36 Weeks - Almost There!

I'm 36 weeks along and feeling extra large. I was doing great until a month ago, but I think I've put on 10 lbs in the last four weeks. You can really see it in my face. My hands and feet started swelling this week too, and that was one milestone I was hoping to avoid this time around.

We're naming the baby Benjamin, but we plan to call him Ben. Sam really seemed to get a different attitude when he could start calling him Ben instead of "the baby."

I'm sitting here on the couch and Ben is doing somersaults. I swear Sam didn't move this much. We're convinced he's coming early, though we really don't want him to come too early. It looks like he flipped the last time we went to the doctor, so the doctor doesn't think he's breach any more. We are scheduled to be induced on Monday, October 19th (Pops' birthday). The original due date was Saturday, Oct 24th.

We drove past the hospital after Sam's soccer class a few weeks ago.
Me: Look Sam, there's the hospital where you were born.
Sam: It is?
Me: And Ben is going to be born there too.
Sam: But, Ben is in your tummy.
Me: I know, but he's going to come out in a few weeks.
Sam: But, he will break you!
Me: (after laughing) I'll be okay, Sweetie.



We've been getting things ready for the baby for a while now and Sam has really been helping out. Here he is helping Chris build the cradle.



We decided to have a cradle and changing table in our bedroom since we're in a two story house with the nursery upstairs and our bedroom downstairs. I don't really have any interest in going up and down the stairs for every feeding all night long. I took this picture with a wide angle lens so it makes the cradle look larger than it is.



Sam also helped us build the swing. He loves playing with the swing. I keep walking by and finding new toys that he's put in the swing: cars, alligators, etc. He especially likes to turn on the music and sing along to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I've also caught him trying to climb in the swing which is not so great. I really like this swing because it has an AC adapter, and when it is plugged into the wall you don't have to reset it every seven minutes to keep it swinging and playing music.



After we got through putting the swing together and taking a few pictures, Sam crawled under one of the dining room chairs and started crying. It was the strangest thing. It was like it finally clicked that we are going to have a baby and everything won't be about him any more. He calmed down pretty quickly when we started telling him stories about when he was a baby and showing him pictures of him in his baby swing.



I had one last lunch out with the ladies for a baby shower last weekend. We had so much fun, the food was great, and I loved all of the cute baby gifts of course! We were sitting around the table doing the normal talk about babies and it hits me -- I'm really about to have another baby in a few weeks!



Later that evening Chris was taking pictures of my big belly when Sam wanted to get in on the action.



Of course Mimi had to join in too!



When we did Sam's nursery, we went all out and put up wainscoting and chair railing and painted the whole room. With this house being so new we really didn't want to start any remodeling projects. I compromised with a few color blocks to make things standout from all the beige.



I taped off the wall, but the paint tends to bleed a little since the walls are textured. I'm a perfectionist so I had to go back and touch it up.



Mimi kept Sam entertained while I painted. He pulled out all of the baby books and got Mimi to read them to him.



With Sam's nursery, my arts and crafts project was the Latin and Greek alphabet border. This time we wanted something much less permanent (we used Liquid Nails to attach that border to the wall). After thinking about it for way too long I decided to copy a series of canvas paintings from the Pottery Barn Kids catalog. I might have even ordered it from the catalog if I hadn't waited until it was out of stock to decide it was what I wanted.



Here's a picture of the finished nursery. The theme is ABC's and 123's.



We still have the same nursery furniture. We just changed out all of the bedding.



I spent many hours in that rocking chair for two years. Here we go again ...



Here's the changing table. The bathroom is to the left and the closet is to the right.



This is a close-up of the chick hatching series of paintings.



Here's a close-up of the toddler quilt which we are using as a wall hanging.