Company at 4 a.m.

Last night proved to be yet another one of those difficult-to-sleep-nights. If you are noticing a trend in my blogging as of late, you are correct--sleeplessness has been a common theme. As it will continue to be for awhile, I'm sure (but maybe I'll eventually get over myself and find something more interesting to blog about. Until then...). What made last night different was the company. ;)

First, some background: Yesterday afternoon, we visited my in-laws. And their lake. This was our second Sunday at the lake in as many weeks; after our visit last Sunday, I told Casey I would be content to make it to the lake every weekend between now and the end of my pregnancy. Casey had no qualms with the idea. Let me tell you, there is nothing like relaxing in a cool lake on a hot summer's day when you are in the final weeks of pregnancy. We really only spent a couple of hours in the water, but it felt miraculous--the coolness and the weightlessness of it [sigh].

Two relatively minor incidents occurred while we were at the lake 1). During the course of our swim time, Casey stepped on a sharp something under the water and gave himself a small, but deep cut that, of course, filled with bits of sand and other lake-ish particles. 2). After getting out of the water, I found that my lower back was a little stiff. No big deal, either one.

After the lake, we went out to eat. We are not normally go-out-to-eaters, preferring to save our money and cook, but as of late, we have been splurging, again all related to making the most of the last few weeks of non-parenthood. We ate at Lafayette Fire Co. 1--pretty tasty food, and it was fun to try something new.

As the evening progressed, so did my backache. However, it worked out pretty well because part of our plan for the evening was to read some more of our Bradley book and do some practice exercises for labor.

[Sidenote: We are planning to deliver (in a hospital) naturally--without an epidural, pain meds, or other medical interventions, as much as possible. Because of this, we decided to opt out of any childbirth classes, and instead have been reading a book called Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way. It's a great book and I highly recommend it if you are planning a natural childbirth. Plus, as I told Casey last night, I'm really glad to have the extra time with him, as opposed to spending hours and hours at a childbirth class. Of course, there is always the potential that I will regret the decision to not take a class after I actually give birth, but based on how busy we have already been preparing for a baby already, I think the extra time together is well-worth it. Plus, we are also having a doula, Behthany Robbins, assist us in birth, and I have full confidence in her to help us in our lack of labor expertise.]

So anyway, part of the Bradley book has exercises to practice for labor where the coach (aka Casey) gives the laboring woman (aka me) a lower back massage during contractions, since many women experience back pain during childbirth. As we practiced for labor last night, Casey massaged my lower back so hard that he said he was pretty sure it would give me bruises under normal circumstances. And he said his arms are going to get really big. ;) The massage felt WONDERFUL! Definitely helped with the back pain I had been having. Well, temporarily at least.

See, I woke up at about 4 a.m. because I had HORRIBLE lower back pain--again. It was one of the first times in pregnancy where I finally had a glimpse of the feeling of "get this baby out of me NOW"--a telltale sign that you are getting close to the end of pregnancy, I'm told. I laid in bed bed for awhile, trying various positions to get comfortable, and that's when I realized Casey was awake, too. Most of the time, he sleeps right through my insomnia, but last night, the cut on the bottom of his foot (from the lake earlier) was bothering him.

We ended up getting up together to clean the cut out better, which helped his foot, and amazingly enough, my back, too. Just moving around a bit helped loosen me up. Then, we just laid in bed and talked--at 4 a.m. :) We both ended up falling back asleep, but this morning, we talked about how fun it was to chat in the middle of the night.

I predict we will have many more mid-night chats in the coming months. And it was nice. To have company at 4 a.m.

Lanterns and Stars

Many people have advised me to spend the remaining weeks of pregnancy 1. relaxing (check!), 2. sleeping (check-minus), and 3. going on dates with my husband (check-plus). Heeding their advice, Casey and I took advantage of Friday night's relatively cool weather to go out and about.

Our evening started with some good ol' backyard BBQ. Casey fired up the grill and we cooked some delicious shish kabobs, with marinated beef, chicken, peppers, onions, pineapple, and, my favorite, cherry tomatoes. Seriously, if you have never cooked cherry tomatoes on a shish kabob, you don't know what you are missing. They are so juicy and flavorful, I think they just might be my favorite food right now!

After dinner, we went to the Lantern Festival at the Missouri Botanical Gardens. I've been told that the festival is a great honor for the Botanical Gardens because these lanterns are rarely seen outside of China. They were a sight to behold, for sure! It was cool to see them before it got dark, and then after dark when they were lit. The dragons (there were two even though you can only see one in the picture below) were by far the most impressive. These majestic creatures were made out of 40,000 porcelain plates tied together with kite string. And they breathe smoke!

Lantern Festival pics

Looking VERY pregnant!

Even though it was nearly ten o'clock by the time we finished at the lantern festival, we were having so much fun that we decided to extend our date by doing something we have rarely done since we were dating (pre-marriage)--star-gazing! It was a gorgeous (and cool) evening, so we drove out Interstate 44 to our favorite spot and cuddled in the back of Casey's truck underneath a clear and starry sky. Surprisingly, it was cool enough that we even needed a blanket. In total, I think we saw 4 shooting stars. It brought back fond memories of our second date, and many other dates in the fall of '07. All in all, we stayed out until almost 1 a.m. I was quite proud of myself for making it that long, but like I said, I am determined to make the most of these last few weeks of "us time."

It's 3 a.m.

I said in my last post that you might not see me for awhile, unless I continued the pattern of waking up at odd times and not being able to sleep. I guess it didn't take long for that to happen. Welcome to the last month of pregnancy, right?

I woke up this morning (EARLY this morning, literally at 3 a.m.) to pee (of course) and found that I REALLY REALLY needed to eat something. Side note: I think Baby Girl is dropping because the last few days, I have been able to eat normal-sized meals without feeling like I am literally going to POP! For a while, I had to eat about 1/4 of what I felt like I WANTED to eat, just so I wouldn't be miserable for the rest of the day/evening.

SO anyway, I came downstairs to get a quick snack, but found myself more awake than ever. For awhile, I amused myself with catching up on other people's blogs, but even that did not put me back to sleep. And now here I sit before you.

In my last entry, I also said that Casey and I (mostly Casey) have been nesting. Since then, Casey has continued his nesting, and I have joined him with a boundless energy that I didn't know I still possessed this late in pregnancy. In fact, up to the point where the nesting instinct grabbed me with vicious talons, I often wondered how women found the energy to nest late in pregnancy, and wondered if I myself might be an exception to the nesting rule. Thankfully, I found out, starting last Saturday, that I do have the nesting instinct and it kicked in with full force.

It started Saturday afternoon after I got home from my third baby shower (I am SO loved by SO many--my thanks goes out to you!). I left the shower with the intention of coming home for my daily nap. However, when I got home, Casey was getting ready to finish up one of  his nesting projects: Project Organize the Basement. This project included building more shelves, ripping out the remaining basement walls (from previous owners), adding to his tool bench, and cleaning/painting the walls of the front section of the basement (under the porch). He did most all of this while I was in New York over Memorial Day weekend, and now just needed to finish putting everything away in its new space. Oh, did I mention that once everything was put away, he left me 4 1/2 shelves for baby stuff and other miscellaneous needs-to-be-removed-from-the-nursery stuff? That's my guy! :)

As he was going down to the basement, Casey asked if I wanted to come down and hang out with him for awhile. I was surprisingly no longer feeling tired or in need of a nap, so I decided to join him downstairs. At first, I just sat on a bucket and chatted with him, but it wasn't long before I pulled out a bin full of old paperwork from college and started to go through it (all with the intention of emptying it so Casey could use it for something he needed a place for). Before I knew it, I had cleaned out the entire bin and had a pile of paper for "shredding." But it didn't stop there. I just kept going. And going. And going.

By 9 p.m., with only a short break for dinner, Casey had finished organizing the basement, and I had begun moving baby stuff from the nursery down to my 4 1/2 empty shelves. Once I had some of the baby stuff moved out, I thought it would be a good idea to take some inventory of stuff we have lots of, and of stuff we still need, so I started organizing the gift bags and boxes in the nursery (up until that point, I had just been bringing stuff home from showers and piling it into the nursery for later assessment).

Before I knew it, I took a pee break and looked at the clock in the bathroom to find that it was 1 A.M! Did I mention that I never got that nap I intended to take when I got home from the shower? By this time, Casey was patiently waiting for me to come to bed. Not only is it most often the other way around (me in bed waiting for Casey), even before I was pregnant, I rarely stayed up until 1 a.m., and since my pregnancy, 10 p.m. is really pushing it.

Since Saturday, the nesting has continued. I have organized and re-organized pieces of my life I never thought I would touch again. I've continued to clean out the nursery (it is the biggest project, by far), but I have also organized parts of the kitchen, my paperwork/billing system, and have even had the urge to organize the documents/folders on my computer!

I was up late again last night (only 11:30 this time) completing pages for the year-in-review scrapbook that I started for Casey our first Christmas. It's only a page a year, but somehow I was still 2 years behind--of 5 total years we have known each other. Not anymore! I'm all caught up.

And now it's now longer 3 a.m. It's in the 4 a.m. range and my eyes are feeling a little gritty. Maybe I can go back to sleep after all. Sorry to bore you with all the details of this nesting mama. G'night (or morning!) :).

P.S. Don't worry. I did get a 3 hour nap on Sunday after my nesting marathon Saturday night. I am so thankful not to be working these last weeks of pregnancy so that I am able to sleep when I need to. I truly am trying (as so many people have advised) to get sleep while I can. :)

Twig by Twig

So much for my goal of weekly posts. It's been five weeks since my last post. Here are all of the posts I've been meaning to get to for the last month, all rolled up into this one post.

Since I last blogged....

• I had my first baby shower, given by my mother-in-law (Mamasan) and sisters-in-law (Shelly and Katie), one of whom is pregnant with a girl and due 3 weeks after us. Baby Bonsa will have a built-in best friend from birth! 

Mamasan made this oh-so-cute-baby-in-a-carriage fruit arrangement

Shelly, Mamasan, me, and Katie at the baby shower

• we went shopping for wedding dresses for my sister Jessica, who is getting married in January of 2013. That makes TWO upcoming Petrone sister weddings: Melissa and Korey in September and Jessica and Chris in January. I'm especially excited for Jessica's wedding because she has asked me to be her Matron of Honor.

Me and Jess before wedding dress shopping

• the school year ended! Hooray for summer. I have been off for about a week and a half. And enjoying every minute of it. With my maternity leave, I won't go back to work for four and a half months.

• I took a trip to New York/New Jersey. Hooray for Melissa's wedding. It was beautiful. And so much fun to see all of my college roommates. And to stay with Jo. And to feel like I was back in college again for a few days.

The Ragamuffins--Barb, Jo, Melissa (the beautiful bride), me, and Natalie

• I took two trips to Springfield. Trip 1=Happy Retirement Dad!; Trip 2=Ready to Pop!  Baby Shower. Both trips were short, but it was great to see my family and family friends.

Mom, Dad, me, and Melissa following dad's retirement ceremony

Bekah, me, Jess, and Melissa at Ready to POP! shower

• I started my summer routine. I thrive off of order and schedules, as my husband will attest. Without a schedule, I often go nuts over the summer. In the last couple of years, I have realized how much better my summer days are when I get up and moving with Casey. In the past, I used to get up and go for a morning jog while it was still cool out. Since my jogging ended right around the 6 months prego mark, I have taken to walking instead--my friend Ami and I walk 3 days a week. The other days, I walk with Fitzy. I've also been making a point to do my Yoga Mama DVD a few times a week, which has really helped with my flexibility and muscle soreness--good prep for labor, I hope. An essential part of my daily routine has also become naptime, which I find works best between 10-11am. It seems so silly to me that I get tired so quickly after waking up, but for some reason, morning naps work better than the afternoon ones (probably because I just flat out can't make it that long). And as Casey often  reminds me, I AM pregnant, and this is my vacation--and likely the last time I will be able to take regular naps for years to come. My afternoons thus far have been filled with graduate class work and maternity sub plans. Though I typically work better in the mornings, I can't fit EVERYTHING in in the morning, so afternoons have become my "work" time.

• Casey and I (mostly Casey!) have been working to get our home ready for a third member. Twig by twig, we are building a nest :). Everything is a process, of course, and I have to remind myself not to be overwhelmed with the amount of work NOT finished, including the nursery, which still has piles and boxes of baby stuff yet to be sorted and put away. The thing is, there is an order to everything. It's hard to put stuff away before we have the furniture where it will be put away, and the furniture needs to be put together, and many of the baby things need to be moved to the basement (for later use), and the basement needs to be organized, and to organize the basement, we had to have a yard sale.... you get the picture.

From top left, moving counter-clockwise: 1. new bookshelves for our bedroom (so we could get rid of the bookcase in the nursery); 2. A new dresser, so now we have matching furniture for our bedroom (mostly); 3. the bathtub, which Casey is working on re-glazing. You should have seen it before (wish I had pics, but they don't do it justice--it had layers and layers of grime and scum that wouldn't come off until Casey got some heavy duty professional acid cleaner); 4. the closet for the nursery, still in progress; 5. The nursery, still in progress, but now missing a desk, a chair, and a bookcase, but with added piles of baby stuff; 6. We got a new couch! One on which Casey can fully extend in order to comfortably nap; 7. Casey tore out the dilapidated plywood from the garage windows and put up new windows--it's still an old garage, but amazingly enough, looks better now. See "before" picture below; and finally 8. We got a china cabinet from Adelaide's estate sale, and finally moved it into its new location and put all of the china from Adelaide (her wedding gift to us) on display--I LOVE it!

• But really, in the grand scheme of things, I have come to realize that with as much as we WANT to get done before Baby Bonzai's arrival, the things we NEED to get done are really very limited. We have a car seat (so we can bring her home from the hospital), we have some diapers (thanks to folks from various showers), we have a few onesies, and we even have a few different options where Bonza can sleep for the first few weeks. Aside from not having yet decided on a pediatrician, I can't think of anything that really NEEDS to be done before she arrives. Of course, not having my sub plans/grad work finished could make things difficult for awhile---but I have great plans to get those cranked out by the end of June. Which is why you may not see many more posts in the next few weeks. Unless, of course, I wake up at 5 am and can't fall back asleep, like I did this morning :).