Guess what?! We got some good news today! They won’t be starting the construction on our apartment line until Sept 08!!!!!! WHOO HOO!!! They are, though, still going ahead with construction on the apartment line next door to us, so it’s not like we’ll have peace and quiet until September (who are we kidding? We’ll have a BABY!) but it is the absolute best news in a bad situation! Sure, it will be VERY loud in the apartment, but hopefully not totally unbearably so. We have seriously been considering a hotel. I’m hoping the absolute worst of it will only be about a week or two and our bedroom is the farthest point from the drilling, so maybe, just maybe, we can stay at home! I’m not sure I can tell you what a tremendous relief this is.

Tonight is supposed to be our last childbirth class, but the weather is pretty crappy. I hope it doesn’t get postponed because I’d really like to be done with it. Also, tomorrow we’re going for a prenatal pediatrician appointment. When I called to make the appointment they asked me the baby’s last name. Can I tell you? I totally hesitated! It’s not that I don’t know what the baby’s last name will be but more like OH MY GOD THIS KID IS REAL WITH A LAST NAME AND EVERYTHING!! So exciting! And scary! And wonderful! All you parents out there: what’s the one thing you wish you had asked your pediatrician that you never did? Just curious!

Thank you for all of your good wishes! I can’t tell you how much we all (the three of us!) appreciate them!

I can’t believe it’s already fucking FEBRUARY! Thank god I have an extra day in this short month because, um, my baby will be born in MARCH. How is this possible?

I’m feeling pretty miserable these days – not that things have changed much – but I’m beginning to totally understand when women tell you that pregnancy is so uncomfortable at the end for a reason. So that you will BEG for the baby to come out! Right now fear and uncertainty still outweigh the discomfort but every day the scales tip a bit more. And I’m not even that big. Seriously – everyone tells me how small I am for how far along I am (which bothers me a little bit to be honest. Not sure why, but it does. I’ve suffered from belly envy the whole pregnancy) which I guess is a good thing – the bigger I am the more uncomfortable, right? At least I’ve slept well the last few nights. Sometimes I don’t even get up to pee! YAY KEGELS!

Things are behind in the house, for a change, and now, as I’ve mentioned, they started drilling closer to my apartment. Right now they’re on the 08 line and I’m on the 12 line – so two doors down. That’s not so bad – I can kind of forget about it and they’re not jackhammering all day long continuously, but Georgie left the apartment the other day and exited on the OTHER side of the building where they’re doing work as well. He called me soon after and asked me to go look out the window to see what floor they were drilling on. I have a direct view and could see that they were drilling the balcony directly above my floor (they’re repairing the outer walls and giving us new balconies – so they have to drill off the old ones.) It was the overhang on my apartment balcony (not MY apartment – but the same floor.) He kind of went crazy when I told him that because he said the noise, FROM THE HALLWAY (not even IN the apartment) was so horrific he thought his head was going to explode. He starts talking about hotels and where are we going to live and all I can think about is bringing home this baby to such horrible noise and trying to get used to breastfeeding and baby care and recuperating and I burst into tears. I can’t think about these things! I don’t want to live in a hotel! I want to be in my own home, where I’m most comfortable!

Of course, I called the management office for some kind of timetable (which I’ve been doing for months) and of course, they haven’t called me back. We’ve lived in this building for 16 years and like all buildings, it’s got it’s issues. My apartment is still very nice and all that, I just hate to leave and god forbid anything goes wrong. We will be moving, eventually, but we can’t find a house in the next six weeks and honestly I don’t even want to and I’m trying VERY hard to not stress about all this. ETA: The Board in my building is utterly useless. Every election is another chance at backbiting and blame and it all gets quite nasty. There are over 500 apartments in my building – it’s like a little city – so you can imagine the bureaucracy and power struggles. I can’t wait to move!

So, of course, I turn to my knitting. Oh how I miss Oblique. There’s nothing better than being in the middle of a project – especially a project that’s going well. Every night or every time you sit down to knit you just plop down on your corner of the sofa and pick up where you left off. You don’t have to think about what your going to knit today. Don’t have to think about anything really – just dive right back in. I love that. I miss that. Last night I turned the heel and knit the gusset on my second Monkey sock but somehow socks don’t count. I mean, they count, but they’re too fast. I want something I can sink my teeth into. BUT it can’t be too complicated. My brain can’t handle that. I have a few ideas that I hope work out in the next week or so, but in the meantime I’m feeling a little lost.

I still haven’t blocked Oblique. I have to do that today. So hopefully on Monday I’ll have Oblique FO photos AND a new pair of socks to show off. Wouldn’t that be fantastic?

Today, though, I must get back to cleaning. No more rest for the nest. Have a great weekend everyone!

PS – If you think I talk about my pregnancy too much on the blog, you should be glad you’re not Ann. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Nipple!

The past weekend and the beginning of the week were SO GOOD! I finished Oblique!!! And I really like it – a lot! It’s big, and will fit me perfectly for the rest of the pregnancy but I think it will look even better when I don’t have a huge belly – when it can really drape over me and be a big blanket sweater. I still need to block it (really just the button bands and collar) and it doesn’t have buttons yet, but I wore it Sunday to my nephew’s birthday party and everyone loved it. G, of course, thinks it’s the greatest thing I’ve ever knit, but he says that about all my finished knits. Hopefully if blocking and the weather cooperates I’ll have FO pictures for you this weekend.

Then I had a stash sale and (almost) everything sold! YAY! Thank you all so much. If you paid me, your fiber is in the mail. Also, if you said you wanted a lot (I’m specifically thinking of Lots 3 and 4), I’ve sent you a bunch of emails and you haven’t responded. Please do so ASAP. There are other people that are interested in the fiber and honestly, I want it out of my house. Now. Thank you!

And no, I didn’t get rid of all my fiber and I have no intention of getting rid of my wheel. I truly miss spinning. Really really. I just don’t have the energy or the time right now.

Speaking of which – the two projects I alluded to this past week are on hold for the time being. But I want to be knitting DESPERATELY. And I’d love to make another sweater for myself. Which is just completely impractical. But then I get scared that the baby will come and I won’t be able to knit for myself anymore. Or at least anything BIG.

What else? Oh yeah. We had an OB appt on Monday and everything looks fantastic. Baby’s head down and they don’t think they’ll be any flipping going on. In fact, I had to tell the doc where he’d find the heartbeat. I bought G a $20 fetoscope for Xmas and I can find the heartbeat pretty easily most times I check (which isn’t that often.) It’s fun and the baby’s heartbeat is ALWAYS lower left under my belly button. The doc was looking upper right and I was like DUDE this is where it is and he checked his spot and nothing, then he checked my spot and VOILA! He said – I should always listen to the moms. Damn straight! We also had our “chat” with the doctor (I had a list and everything and didn’t get nervous at all!) and Georgie and I are satisfied that they’ll be on board with what we want.

I set up an interview appointment with a pediatrician (am I the only one that got weirded out when they asked me the baby’s last name? You mean this thing inside me is REAL?!) and I called the local police department to find out about car seat installation (did you know that MOST car seats are installed incorrectly? Scary stuff!). Oh and I bought the baby’s coming home outfit. All red. Just like I wanted. (Don’t worry – it’s being sent to my sister’s house – there will NOT be baby stuff in my house until there’s a baby.)

So I was feeling good! Great! Then yesterday I felt sick all day and we had our childbirth class last night and got to watch “the film” and then take the hospital tour. The film rattled me a bit and the tour was a little disappointing and suddenly I’m all freaked out about giving birth again. Just when I was feeling positive about the whole thing. I think it has more to do with the fact that I’m getting increasingly uncomfortable. My ribs hurt. I need new bras AGAIN. (Although I’m worried it’s a bit early for nursing bras.) The indigestion is out of control. I’m tired – I do something physical for fifteen minutes and I have to rest for half an hour. I wake up every morning and my hands are so stiff it hurts to bend my fingers. I’m hungry, but I don’t want to eat anything. Even dry toast comes back to haunt me.

My house is STILL a disaster. Time is ticking on.

I’m really okay – just overwhelmed a bit. Which I’ve decided I’m totally allowed to be. There are 53 days until my due date.

Although probably PANIC is the better term.

Right there is an artful shot of 8 trash bags filled with clothes (all mine thank you very much) and 1 bag with 19 pairs of shoes. The really sad part is that I don’t really buy a lot of clothes. I guess I just never get rid of any of them. Salvation Army – here we come!

The deal is this – in order to have a room for the baby, we have to move G’s stuff out of one room. That means I have to give up space in the walk-in closet. So this is just a first step and the house looks MUCH worse than it did when I started but I’m making great progress.

I’m also now 30 weeks pregnant.

That means I’ve got ten weeks to go. Could be more, could be less, but let’s just stick with ten weeks. TEN WEEKS PEOPLE! That’s nothing! And did you know that January’s PRACTICALLY OVER?! Wasn’t it JUST New Year’s Day?

So yeah. Panic. Not really nesting. Nesting sounds nice and quaint and all quilty and painty and decoratey and this has NOTHING to do with that. This is all about OH MY GOD THE BABY’S COMING AND WE’VE DONE NOTHING!!!!!!!

I’m okay. Really I am.

Thanks for all the advice on indigestion and sleeping and related pregnancy ills. The sleep issue seems to have been a one time thing. The next day I took a 3+ hour nap and then went to bed a few hours later and I’ve been sleeping pretty good. Besides the HOTNESS at night. Isn’t January supposed to be cold? Where’s the cold? I can’t remember the last time we turned on the heat. The indigestion is still pretty bad, but I’m coping and the nausea seems to be under control too. It’s all there – but liveable.

Here’s a weird pregnancy symptom for you – the skin under my arms – my armpit actually – has darkened. Much like my belly button and the linea negra and all that. It’s not stubble – it’s actual skin darkening. Anyone had that? I googled it and didn’t come up with much. A sign of diabetes (great – I thought I passed that test!) and, of course, that I’m having a boy. Have I mentioned that everyone in the entire universe thinks we’re having a boy? Not that we wouldn’t be thrilled with a boy – but still? No one feels girl? 😉

Okay. Back to the nest.

I haven’t knit since my last post. I’m back at work full time. I miss my knitting.

I’ve been thinking a lot about getting back into blogging every day – or at least almost every day – but I’m having trouble remembering what I used to blog about so much. I couldn’t have had knitting EVERY day, so what did I talk about?

Here’s what’s going on:

— I found a cute top to wear to a couple of parties I have this weekend. NOT maternity. I can’t wear a maternity top to save my life. I had an argument at the maternity clothes store the other day with the salesperson who told me the reason the tops don’t fit is because I need a new bra. Yeah. That’s gonna help. My chest is BIG. Bigger than the little tiny spaces they allot for boobage in the empire waist maternity tops. My bra is FINE thank you very much. Much more supportive than the one you’re trying to sell me. Anyway, so the top I found was in the Women’s department. Lots of room for boobs and bellies. Big girl clothes have saved my life this pregnancy. Soon, though, they’ll be riding up too much in the front, but for now they’re just right.

— I am in desperate need of a pedicure.

— I don’t think I mentioned this – but I got new glasses. They’re red. I desperately hope I don’t look like Sally Jessy.

— My hair is the longest it’s been in years and I’m loving it. I’m rocking out a Farrah feathered hair thing (which hopefully offsets the SJR thing) and my hairdresser was totally right – the bigger I get the more hair I should have. So my head doesn’t look like a pin head. His words, not mine. Man’s a genius.

— This past weekend I took off my wedding ring. I have two wedding rings – one fancy – one plain platinum band. I don’t think I’ve taken the plain band off since the day I got married. I’m wearing it around my neck now. I like it, but I miss it on my finger. My hands haven’t swollen too much, but they go up and down all day and I’m scared one day I won’t be able to get it off. Better to take it off than have to have it cut off.

— I haven’t worn any of my monkey socks yet this cold season. I think that needs to be remedied and remedied ASAP. Maybe today. But which pair to choose?

Random blather on a cold Friday. I have to go back to work, but I hope you all have a good day and a great weekend!