The due date is here . . . yah

Well, I just can't believe that we all made it to 40 weeks and that I have made it to my due date. I thought this day would never come. For such a long time it seemed like it was this way out there date in the future that would never be here! But, here it is.

We all had a wonderful day. As Alayna mentioned earlier, it is a Sunday, so I got up with Mateo and she got to sleep in today. From 5:45 on till brunch, I mostly worked on cooking in the kitchen. If it had not been planned ahead of time that we were having a brunch, you could excuse me for thinking "wow, maybe this is nesting!" But no, the brunch had been planned and it was a great way to start off the day. Alayna helped tremendously by going to the store to get cinnamon, a little ingredient in cinnamon rolls that I forgot about! LOL. She also got out all of the ingredients, which was more helpful than you can imagine, and did tons of other things!

After brunch, I was just exhausted and Alayna offered to take Mateo to the park and let me get in a little nap. They didn't get more than three blocks before he fell asleep and Mateo and I both ended up taking a nice 1.5 hour nap. Go naps. I've gotten better these last few weeks about really sleeping when he sleeps. And, ever since I've started acupuncture, I've had a bit more energy overall.

After the nap, I fed Mateo and me half of a laughing planet burrito, and then we all headed out to the Bybee lakes with Lili and Eliza. We had a fabulous time walking, looking at guppies, pushing the stroller, running down the path (Mateo. . . not me) and enjoying the day.


Everyone, except me, pushing the stroller at the same time! Someone had to take the picture:)


After the walk, everyone, that would be everyone, except Mateo, was tired. . . so we all hung out in the car for a while. Mateo was happily driving us, and would have loved to drive us home, if only he knew how. Instead, he got to practice driving, while Alayna and I tried to relax for a few minutes. After we got home, our energetic boy wanted to be bounced on the yoga ball, non-stop and play "Where's Mateo?" a very lovely hide and go seek type of game!



We finished off this beautiful day with some Thai food ordered in and are going to watch some Sex in the City.

Overall, I feel big and like it is hard to move around some of the time, and just like myself at other times. It is surreal that I could technically go into labor at any time, or it could be 14 days. I try not to obsess about it. Although some moments I think, this is never going to end, and I'll never go into labor, most of the time I feel pretty ok about everything. My body knows when the time will be.



Speaking of my body, I have been calling my belly the cruise ship lately. This is the picture that inspired that comment in the first place! She is slow to move, takes turns at her own pace, and has her very own activity director!

Happy due date!

We celebrated our little girl's due date this morning with a delicious brunch and our good friends who are also expecting their second very soon. Sacha cooked mini-quiches and cinnamon rolls that were to die for - they were called Clone of a Cinnabon and wow, they lived up to their name. I told Sacha I was going to have to take a photo of her rolling out the dough for the rolls at 40 weeks pregnant, but then Mateo distracted me and I never managed to do it. Imagine it in your minds, if you will. She is amazing.

Nothing happening in laborland, but we are enjoying a beautiful Sunday with sunshine, our energetic son, and as much relaxation as we can get. Hard to ask for anything more than that!

Two things

One, this conversation from a few days ago. M and I were at a burrito place that has dinosaur toys on the table. I pointed out a stegosaurus on a nearby counter. I also mentioned that he was holding a brontosaurus in his hands. He thought this all over for a minute and then said the following:

"Stegosaurus... brontosaurus... Mateosaurus!"

Two, here's a photo from a recent trip to the arboretum. We hardly have any photos of me and M from recently and I thought this one turned out really well.

19-month letter

Dear Mateo,
Unless something dramatic happens in the next 15 minutes, it appears that we will have been wrong about you having a sister before your next letter was written! You do already have a sister, of course, but she is still happily ensconced in Mommy's tummy. You still seem interested in her, but the fascination is not quite what it once was. Perhaps we started talking about the new baby too early? In any case, she will most certainly be out by the time you are 20 months old (Mommy notes that she'd better be out by then!) and we will all be learning how to be a family of four.


For now, you are a great little 19-month-old to be around. You are just so much fun these days. Here's a snapshot of what you've been up to.

Talking:
You still love to talk and you're learning more every day. You now say short sentences regularly. You've begun to direct us rather, well, how should we say this?, forthrightly. "Mama sliding this slide!", for example. You have fallen in love with the -ing ending. You say it like a little southern gentleman, a la Mommy walkin', Mama runnin', Mateo eatin'. Having not quite learned to conjugate all verbs or to use tenses yet, you give everything the -ing treatment.

Your sentences remind me of the one year I took beginning German in high school and learned that, in German (I think I remember this right), you can put words in any order you want in a sentence. You just have to have them all in there. This is how you make sentences right now. It the best is.

You are infatuated with wishing your Auntie Edlyn and your Uncle Galen happy birthday over and over, day in and day out. Apparently, their birthdays made quite an impression!

Phones:
You and pretend phone conversations are best friends. You will play with Mommy forever, directing her to tell you who's calling and what they say. In particular, you like to call Papa, Bubby, Grammy and Grandpa. Sometimes you even call yourself and we have pretend conversations together. Almost anything can be a phone, from the baby monitor to the ipod. You love phones! You love hanging them up even more!



Movement:
You run everywhere. Around the house, down the street, around the park, etc. When we go out with other kids your age, it becomes clear that you are actually more cautious than many of them - ie, playing on the swings for 15 minutes instead of running the pants off your mom - but you nonetheless love to get places. Here you are with Uncle Galen at the park.


Cuddles and kisses:
We love your cuddles and hope we never stop getting them. You've learned about getting kisses when you get a booboo and this seems to make all the difference. You'll bonk your head and come to us saying "head kiss!". Or "finger kiss!" Then, after we kiss it, you'll say, in this sweet little voice, "All better?" and then resume playing. You sometime cuddle your stuffed animals or have us cuddle them. If you're really upset, you'll sometimes say "need cuddles right now!"


Books:
You love them. What can we say? You are a book boy. Some of your favorite books right now are "Planting a Rainbow" and "Los Sonidos de la Calle." We read one of those to you almost every day, sometimes over five times in a day!


Flowers:
You will try to sniff them when we're out walking. Could anything be cuter? You have a book called Planting a Rainbow and now can identify cornflowers, daisies, marigolds, morning glories, and some other ones, in the book. Wow! Actually, speaking of that, you can also identify some letters (Q, W, Y, Z, J) and can count most of the numbers up to ten in English and Spanish with some prompting. Here you are with something like a cornflower on a recent expedition...

Water:
Your latest obsession is sitting on the counter and playing with the kitchen stuff up there. Earlier this week, when Mommy had to go back to work and I was still getting over being sick, I filled up the sink with warm water and plopped you in. This was the best idea I have ever had. You played in there for about an hour and you were the very picture of happiness. Here are some photos.



That's about all we can think of for now. Oh, one more thing - you learned how to say your name! You started with Teo, which we regularly call you now, and then added the Ma. Now you like to narrate what you're doing all the time. We love it. And we love you. You just light up our lives. We are the luckiest moms alive. Seriously. We hit the jackpot when we had you.

With all our love and lots of cuddles,
Mama and Mommy

Thursday

Still here, still pregnant! I'm all better and feeling good. Sacha's as pregnant as ever and doing great. No signs of labor as yet. Due date is Sunday. Next doctor's appointment is Monday. We'll keep you posted!

On the mend

I would just like to say that I love antibiotics. My fever started falling within several hours of my first dose and it broke completely last night. Which is a good thing, considering Mateo was up four times last night and I was up for three of them. When he woke up again at 5 am, Sacha got up like a saint and somehow got them both back to sleep in the big comfy chair in his room. Only, it's not so comfy if you're 39 weeks pregnant. She rocks and I really appreciated the extra sleep.

So, I am feeling much better. Astonishingly better, when you consider that I spent yesterday like a zombie and 24 hours ago was not a happy camper. Sore throat is much better, fever is gone, and I can actually eat again. Things are looking up!

I even felt better enough this afternoon for us to keep our date that we had planned (some friends had offered to babysit M this afternoon so we could go see the Sex and the City movie, one of our not-so-secret vices), since going to sit in a movie theater was actually much less activity than either one of us would have gotten away with at home! It was the second movie we've seen in the theater since M was born and the first since Sacha got pregnant.

Now, if my glands would just return to their normal size, I'll be as good as new.

Thanks for all the good thoughts sent our way :)

PS: Sacha called in sick today to lend a hand at home, which likely set off a flurry of labor assumptions at her school. I'm sure she'll have an interesting entrance tomorrow when she walks in with the baby still in her belly!

Pity party

We went to a lovely baby shower yesterday afternoon, capping off our very productive day. We spent most of the party outside, and, as I wasn't wearing any sunscreen, I wrote off feeling hot about an hour after we got home to too much time in the sun.

Then I felt cold. Then hot again. Then hot and cold at the same time. Eventually, I decided to take my temperature. 100 degrees. Crap! And a sore throat that suddenly became awful. By this morning, after a very uncomfortable night, it was up to almost 101. Thanks to my lovely wife's efforts, I've spent the day resting and alternately shivering under the covers and then throwing them off when I started to boil again.

Sacha's parents, both health practitioners, suggested we check out my throat for strep, but our flashlight seems to have disappeared. Eventually, Apa brought one over around 3:00 pm and lo and behold, my throat is filled with white stuff. I'm glad I didn't have to see it. Hopefully some antibiotics will bring this under control and I'll start feeling better soon. And hopefully S and M won't get it. Since last night, we've been crossing our fingers and praying that Sacha doesn't go into labor before I start feeling better! Otherwise, we're going to have one interesting birth story to tell...