Labor project finished. . .

As you may have remembered from the very, very long list of things that Alayna posted earlier, one of our "small" projects was to install screen doors. We found a fabulous storm door that converted to a screen door for our front room that is going to be installed. (I think we talked about that lovely trip earlier). And we ended up buying a screen door to install ourselves for the back door as a "labor project."

Last week, our good friends Michael and Diana came over and helped us cut one part of the screen door. We needed either a miter box (something that makes an exact 90 degree angle cut) or a power miter saw. We didn't have either, and neither did they, but Michael is a wizard with saws and actually cut a straighter line than was cut in the original screen. Go Michael!



We still had the rest of the door to cut and install and decided to wait till this weekend to work on it. Today Alayna and I worked most of the morning on installing the rest of the door, and were fairly close to hanging it by 11am. We only had one melt down! Yes, this is an improvement, and is to be expected in home improvement jobs. (I thought that maybe with the Ik*a dresser we had a break through, but this was an exceptionally difficult project for us. . . one that never would have happened a few years ago!) With much reluctance, Alayna, Mateo and I went outside for a needed break and relaxation in the sun.

Then, fifteen minutes later, we got back to work!



Then, our friends Caroline and Sheila (who are going to watch Mateo so we can have a date on Monday - thank you, thank you, thank you) came over to have some Mateo time prior to Monday. With their wonderful assistance, we finished our labor project. Yah.


I, of course, had lots of fun with the power drill, even though neither Alayna nor Caroline would let me stand on a chair to do any of the up high drilling, and I couldn't really lean down to do the drilling at the bottom edge.




Now we have a lovely screen door for our back porch, and can open the doors without letting in insects and especially mosquitos all summer long, or worrying about lead paint in the window sills.

As for this being a "labor project," I guess it needs to be renamed as a pre-labor project! No news yet, but I'm feeling good and when the time comes, the time comes!

Surprise baby shower!

At school, my forty students had a surprise baby shower for me on Wednesday! I didn't suspect a thing until the beginning of the day Wednesday, when I saw kids running through the book room. This is the one room that is completely off limits to students, and of course the principal happened to be walking by as a student was sprinting behind me through the room. . . so I went to shoo the student away, and saw some party things.



Now, that combined with Alayna suddenly deciding that I hadn't taken any pictures of my students from the first day of school, and that my partner teacher was estatic when I had to take half of the students to a celebration (our class brought the most canned food for the food drive), the fact that over half the class was at school 30 minutes early and that only four kids went out to recess all had me a bit suspicious.



But, until Wednesday, I didn't suspect a thing. And even then, I was totally surprised by how much time, thought and energy they put into the shower. I can't post too many pictures, because most of them have students in them, but here are a few.

I would like to point out that I was the first to play the pin the binky on the baby game (created by one of the students on the games committee), and actually got the binky in her mouth! Yah.

38 week appointment

We just got back from Sacha's 38-week appointment. For those of you following along at home, here are her most recent stats:

Cervix is very soft, "like an earlobe," according to the nurse practitioner. There's an image for ya.

No dilation, no effacement, but the kiddo has dropped! That would explain all the pressure S has been feeling.

She is doing great and is just such a rockstar at pregnancy. She's still playing on the floor with Mateo and holding him on her lap (such as it is) and just generally doing a great job.

Her partner teacher and their classes threw her a baby shower today at work and she brought home two boxes of gifts and some delicious sugary cake. Yummm. She took a bunch of photos (I was in on the surprise and snuck our camera into her purse this morning) but we can't post them because of school privacy stuff.

Instead of photos, I offer up this image: Sacha tells me that she won the pin-the-binky-on-the-baby game. She said she quietly went and scoped out the dimensions of the cardboard baby before the game started, so that she would know exactly where to put the paper binky! Competitive much? She did us proud, binky-pinning champ that she is :)

That's where we are right now. Stay tuned!

38 weeks!

Now, by all different accounts, I am officially full-term. Some places count you as full term at 37 weeks, other places 37 weeks and 6 days, other places 38 weeks. Anyway, no matter how you count it, I am full term.

The stats would say that I have a 90% chance of going into labor in the next 3 weeks. It sounds like with the new dating, I have less than a two percent chance of actually having to wait a full four weeks, or a 98% chance of us having the baby within four weeks. If I hit that point, I think that induction is the name of the game. (Hopefully that won't happen. . . for all sorts of reasons.)

I was looking back on when Alayna was 37 or 38 weeks, and that weekend we finished cooking 30 freezer meals. Wow. We aren't doing that these days, but we also didn't have our love Mateo running us around the house, getting us up at 5:45am!

What we did today, though, was get screen doors. Mateo had quite the time while we were shopping (Alayna described him as crazed. We were the parents of the child you didn't want to be near, child wailing on the floor, running up and down the aisles, with the assistant who had only worked for three months and had to place the order two times, call over the manager to learn how to work the computer etc. You get the idea. Add the that that as Alayna was chasing Mateo the sales rep didn't realize we were related and he started going off about how some people just don't have control of their children bla bla bla. He clearly had never had children and Mateo was actually not that bad. If it hadn't taken him over thirty minutes to place the silly order, things never would have gotten that bad!)

We are having a storm door put in the front of the house. It will be air tight, so as to not have the nasty draft we currently have during the winter. And the glass pops out and turns into a screen door during the summer. For the back of the house we bought a sliding screen door that we are going to attempt to install.

We had been looking for a labor project. I wasn't too into baking a cake, so how about installing a screen door? Good labor project? Ha. Ha. We will see. Hopefully we finish it before I go into labor.

Here is another picture from 38 weeks.

Mateo's daily routine prior to his baby sister's birth

We thought it might be interesting to write down Mateo's daily routine before the birth of his sister . . . who will undoubtedly shake things up a bit! This is also for Grammy, who will be staying with him while we are at the hospital. Good luck!

5:15- 5:30am: Mateo tries to wake up for the day. One of us goes in and reminds him that it is still night night time. We normally spend thirty seconds in his room and don't pick him up. We all attempt to go back to sleep, and he normally goes back down within five minutes or so.

5:45am or later: Mateo wakes up for real, waking us up with him. He usually has some Mama's milk, goes potty and reads a few books on the potty. Then Mama goes back to bed and he has Mommy time until 6:45am.

6:45am: We all get up and have breakfast. His favorite breakfast these days is cheerios, yogurt, milk and some kind of fruit. He then goes potty again, after eating, and reads a few more books. He loves books!

7:30am: Mommy leaves for work. Mateo and Mama wave bye bye and start their day. Usually Mama has breakfast now and has her customary bagel and hot cocoa and Mateo sneaks some of the bagel. LOL.

8:00am: Mama and Mateo spend time cleaning the house. He "helps" put things away.

9:00am: Some sort of morning activity is usually underway by this point. Some days it's a play date, other days a trip to the park, and other days, out running errands. Some days we get out of the house at 7:30 to babysit or go to Mommy's school.

10:30am: Snack time! He loves fruit bars, crackers and cheese or anything else that strikes his fancy. We usually try to go for something with protein and fat, a fruit or vegetable, and finger food. He then sits on the potty.

11 - 12am: Sometime around here he goes down for a nap. He nurses off to sleep and then Mama gets a little time off. It has been very little recently, because after 20-30 minutes in his crib he wants to sleep on Mama's lap, while she reads a book!

1-2pm: Kiddo is up and sits on the potty. Need we mention that he reads more books? Mommy is usually home by this time and we have lunch together. Lunch is whatever we have in the house, from enchiladas to tamales to sandwiches to nachos to soup.

2-4pm: Mommy takes a third trimester nap. (In previous trimesters she took first trimester and second trimester naps. She needs her naps.) Now that she is on the verge of giving birth and no longer tutoring in the afternoons she has more time to play with Mateo and rest. Mama and Mateo take another outing of some sort: park, zoo, walk, play date, garden etc. They have a snack while out or after getting back.

5pm: Mommy and Mateo play and if he is having a tough day, we might watch some Baby Signing Time. We make dinner.

6pm: Dinner time.

6:45pm: Time to get ready for bed. Sit on the potty, get on jammies, have vitamins, brush teeth, have fluoride, read a book (in this order). Have some Mama's milk and go to sleep.

First wake up of the night: Mateo has some Mama's milk and goes back to sleep. If Mama is not around, he has some bottled milk and then gets put back to sleep after some cuddles.

Second, third and other wake-ups: Someone goes in and reminds Mateo that it is still night night time. We don't pick him up, but do pet him and talk soothingly to him for a few minutes. He usually goes back to sleep in less than 10 minutes. (It can be ten loud minutes.) If he seems overly upset, we go in and cuddle him until he is asleep and put him back down or see if he is in teething pain and needs Motrin.

Ah, the joys of a routine that will soon be gone!

Hair cuts and other pictures

Today, we all went to get our hair cut. Alayna participated in the hair cut by getting Mateo's hair all over her while holding him! Thank you. I thought I wanted to have my hair a bit shorter before the birth, but not so short that I couldn't pull it back. We were also thinking that it could be a long time till Mateo gets his next trim. . . so we decided to do it today. They trimmed him a little bit shorter than usual, so it will last longer.

Mateo's new trim.

Sacha and Mateo hanging out in the rocking chair before bedtime.

Also, we have a lot of new baby things that people have lent us. Mateo has become fascinated with the baby bouncy chair, in particular. Notice how it practically rests on the ground. I don't think it is meant to hold a 22 lb child!

By the way

We're going to need a new name for this blog. Three girls and one boy isn't really going to do it. Anyone have any suggestions? Titles normally just come to me but I'm drawing a blank on this one...