General Update

Okay, I really don't have much to say, but I know that the unwritten blog rules state that going over four months without posting on your blog officially makes you a bad blogger. I am sure the two people that read this are simply dying to know what's going on in our lives. First off, thanks for voting in our baby name poll! We are keeping all the names on the table until we meet her. We'll give her one of the four once we've gotten a chance to make sure we have a name that fits her best. We are trying to avoid the whole, "Really? Your name is ______....you don't look like a ____!" We have two favorite names, but for now, we refer to her as "baby Bella" until we can officially settle on the right name for her.

Anyway, we are getting super excited. I am in the whole nesting phase. This phase is pretty surreal, especially for those like me who would normally care less whether or not their home is perfectly organized. It's very out-of-character for me, but all I can think about these days is labeling her closet cubbies, organizing our filing system, or re-organizing the closet... again. It's consuming me. I am overtaken by an overwhelming need to make our apartment a nice place for her to be.

Andrew is nesting in a different way. He's drawing-up plans to deck-out her crib. He's planning on installing a sound system so we can play lullabies, primary songs, and Metallica to help her sleep. He also wants to install a camera so our out-of-state family and friends can simply log-on to a website and see her napping anytime they want. He is also working on a high-tech mobile of the solar system including Pluto as a planet (he's not ready to let it go).

So far, pregnancy has been less than wonderful. I feel like I've had every annoying pregnancy symptom under the sun. I am even more dramatic than normal, which is saying a lot. I have stretch marks that look like twenty cats thought my belly was covered in cat-nip, my hair is falling-out, my back hurts, my feet are so swollen that I can't wear any of my shoes, I cry for no reason, I can't eat chicken, I am exhausted all the time, I have acne, and I waddle like a cowboy...and those are just the symptoms I feel comfortable posting on the world-wide web.

The only fun part is that when she kicks, she is very dramatic about it. I was resting a bowl of cereal on my belly and she kicked so hard that the milk spilled out. At least she seems to have a driven and determined personality. When church gets boring, Andrew and I can just sit and watch her kick-box my stomach from the inside. It's very cool. We are just anxious for her to be born already! Andrew is excited to explain string theory and cloud computing to her and I am excited to start teaching her about Streisand and C.S. Lewis. Touchstone seems to be excited about sniffing her and possibly licking her face while we are not looking. All of us are anxious and not a bit patient.

Andrew is finishing up his degree in a week. His university is developing an undergraduate class for him to teach next semester while he works on his masters. He is also looking for a day job. My students are surprisingly very respectful toward me since I've been pregnant. I have real-live thugs opening doors for me and even insisting that I have a seat while they run errands for me. I even had one kid scold me for bending down to pick-up a pencil that I dropped. He made it clear that I should ask him to pick-up anything I dropped in the future. (It's surreal, considering the fact that he cursed me out and threatened my life last semester.) The only bad thing about working while pregnant is that it's more tiring than I could have ever imagined. My last day at work should be Jan 9th, so I only have a few more weeks of employment left. I'll update the blog if anything newsworthy happens! :)