everything on my brain

First of all, there are 65 days left until my due date. SIXTY-FIVE DAYS. How exactly did this happen? I'm 30 weeks and 3 days and I am in a bit of disbelief that in approximately two months I will have two children. Two. As in, most of my waking hours I will be outnumbered by little people. If I even consider the possibility that the baby could come before his or her due date, well then my head basically explodes, so I don't consider that possibility much. My friend who went two weeks late with her first just went two weeks early with her second, and OH MY GOD let's not talk about it.

That being said, I have also achieved a state of great peace and excitement about this baby. I cannot wait to meet him or her, and to find out finally whether this is a him or her. I'm sure it'll be an adjustment and a challenge, but I'm confident that we'll all be fine and that everyone will survive. People have two kids all the time, right? Plus, I really really want to meet this little person. I don't know if you recall, but I was the pregnant woman last time who cried in the hospital delivery room because she wasn't yet ready to give birth. Post due date even. At 40 weeks and 3 days, I still wasn't ready to have my baby. So for me to say that I'm excited to give birth this time around is a huge step in the right direction.

Nobody around here wants the baby any time in the next 7 weeks, though, so he or she should definitely stay put for now.
______________________________________________________

There are days when I am so tired or frustrated by the end of the day that I threaten to sell Gabe on Ebay to the highest bidder. Then there are whole weekends like this past weekend, where I would like to bottle him up and save him forever and get down on my knees and kiss the ground in thanks for such an amazing little boy. This may or may not have anything to do with being excited for baby 002. I'll let you decide.

This weekend, Gabe decided to bring out his angelic side. He spent the whole weekend being totally agreeable. Smiling all the time, talking up a storm, answering all our questions clearly and quickly with a sweet 'yesh' or 'no'. No whining, no tantrums, no sleeping problems. We went out to the Berkshires while my inlaws were out of town, and had the loveliest weekend. We went pumpkin picking, petted animals at a petting zoo, played at playgrounds, took drives through the countryside, stopped into the outlets, ate good food, walked around the cute town centers, and even made it to an antique fire truck show.

Gabe ate when he was supposed to eat, slept in the car when we needed him to, played nicely with friends when we were at home, and gave hugs and kisses liberally. I could eat him up, seriously. Whatever this stage is, it is truly lovely. He snuggles up to us and brings his toys over to us excitedly to share. I need to whip out the video camera so that I don't forget how stinking cute he is, honestly. He makes me want to swallow him whole.
______________________________________________________


Remember this? Coincidentally, the car started making this strange sloshing sound whenever I would turn corners. At first it sounded like I was running over a puddle, but when the noise was consistent, I realized that there were no puddles and it was the actual tire that was making the sound of running water. I just had a tune-up done at the dealership around the time when the noise started, so I made another appointment and took it in this morning.

The smell in the car hasn't been getting any better, despite my efforts at cleaning the car, spraying scent removing spray everywhere, and even putting in a pumpkin spice air freshener. This weekend, Josh refused to drive in the car and told me that "it smells like a pumpkin took a shit inside the car". He's a master of words, my husband is.

Anyway, Josh has been insistent that I did something to the car like spill milk, or leave fruit rotting or something, and refuses to believe that an animal might have crawled in there and died. Over the last few days, I even started trying to convince him that maybe the strange running water sound we've been hearing has something to do with this dead animal (an idea at which he clearly scoffs).

Turns out, the air conditioner had a clog in it, and the sound I was hearing was the sound of water backing up inside the radiator. The more I used the air conditioner, the worse it sounded. The smell was the water ROTTING inside that same radiator. The smell kept getting worse because the backed up water was growing and rotting more and more. Fabulous, huh? But I am sooooo stinking relieved to have an answer, especially an answer that has nothing to do with me being at fault. Yay!
______________________________________________________

We've made the decision that Gabe is moving to a big boy room and the baby is keeping the nursery as is. We are turning the guest room into Gabe's room and living without a guest room for the foreseeable future, a fact which made my inlaws very unhappy, but I'm hoping they'll eventually understand. I had a talk with our pediatrician, who told me that until this in utero baby is consistently sleeping through the night, it'll be much easier on me if we don't have them share a room. If we didn't have another choice, I'd just live with it, but given the fact that we have a lovely large room available to us, I'm screwing the guests and erring on the side of more sleep.

In the meantime, I've been anxiously hunting for a good bedding set for Gabe. I have a long list of requirements. It has to be something he likes, something bright and fun, something that isn't outrageously priced, and something cute. You'd be surprised at how hard it is to satisfy those requirements. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. I think I've found something that works on Ebay, and I'm keeping close tabs on this auction because I NEED to win this bedding so that we can pick a wall color and finally get started on room decorating.

I got super lucky and found someone who was selling an almost new bunk bed and dresser set from Pottery Barn Kids for dirt cheap, so we bought that and we're going to only set up one bed in the meantime until Gabe is old enough not to fling himself off of the top bunk. I suspect that will be a long time from now. This planning and executing of a big boy bedroom plan is tremendously fun for this nesting mom, though!