46 days and counting

46 days until the Bean arrives. Holy cow. We've been taking prenatal classes and at our last class this one guy came in right at the start of class and told us about how his wife had her baby! Apparently, her water broke right before our class the week before, but she didn't realize it. Then later that night she was in bad pain (her husband was on the road...he's a trucker) and had to call an ambulance. She was only 30 weeks pregnant and her baby was 3 lbs and a few ounces... 30 weeks, that's how far along Sara was when Taylor was born. Just crazy to think about. I am GLAD that it wasn't me. 6.5 weeks...I can wait that long! I think Bean is getting antsy, though. She has two favorite hobbies, hanging out in her womb, and tenderizing my internal organs. Mike and I joke that it's reverse child abuse. There are literally several times a day when I nearly double over in pain because she's kicking so hard. I can handle the outward kicking, but when she kicks IN, dang... it just hurts sometimes! BUT - I can live with it. I just love her a lot and can't wait to meet her (but really I can wait, I don't want a premie).

Also, it's true what they say, Captain Crunch really does cut up the roof of your mouth. Since I live off of cereal, I've eaten an entire box of Captain Crunch since Saturday night, and the roof of my mouth is showing the proof. I drank some orange juice today, and DANG did it burn! But, honestly, it's totally worth it. I love those crunch berries. I think I have a kid-cereal addiction, in general. Bird always comments that I have the best cereals at my house, regardless of what else I do or do not have in the house. There's always a hearty supply of cereal. I think that's because growing up when we got the sugary cereals they were always gone about 2.5 minutes after mom got home from the grocery store. I remember one time when one of my older brothers dumped out the entire box of Lucky Charms, picked out the marshmallows, and put the rest of the cereal back in the box. And he (I really don't remember which one it was) just sat there and ate a whole bowl of marshmallows. I was sooooo jealous. But now, I get all the marshmallows I want. Yum. I also love Honeycombs.

Honeycombs Big, yeah yeah yeah!
Honeycombs small, no no no!

I love cereal so much, that in one of my grad classes we had an assignment to read any book on any item of material culture, and I chose to read "Cerealizing America", which is pretty much the best book I've read on the history of cereal, ever. Seriously, though, it was good. My report (and samples) was good too.

Soooo, who's coming home for Christmas? I've kind of lost track, but I'm feeling very excited for the holidays. A) Bean will be outside the womb. B) I'll get to meet Sophie and Keaton (I think they'll both be coming). C) Mandy will be home from Texas (for Thanksgiving AND Christmas!).

So about my front steps. They're still not done yet. Wait, let me clarify. They still haven't STARTED yet. GRRRRRR. We got the call in August that they wanted to start our project Sept. 8. Obviously that didn't happen. There was some rain and whatnot that pushed things back. Then they came and spray painted the steps for the utilities people to make sure there were no electric, gas or water lines where they needed to dig. Then the utilities people came and cleared us. And that's where we are. No new steps yet. They better get their butts over here soon.

Ok, that's all I can think of right now. I'm on the laptop, so I can't put pics up right now. But I will add some more in the next week or so. Stay tuned.