A is for Beautiful

Oh my goodness! What a day this has been so far! It has started out as one CRAZY day! I cannot emphasize enough how glad I will be when next Friday comes! Eight and a half days and counting…

Well, yesterday I made a good dent in my lesson plans for maternity leave. I went over to feed mom and dad’s cats and stayed to work on them for 2.5 hours. I still have to finish the 6th grade plans and then I am done with the lesson plan part. After that I will have to get all of the originals of all of the handouts that the sub will need as well as all of the files together on a CD for her. Fun times. At least the monumental task is seeming smaller.

Mom and Dad are in sunny Florida for a couple of days. I wish I was there. It would be so nice to relax my enormous body on a lounge chair for hours with a good book. They would probably think I was a beached whale. Anyway, I am jealous but I am glad that they are taking a much needed vacation. My birthday is Sunday and I haven’t hardly thought about it one bit. I guess that’s how things go the older you get. All I want is to make sure I get a good piece of cake. I have two friends from college coming to visit this Saturday so maybe I can get something good to eat with them.

I finished my Bible Study last week so this week I am feeling a tad bit lost. I am going to make an effort tonight to just read some out of a random book in the Bible until I get another actual organized topic to study.

OK so this lady that retired last year after teaching some 30 years here at Calvary just stopped by my room to say hi (she still subs occasionally) and anyway she started talking to me about nursing. She said that she was advised by her doctor to try to calm her nerves before breastfeeding by having a beer. She said that it really worked and that she doesn’t even drink, but she did it for all three of her kids and they are just fine. She said that it really helped because the child could tell when you were calmer and as long as you’re not tipsy (moderation is the key) she said that the doctor told her it wasn’t harmful to the baby.

Well, I just think it is so hilarious the kind of advice you get when you’re having a baby. Everyone has an opinion about something and usually they are conflicting, but I guess you find you own unique methods and whatever works for you just works for you. I know it will be worse when Julianna is actually born, but I do think it is so funny because this was coming from a 60-something year old retired Christian school teacher on “doctor’s orders.” So I decided to look it up on the La Leche League’s website just now. It does say that alcohol in moderation is fine (no more than 2 drinks a day) but more than that can impede the milk production or be passed on to the baby through the milk. I don’t know how that woman managed to keep it under 2 drinks a day though because you breastfeed at least every 2 - 3 hours. I also looked it up on the American Association of Pediatrics’ website and they recommend no alcohol while breastfeeding. Sorry - curiousity got the best of me since her theory seemed so wacky.

That’s all the fun I can provide for today. I have to get back to the daily grind. More later…

What a good weekend! I can’t stand Mondays, but this one doesn’t seem so bad for some reason. I think it’s because there is…
light…
at the end…
of the tunnel..

and I know that I only have one more to go until Spring Break. How fun! Well, I didn’t get everything done that I wanted to this weekend, but I did at least make a dent. I got lots of baby clothes washed. I worked on my lesson plans for a little bit. I made two dinners to freeze. I also relaxed some and had a good lunch with my friend who was here from out of town.

I have a bunch of thank you notes to write from the shower yesterday. I am getting a little behind because I still have about six to write from random gifts that people bring me at school and other places. Anyway, I will try to get them done this week. I had a great time at the Sunday School class baby shower yesterday. It was really funny being around a different group of people (ones who’ve recently had kids instead of ones who had kids a long time ago). It was good to hear honest stories of their delivery experiences although everyone there was afraid they were scaring me. It just goes to show that everyone’s experience is different and that’s OK. They gave me some really adorable outfits for Jules to wear including a fancy leopard print bikini. :) I can’t wait to take her to the beach this summer and see her in it! For some reason though it conjures up thoughts of Jonathan and Julianna arguing about what she can wear when she’s 12! Ha ha… :)

I wanted to work on our taxes some more this past weekend, but we never got around to it. There’s just not enough time for everything and there’s only so much you can do. I’m putting that back on the list for this week. It will be so nice to come home from school and be able to accomplish some things at night instead of exhausting myself running to Curves and then home. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even manage to make dinner a night or two this week. :)

Well, mom and dad are in Florida and I plan on going over to take care of the cats this afternoon and staying a couple of hours. I am excited because I brought a change of clothes to take a nice jacuzzi bath! How funny that I get thrilled about such little things now! Anyway, it should be good. Well, I’m off to do some work now. Hope you all have a wonderful Monday!

Last night was my last night working at Curves. I am so relieved. I turned in my key and my staff T-shirts. They had decorated the place with balloons and crepe paper which was so sweet. The funny thing is that everyone that kept coming in to work out kept asking, “Who’s leaving?” Oh well. I do hope that I can get back to going to exercise again there though after the baby is born. But how exciting is it that I will have every afternoon to go home straight from school again to be productive instead of working 12 hour days. (Except for my weekly doctor’s appointments of course.) I still have so much pressure to get everything done now that I can so I am glad to have the little bit of extra time.

Yesterday the doctor’s office called and I found out when I called them back that I tested postive for the group B strep test. That just means that I have to have antibiotics by IV during the delivery. She said that a lot of people do test positive and that it’s nothing to worry about. They are just trying to make sure that the baby wouldn’t get the bacteria in their respiratory tract so they give the antibiotics as a preventive measure. She just said I have to sign some paper at my next visit and take it with me to the hospital so they’ll know to give me the IVs.

I slept SO WELL last night. I am so grateful. The last few nights had been rough. I am also looking forward to a great weekend. I have a friend coming into town that I never get to see and although the timing is not great, I am excited about getting to meet her for lunch on Saturday. I also have the Sunday School class baby shower on Sunday afternoon. That should be fun too. I am just hoping to get the tax stuff done and off to the accountant. I also want to get the house clean and make another meal to freeze for the future. Yadda, yadda… so it goes. I’m always making lists of what I want to do. Anyway, I hope you all have a terrific weekend and I’ll be back on Monday! :)

I finally packed my bag for the hospital last night. The only major thing that I am missing is a gown. I hate gowns. I have a couple of old ratty ones but mostly I just sleep in t-shirts and shorts. I think maybe Allison gave me one a while ago but I will have to find it. Or maybe I will add it to my shopping list. Ugh. More to do. Anyway, at least I packed. Baby steps… baby steps.

I also made an enormous pot of soup last night and froze a good bit of it. That was good. I have had much better days the past two days. I have gotten stuff done and I have gotten back into a routine. I don’t know why my attitude is better but I am glad to not have the moodiness.

Last night I didn’t sleep well, however. My legs were hurting so badly! I don’t know why. At least I haven’t had a nose bleed in a long time. My feet are also really swollen each night, but my doctor’s appointment yesterday went very well. It was a short and sweet visit and the “mean” doctor was nice. He didn’t comment on my weight at all (or my smelly feet) even though I have gained a lot of weight in the last couple of weeks. (I am now up 32.5 pounds.) He did ask if I was familiar with the 4th floor of Forsyth Hospital. Then he just kept saying how I was an easy patient because I didn’t have any questions. I did have the group B strep test done and will get results by next week about whether or not I will need antibiotics during the delivery. As Jonathan would say, “That’s just one more thing to pay for.” He jokes about how I can’t have an epidural because it costs too much. :) Just wait til the little girl arrives…

Mom and Dad bought a jogging stroller yesterday and Whit is starting her running program back up today. How exciting! I am counting the days until we can take Julianna out with us. There are only about two weeks of school left until Spring Break and only about four left until Julianna’s due date. It is getting so close! I know that she will grow up so fast too, but I am still really excited about it all.

So I read something really good in my Bible study this morning that I think I’ll share. Ray Pritchard points out, “So many of us look at a difficult situation and pray, ‘Lord, change my situation.’ That’s really not usually God’s will. More often the difficult situation has come as a means of making us grow spiritually. God often brings difficulty into our lives to deepen our total dependence upon Him. When that happens, we ought to pray, ‘Lord, change me so that I can face this situation.’ That’s a prayer God is pleased to answer.” I have thought so many times recently, “Wow I might finally be over the hump of having all of this tough stuff to deal with,” only to find out that there’s just something else. Reading this this morning really helped me realize once again that those things are good for me. They make me a stronger person and closer to God. My prayer today is for God to change me, not my situations. Hope you all have a marvelous day!

This week is really going by slowly. Shouldn’t it be at least Thursday or Friday by now? I think it was the “non-snow” day on Monday that messed me up. Oh well. I have a doctor’s appointment today. I have to have the strep B test. Fun, fun! Then I should only have three appointments left. Wow, that is not many!

I had a great day yesterday. School was good. I was productive and managed to get back into my morning Bible Study routine. After school I went to Target and Michael’s and then I came home and watched TV and made a gift for Mr. T. It is really cute. It is a frame with the baby’s name rubber stamped across the top and bottom. Then in the middle there is a cute little boy quote and the birth information. I probably should have spent my time doing something else, but it was fun nevertheless. I did manage to actually get the bag and list of stuff to pack for the hospital out last night although I didn’t put anything in it. There just is not enough time in the day! Everyone keeps telling me to rest while I can and it makes me so irritated because 1) I have so much to do I just don’t know how I could possibly find the time right now to nap and relax, etc. and 2) I know that they’re right and I can’t do much about it. I just do what I can. “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13-14

Today I am working on updating my bulletin board for the last time this year! That is so exciting! I will also try to make some more progress on my lesson plans, but I’m not sure if I’ll get much done. It is slow going. We are also on chapel schedule today too so I won’t have as much time.

I got lots of cute scrapbooing stuff at Michael’s yesterday though and I can’t wait to have a few spare moments this summer after Julianna is in a routine and napping or something and I will work on her scrapbook. We also learned how to make neat-o photo explosion boxes at stamp club and I am ready to have some pictures to go in mine! Plus I have all of these baby shower pictures and belly pictures to scrapbook and get caught up on.

Did you know that only 5% of babies are born on their actual due dates. My sister and I were both a couple of days late I think. My doctor said that they would induce if I was a week late and still no signs of labor which pretty much guarantees that Julianna will be a March baby. That is fine with me because I know that March babies are good. :)