"its official, we have diapers"

This is the thought that came to my mind as we hauled in all the marvelous shower gifts after yesterday's party. Specifically, the large 216 ct swaddlers box that I was carrying at the time. The shower was wonderful. It was great to be 'gifted', but more than that it was great to see all these cool people I know get a chance to meet each other. Folks we knew from PA were able to meet people we work with from OMF. New friends we met last year got to meet people we've know for years. I just loved bringing them all together. Ok, I didn't really do much more than laugh and eat cake, so I guess I was happy to be the reason people came together. I left with many promises for dinner or movies later. I hope we can follow up on some of that before the baby's here. There were so many more of you I would have gladly had there except for the barriers of space and time. Must get thank you notes out into the mail soon.

With that being said, we now have I think most of what we need. There were a few items that we will want to pick up, but we can do that in the next few weeks. Thank you for all the advice on the last post. We will take notes and run to the store soon.

I have officially "swelled" again. tobo has been doing flip-flops for a day or two and now I'm really putting the stretch in my maternity wear under a lot of stress tests. Just when you think you can't get any bigger... So, I'm glad to be done working, just in case I have to wear a moo-moo for the last 8 weeks. Here is the evidence:
"there she blows. a hump like a snow hill, it is moby dick"



Paul thought this was funny.



And a more normal shot of paul:


The problem with having such a wonderful party is I was pretty much beat until this afternoon. I slept for 5 hours _straight_ before waking up last night. No kidding. That's huge based on my usual sleeping habits these days. I'll probably post a little bit more about this later, but I think I'm done for the night.

baby-swag

For better or worse, paul and I went and registered at babies-R-us and target this weekend. Man, babies-R-us....I feel like I have been hit by a nursery. So much _stuff_. In some ways I'm not totally sure what I scanned. I'm pretty sure I read a review of it online though. I feel like I just got a crash course in baby-swag over the weekend. Our lists have gone beyond just a list of potential baby shower gifts. I am now using that registry list to plan our attack on things like car seats, strollers and "travel systems." Also, they are not play yards people they are play pens. I don't know when it became un-PC to put your kid in a pen, but they are the exact same object. I have not solved the mystery of the "crib saver" yet. But soon. Oh yes.

I also put in the orders for the crib and a bassinet. (thanks to both sets of grandparents-to-be) With all the recent excitement over at uwee's blog, I couldn't stand not having some place for tobo to sleep any longer. Paul just kind of says ok and gets out of the way. I must be acting like a she-bear. I've been getting a lot more aggressive about things I guess. I'm now digging deeper into newborn slings.

All of this action has been put into place because there is a baby shower in the offing the first week of Feb. We have a brigade of wonderful ladies who are going to help and I think it should be fun to get everyone together. If you think you will be in town the 9th, let me know, I'd love to invite you. :)

In other news, one of Paul's co-workers had her baby too this weekend, on Sat. Contrary to this latest trend, I'm still pregnant. Tobo has been kicking up a storm the last week or so. I think I caught him keeping the beat to the radio as I was driving home this evening. :) We're still way behind in digging out his room, but I hope the arrival of the crib will sort of jump start that. I'm the biggest culprit. I have no where to set up my home office at the moment than "in" the baby's room. Some how I think paperwork and changing tables probably don't work well together.

I think I've reached a decision about the cloth diapers. I think I'm going to go disposable for the first month, figure out what I actually need, then switch to cloth. I keep hearing that you just have to try them out and find out what works best and I can't really do that until I've got a little bum to wrap. Also, most of the cloth diaper options have satisfaction guarantees, so if they don't work I can return or exchange for something else. This is good because I think 24 diapers will be around $200 appx. This is how much my crib costed. So I'm not letting down the side, but I am going to add to the landfill for a month or so until I'm sure of what I'm buying.

Non baby news: We got out this weekend. For the first time in 2008 we were not sick with the plague. We went north to visit friends in Ft Collins and had love italian food. It was sooo good! We hung out and played board games for the afternoon, then had to say good bye and head for home. It was good to see F&J. It felt kind of weird at the end though because basically the next free moment for any of us is going to be sometime in July or August. Good grief. We also got back to church, which we sorely needed after this week of ups and downs. I was definitely not at my best, acting out more from a spirit of fear than of faith. Thank goodness for grace and second chances.

The truck's battery (um, the new battery we bought last week) is now officially drained so I think we have a winner, the alternator. Paul got it home and it's just sort of parked out there waiting for a tow. Once the weather gets better, we can get it over to GMC. Until then we're sharing a car, so it's like the old days back in PA. Honestly, we can just get by for another month and we won't really need to have 2 cars. It will still be kind of awkward, but I can always run paul into work or he can just take the car. This is why we moved 10 minutes from the office, for pete's sake.

Anyway, I'm sure there is much more I'm forgetting to write, but in hopes for a early night, I'm off to bed. Congratulations once again to the uwee clan and their newest member!