Week 36: Honeydew House

Julia, you're now 36 weeks along on this magical journey they call the road to life, or pregnancy, or whatever. Whatever it is, you've only got about 3 weeks left of it!

You've been doing your job quite well: You're growing, rolling around, kicking and squirming.

Your Mom is as beautiful as always:

It's so interesting to compare the Julia with the Aidan belly at the same week in pregnancy. Here's your Mom about 3 years ago, very pregnant with Aidan:

I think you may be a bigger belly, Miss Julia...but just by a hair! But, there's no real sense in comparing apples to oranges, when you're really the size of a honeydew melon.

News from the womb indicates that your heaing is fully developped, that your liver and kidneys are in working order, that your circulation and immune systems are pretty much good to go and that you're finalizing those steps to be able to breathe on your own. Also, we know that your Mom's cervical lining (that glue which basically keeps the first steps of labor from starting to happen) is all-but gone. It was thinned to 80% two weeks ago, and this week the doctor didn't even bother to check.

Now since you're coming via C-section anyway, we don't really need to worry about dilation and all that, like we did last time. BUT if you decide you're ready to come earlier than October 11, 2012, then we'd better be ready.

Which makes the honeydew even more important. See, we've been scrambling to get everything ready for your arrival. Feels like we've been prepping hard since the beginning of summer, but we really kicked it into high gear recently. We made our "honey-do" lists (you know, like "honey, do this", "honey, do that", we checked them twice, and we started crossing them off our list. Everything's falling into place...

Your Yaya finshed work on your dresser, and we got that put in place of the old changing table.
I painted different walls in different rooms.
We went to Ikea to finish setting up your Mom's new office (so we could move the office stuff from the playroom, so we could get the playroom all set up).
We sold old stuff, and bought new stuff: new swing, new stroller, new bouncy chair.
I cleaned out and organized the shed (yes, that had to be done before you came!)
I scooted over Aidan's seat and installed yours.

Looks Good right? I keep asking Aidan if he knows who's going to be sitting next to him soon. His answer thus far has been, "huh?"

We're prepping Aidan for our stay at the hospital by doing a test run of spending the night at Yaya's house tonight.
We're working extra hard with Aidan on being gentle with the items you will soon frequent.
We got out all the old baby toys and put them away. Aidan keeps taking them out.

All this honey-do-ing can sure make a guy tired...

But, we're getting there baby, and there are only a few more honey-do's to do. But you know what? You have a loving brother waiting for you (occasionally he waits behind trees):

You've got a loving, beautiful Mom who is QUITE ready for you to arrive.

And you've got a devoted Dad who is so excited to meet you and finally get to hold you.

Plus two doggies who you're just going to love, 4 awesome grandparents, aunts and uncles and friends.

So, if you come tomorrow, you'll be all set. It doesn't matter if that picture doesn't get framed and hung, or the ceiling paint touched-up. Those honey-do's can all wait once our perfect honeydew arrives.

Facing Forward

Man, oh, man. How time flies!

I haven't told you about your second Christmas/Hannukah or New Year's Eve and it's already late January. You've been growing and changing so quickly that it's hard to keep up! But here are the highlights:

+You liked Hannukah!
But didn't necessarily love posing for Hannukah pictures:
+ You didn't dislike Santa:

+You loved the lights on the Christmas tree and constantly requested that it be "on."

+ You loved dreidels and worked really hard to spin them yourself

+ We had Hannukahs with Mimi and Pops and Christmas with the Roomianis:

+ You finally got the hang of opening presents around the 4th night of Hannukah...

when I turned my back for a moment and you had torn open Uncle Joseph's present under the tree! A crock pot did not interest you (no video).

+You ate your first donut during Hannukah...and it was awesome!


+ Mr. POTATO HEAD is awesome!

+ Jingle Bells Snoopy is HILARIOUS!


+Preston and Toby continued to be your bestest buddies!


+ You got your first hair cut (and you already need another!)



+We went to the park tons (and tons of parks) and you got bolder and bolder in your independence. You now climb the structure and go down the slide all by yourself!


+You also took to the water fountain like a fish to...well..water!


+We played with friends and you even got some matching Buzz Light Year Pajamas from your God Parents, the Nodelands and hung out with Brady and the Shields a lot!



+ You continued to LOVE Toy Story and all things Toy Story. You even created your own signal for "To infin


+ You got and destroyed a Toy Story tent in under a month (it was faulty construction...not your fault!)



+ Your favorite song is now "You've got a friend in me" from Toy Story. We listen to Randy Newman ALL the time now.

+ You are requesting things with your expanding (and creative) vocabulary.
- "Ha ha" or "Ba" is Toy Story ("Ha Ha" is "Howdy"..we don't get "ba")
- You request your #2 favorite song, Muppet's Bohemian Rhapsody, by saying "Ma" and pointing up to the sky (very clever if you ask me...you combined "look up to the skies and see" with "mama" to let us know what you want...and yesterday we heard the song 25,431 times!)
- You request your #3 favorite song in the world by saying "Oh wee oh," which is quite accurate:
- You created your own sign for "thirsty" which is very accurate
- Last night you told us you were hungry with a brand new sign: putting your fist in your mouth!
- Yesterday in Target your Mommy was looking for me and calling me by name. You responded by quickly learning and echoing "Ahn..Ahn!" (my name is Aaron...nice to meet you!)

+You "help" us "clean"


+You can now eat at the table like a big boy! (and you do a great job of it!)


+ You are some sort of acrobat:
- we inherited Addison's old play mat and you keep trying to do somersaults on it all by yourself!

+ You are some sort of monkey:
- You're climbing like crazy. Your green chair is your ticket "up" (also, your vocabulary continues to grow! "up up up!")

- Today your Mommy turned her head for one second and you had scaled the safety gate to the stairs and were rapidly climbing upstairs!

+And...major milestone...you're now officially forward facing.

It's so hard keeping up with you nowadays, not just because you're scaling walls and growing like a weed. But you're changing and growing and maturing into a great kid every second of every day. It's hard to look backward when you keep us facing forward!

Watermelon Waiting

You are now 37 weeks along! And that means you've reached the final stage of your fruit continuum.

That's right, buddy, you are now the size of a watermelon!

And, as a watermelon, that means two things:

1) Watch out for Gallagher.

2) You are "Ready" for birth.

Now, ready is sure a loaded term. But, basically, it means you could be born today with no complications. All you're doing for the next 3 weeks (or for how ever long you decide to remain in utero) is adding on baby fat, refining your blinking, and sucking, inhaling and exhaling (yup, you're still breathing in liquid!).

But, all that's really just practice! You're ready for the big show any day now.

And with that in mind, your Mom and I are trying to get "ready" too.

"Ready or not, here you come." Definitely, we know that's true.

But we still had a few more things to check off our lists to make us feel a little bit more ready.

So this weekend, we put together your stroller and unwrapped your car seat/infant carrier and installed it in the car! Seeing as how they won't let us take you home without the car seat, we thought it was a good thing to get done.

We also got down our big red duffle bag from the attic and started packing for our trip to the hospital. I got my change of socks and boxers and t-shirts all packed up. The toiletries are all ready to go: toothbrushes, toothpaste and (very important) deods. Your Mom is packing all her clothes and other necessities today, including some pretty cool long socks (which may be the first thing you see) and nursing tops.

This bag, of course, is a complete luxury. You can be born with or without it; but since this whole deal is about keeping your Mom as comfortable as possible, so you can be born as comfortably as possible, it's probably a good idea to get this Emergency Bag all packed and ready to go.

So, the bag is ready to go, as are you. And now we're just playing the waiting (until March) game.

And, surprisingly, an odd calm-before-the-storm mentality has settled over our household...as long as that creep with the moustache and the sledgehammer isn't lurking about (Gallagher, not Pops!)