The End is Near

It's been an exciting week, to say the least. I went in for my 38th week OB appt on Tuesday to hear that I'm 5 cm dilated and will probably have the baby by the weekend. Oy!! This sent me into a frenzy of phone calls and last minute preparations (for Jamie to do) while I sat with my feet up and my legs crossed. We dug out the baby stuff (really, a minimal amount of stuff for the first few weeks), packed bags for me and Jordan (she's banned from the hospital :-( , gave Jamie what may be his last haircut of the year, and have been calling all of the health department clinics in search of H1N1 vaccines (ABQ just got them, but they keep running out of the shot and I can't have the spray). All of our friends here having been calling the house to see how they can help, which is really helpful. I can almost sleep at night knowing Jordan has places to stay and my parents will be here by Friday evening. Everyone seems to think the baby will be born on Halloween (Jo included) since that's my favorite holiday. We shall see....!!

A White Halloween?

I've never had a white Christmas, but we almost got a white Halloween this year. We woke up this morning to snow, quite a bit of it actually, although it's not sticking because it's really not that cold out. It snowed all morning and some more around lunch. Jordan kind of slept in this morning, and I knew when she woke up she'd be really excited to see it snowing. Sure enough, I hear "Good Morning Mama.....It's snowing!!! I put my boots on, it's snowing!!" It rained before it snowed, and I was hesitant to let her go out and play, but I figured a few minutes couldn't hurt. So once she ate all of her oatmeal and let me bundle her up, she got to play outside. She ran around making tracks, played soccer, played with Zoe (who also likes the snow), and romped around until I caught her making snow angels and forced her back inside because her backside was soaking wet. Something about that snow is really invigorating to little kids; she's been a wild monkey the rest of the day. Me, I just want to nap on the couch!

What the???

We all went to Costco yesterday for a quick beer and chips run prior to the UT game. Jamie was mad because he'd poured himself a big bowl of salsa before verifying we had any tortilla chips in the house. Anyway, we're checking out: I'm there, Jordan's sitting in the cart, we have beer and wine. AND HE GETS CARDED!!! I'm like, what the hell??? Did they think he was my teenage son?? Or I'm some cougar that got knocked up by a high school kid? Jamie has gray hair!!! I don't have a single gray hair! I haven't been carded in years. Baby-faced ba$tard...

My ABQ Girls

My ABQ Girlfriends treated me to a lovely baby shower and afternoon tea yesterday. It was awesome: girly, fun, and oh so yummy! We went to the St. James Tea Room in Old Town, where they served us a full lunch of savories, scones and biscuits, and dessert! Plus three teas. And the icing on the proverbial cake? Denise!! My buddy from Austin booked a (literally) last minute plane ticket and SURPRISE, there she was in the tea room :-) I cried, and then cried again when I found out she brought me a piece of Lemon Rosemary cake from Chez Zee in Austin. I'm so thankful that she came, and that Jill helped engineer the whole thing, and that Jamie provided me with a full day of freedom for time with my girls.

The shower was really cool. I've never been "to tea" before, and I just might turn into a tea convert. The first was a strawberry flavored tea, the second was butterscotch rum (OMG!), and the third a mint tea that I forgot to try. Probably because I was stuffed. The food was all finger food, and there were tons of different things to eat. I felt totally spoiled and am so grateful I've made such wonderful friends in our new hometown. Here they are, from left to right: Kay, Kate, Denise, and Jill.

Baby Clothes

I started a nesting project. I guess it's a nesting project... I made Jamie get down the tubs of baby clothes and blankets for me to sort through in preparation of the big event. It was an interesting process. I thought I would get all weepy at the sight of all of those cute clothes, and at remembering Jo being that little. But it was fun, and relaxing. I think this was because:

A) I have another baby on the way. I'm sure it'll be a different scene when I sort thru these clothes "for the last time".

B) It truly seemed like she wore these clothes a long, long time ago. I didn't get the "time flies" nostalgia/quesy feeling. I'm thankful for that, because time does fly, but I think I've tried really hard to enjoy the moment, and then capture as much as I can on film/blogs. So time is not completely lost.

C) Jordan was right in front of me being goofy and fun, enjoying sorting thru her old clothes and holding them up for me to see. So it's hard for me to wish back the days when she wasn't so animated.

D) I am so utterly convinced that this baby is a boy, that I was relieved to find all of the neutral, and even boyish, infant clothes we have.

E) Jordan had SO MANY clothes, everybody bought her a ton of clothes, so she never wore the same thing over and over. So individual outfits don't really stand out in my memories, because she hardly ever wore the same thing twice.

Of course, there's always one exception: the cherry newborn onesie. She wore this home from the hospital. It was the tiniest outfit we had and it still swallowed her (she was only 5 lb 6 oz by the time we left). And it was the very first thing I ever bought for her. So I'll never part with it. And it still makes me a tiny bit weepy :-)

The ABCs

Keeping Jordan awake in the car when she's really sleepy is a battle. I usually tell her "no sleeping!" and she screams back at me, then closes her eyes again. If she sleeps for 5 mins in the car, she won't take her nap. It's a lose-lose situation.

So today on the way home, after a fun morning of early Xmas shopping and lunch with a friend, we got stuck in the big I-40 construction mess. And Jo started to nod off. She hates my singing (I mean, who wouldn't?), so I started to sing to get her riled up, but it didn't work. So then I started to sing the ABCs all wrong. Oh my goodness, she had a FIT!! "NO NO NO MAMA! That's not right! Do it again!!" Eureka! I have a new way to annoy my kid :-)

What Jordan's been up to

I was going to blog about the pumpkin patch, but after working on the pictures for so long, I'm burned out on that subject. And besides, we're going back Thursday with her preschool, so there might be a blog entry yet. It's time for another download of random Jordan antics, so here's some of her latest quips/games that I don't want to forget.

- Jordan loves to "play Wii" with Jamie, which really means: watching him play, telling him which princess to be and what car to drive (they play A LOT of Mario Kart), watching him pick up the Mii's and move them around (they wiggle), and sabotaging (shoving) him on the Wii Fit balance board.

- Jamie gave Jordan a bath the other night, and wrapped her up in her towel, and I guess taught her a few tricks. She came in to see me, told me she was a vampire, and that she wanted to suck my blood. So even Daddy is caught up in the Halloween spirit this year :-)

- Jordan has a little plastic toy spider, like the kind you get on a ring. He's been laying around on the floor downstairs. I was running over the floor with the vacuum while Jo had a snack, and she comes running up to me, mouth stuffed with cracker, saying "don't vacuum my spider!!" So she does know the consequence of leaving her toys about. But he was fine.

- Jordan wants to "get big", "grow up", etc. Specifically, these are things she wants to be able to do as a "big kid": use the middle seat belt (it comes out of the car's ceiling, she's nuts for it), drink Daddy's beer, go to the Elementary school down the street.

- Sometimes Jo fights us about brushing her teeth. It happens when she doesn't want to be interrupted. So I tell her if she doesn't brush her teeth, they'll fall out; this usually ends the battle. The other day she wouldn't sit still for me to put on her socks. I was getting frustrated with her, until she asked "are my toes going to fall off?".

- Jo started a new game today in the car, where she tells me to sing a song and tells me what song she's going to sing. We're supposed to sing our songs at the same time. But once I start singing mine, she can't keep hers straight and winds up singing along with me. She keeps trying to go back to hers, but just can't manage.

- Jo likes to play doctor, pronounced "Dotcor". She goes thru all of the tools, tells us we're getting a flu shot, and then the exam usually ends with instructions to "push the baby out". Last night, Jamie had twins.

- Jordan's grown sensitive to emotions. At least with me. When I get after her, she asks if I'm mad. Or if I seem mad about something, she asks if I'm mad (You mad, Mama?). Then she asks, hopefully, "Mama, you happy? You happy now, Mama?" The other night she was really worn out and cranky and starting to have a fit, but didn't want to go to bed. She tried to convince us, while crying, that she was "a happy girl".

Balloons

Well, this year's Balloon Fiesta wasn't a total bust after all :-) We went to the Special Shapes launch on Friday morning and had an awesome time. It was chilly to be sure, and we had to get up at 4:30, but it was so worth it. It's so cute to hear Jordan say "fiesta", point out the different balloons, and get excited about the school bus ride to the park. I had told her the night before that we would have to get up really early and it would still be dark outside. When I went to wake her up that morning, she put a big smile on, told me what was on the agenda, and was ready to go!

The special shapes seemed a little lacking this year. There were definitely less balloons, and maybe it was just not as overwhelming as the first time you see them. But we saw our favorites (Arabelle the Dairy Cow) and some new ones (Pepe Le Pu, the space shuttle). What was really cool this year was the pole grab competition. Last year we kind of had to hustle to leave because people were coming to work on the house. But this year we stuck around, ran into some people Jamie works with, and watched the pole grab. The wind was just right and the balloons clustered right overhead and stayed nearby a long time.

Balloon Fiesta is the most photographed event in the world, and I believe it. I have as much fun taking pictures there as I do watching the show. As usual, Jordan evaded all attempts of mine to photograph her. I really wanted a pic of the two of us together, and I had to wrestle her to get it. Likewise for our family picture. Amazingly my pictures came out. I say that because today I grabbed the camera to take pics of the roses Jamie and Jordan cut for me, and realized I had it in manual. Yep, all of my Balloon Fiesta pics I took after I put the polarizer on were in manual; I must have hit the wheel. As they say, better lucky than good :-)

Cake Graduation

I successfully completed my cake class I've been taking the past five weeks. At least according to my Wilton "diploma". Although I feel like I flunked out on the roses; but that's ok, I'm not too interested in making roses. I made three cakes during the class, and managed to share out an entire cake, so that's good.

Week 2

Week 3 -got squished in the box on way home

Week 5

Jordan was excited about me taking this class, she's going to be disappointed there's no cake for us next week. But I plan on making one for my pregnant friend who's little girl is due. I asked her if I could bring her some food, and what would she like, and she said she wanted a cake :-) Smart girl!

My Fashionista

I took Jordan shopping for clothes again today.... I just can't resist those Children's Place coupons, and they are a really good deal. And it's REALLY fun to dress her up in cute clothes to wear to school. And she always gets SO many clothes as gifts, that I don't buy for her that often. Lately my friends with boys have been warning me that there's just not the same plethora of cute boy clothes out there as the highly marketed girls clothes, so I better enjoy it while it lasts (yes, still assuming this baby is a boy!). So there you go, those are all of my excuses for buying more clothes for Jo. Here is our fab purchase from today. Jo LOVES it, and wants to wear it around the house despite the warm weather. I call her my little teddy bear.

Fall Foilage Hike

We did what will likely be our last hike for some time yesterday in the lovely Sandias. We've been planning to hike the 10K Trail (named for the elevation, not the distance) so we can get some family pics amongst the yellow Aspens. Yesterday was due to be a series of mild disappointments (see Balloon Bust post), and the hike somewhat followed suit.

The weather was great, but the trail was hard for me. I need to start paying more attention to the elevation maps... From where we started, there was no elevation change. Clarify, no NET elevation change. But plenty of ups and downs in route, which normally wouldn't be any big deal except I've easily packed on 30 lbs already. At least I had my backpack to act as a counterweight to the belly.

The trail was really pretty, but it was mostly pine. What few aspens we saw only had leaves way up above the canopy; no good for taking pictures in front of. I had just about given up, and we stopped for a snack while Jamie ran ahead. It turned out we were only a few hundred yards from the end of the trail, and just beyond was a beautiful overlook with plenty of fall color. Of course, and I always seem to forget this, just because I find a pretty spot for pictures doesn't mean Jordan will cooperate. And today was no exception. So I'll just have to be content with the few shots I got, my own memories.

But most importantly, I give thanks that Jordan likes to go do these things, she's a really pleasant hiking buddy, and that we have such nice family outings so frequently.

Another Balloons BUST

Despite our high hopes for Balloon Fiesta this weekend, we are 0-for-2 on seeing a Balloon Glow. Last year was a bust year for us as well as our out of town guests that planned their trip to coincide with Fiesta. This year, we didn't have any company in town to disappoint, but we did plan an evening out with our friends here, who have never been to Fiesta.

It looked like we might luck out, despite the forecast for increasing winds. But true to ABQ form, the winds whipped up. Last night was also supposed to be the launch of the gas balloons race, which travel cross country to the east coast. I'm sure they were sore to waste all of that precious Helium. At least we did get to see those balloons inflated, though they're too exciting to look at.

The highlight of the evening though was watching the full moon crest over the Sandias. It was a really clear night, and we reflected on how lucky we've been with full moons this year.

In July, we watched the full moon rise in Grand Canyon. In August, it closely coincided with Jordan's Birthday. September's full moon we enjoyed from White Sands, and then saw October's full moon last night at Fiesta. November's full moon is due on the 2nd....maybe someone else will be due that day as well :-)