at 32 weeks, and is fine. Kevin's mom said "No, he wasn't born at 32 weeks, he was born at 36 weeks." We both argued with her that it was actually 32 weeks, not 36 weeks, and while we argued, a man presumably also walking to church in front of us, wearing a ladies' turquoise hat, started waving his arms at a bird that was trying to land on his hat.

The bird had a friend, and the two birds (incidentally, a blue jay and a cardinal) stole the hat from the man's head, and carried it really high in the air with their beaks. I was commenting to Kevin on how totally freakin' crazy that was, when these two golden retrievers came running towards all of us (now a big huge crowd of people walking to church) and running through our legs and around us and getting their hair and slobber everywhere.

My mom shouted "No!" at the dogs, and they stopped in their tracks and looked at her, and wagged their tails. Then she told the dogs to "let it go", and one of them started heaving, and it threw up a baby wearing a clown halloween costume. The baby looked happy and unharmed though, like the whole charade had been good fun.

End of dream.

Uh, yeah.

And before I went to bed last night, I ate french fries from McDonald's because I had really had a taste for them all week, and some Tropical Punch sugar free Kool-aid, which I don't like, but seem to really have a craving for over the past few weeks.

Well, have a nice weekend everyone!