Full term?! Random Updates

As a reminder, I have gotten a handful of due dates, since we have to go off the baby's size, which varies from practitioner to practitioner and ultrasound machine to ultrasound machine. The earliest I have gotten is March 20, and the latest is March 26. If you go toward the earlier end of that spectrum, I am FULL TERM! Thirty seven weeks and a few days! If you go by the later date, I think I'll be full term on Tuesday. I have been hoping all along for an Easter baby (March 31), but I know she'll come when she's ready. I'm just hoping it's not April 1, since I'm afraid people will think I'm pulling an April Fools joke!

I went to the doctor last Tuesday (going weekly now!) and had gained like a pound and a half since my previous appointment. Looks like I'm on track to gain less than 30, which was the goal! My belly is measuring exactly on schedule and baby's heartbeat is consistently between 120 and 160 bpm. I've gotten a little bit of my nesting mojo back since I last posted, so I've been getting some of the practical stuff together for baby's arrival... Buying extra toilet paper and paper towels, diapers and wipes, cleaning and organizing closets (I have done every single closet in our house in the span of just a couple of days!), and putting some finishing touches on the nursery.

I will do a separate post with pictures of the nursery soon. I was really fortunate to have a totally blank slate when "designing" Ford's room... I was able to think of how to make it function as the best NURSERY ever, putting furniture wherever I wanted, leaving lots of room for playing, having TWO WHOLE CLOSETS for one tiny baby... and this room has posed some challenges. For one thing, I have had less time to focus on it. I can't even really get in there to work while Ford's sleeping, since his room is adjacent and he's a pretty light sleeper. So I don't really even know how things are getting done. Mostly it's just when Brad's home to distract the man-cub and I can sneak in 30 minutes to hang pictures or fold blankets or what have you. But the room also still has to function as an office storage space and guest room, in addition to baby room. I'm not willing to spend much money at all on the space, since it may be a full-on office again in a few months, or we may move... so I'm pretty much just using what I have and repurposing it, or making things (crib skirt, canopy, pom poms, art, etc.). Here are a few sneak peeks:

Some hand-me-down dressers to hold baby's clothes. I have two of them. Left: before, Right: after. The after is a high gloss elephant gray with capiz shell knobs. They are pretty deep drawers, so they offer a surprising amount of storage for their petite size!

Outtake from my photo shoot... :) He is such a little muskrat. Love him!

Can't remember if I have posted this here. This is from six weeks ago or so... I made the canopy and the pom poms. I've since added two pom poms to help fill it out.

I think I have posted this before? A big pouf I sewed before I even really knew what I wanted the nursery to look like.

Bad lighting, but here's a window shade I modified (it's just a straight roller shade from IKEA, and I added coral trim and took out the roller so it would have a scallop shape). In the middle is a "wreath" I made from the pom pom fabric scraps. I want to put baby's monogram in the middle once we're sure about the name.

I've also been really focused on preparing activities for Ford when the baby comes. It's funny, I'll be driving somewhere and I have a thought like, "THERE SHOULD BE BALLOONS IN THE HOSPITAL ROOM WHEN FORD MEETS HIS SISTER. THEN HE WON'T BE SCARED." Or, "WE SHOULD GET FORD SOME MATCHBOX CARS AND TELL THEM THEY'RE FROM HIS SISTER. HE WOULD LIKE THAT." I'm just trying to think of things to help with the transition, plus ways to keep him occupied while we're having to care for a newborn. I did a busy bag swap with some fellow moms at church and went home with six great activities, like stringing yarn through foam shapes, fishing with a magnetized rod and play fish, velcro sticks, and the like. Below is my contribution, a laminated color wheel with clothespins. I drew a number wheel on the back of ours, where you match up wedges with dots and their numerals. I also created some separate activities for Ford, like sorting colored beads into a small, six-cup muffin tin, sticker books, a couple of DVDs (Curious George and Happy Feet), some new books about being a new brother, as well as some Sesame Street books, watercolors, finger paints, little wooden puzzles... We'll pull out one new activity every few days and rotate them.

More soon! I have the house to myself for about 20 more minutes (Ford's asleep and Brad's working out), so I may watch the end of Project Runway and eat a sweet treat (I still have a few leftover honey buns from Sam's! Ha!). Thanks for reading.