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.