After The Tenth..... When The Fun Really Begins

This pregnancy has felt real for a while now, but the concept that there would another set of feet in the house still felt way off and a bit of fantasy. Until this past weekend.

Last week we had the arrival of the stroller and the car seat but this was the last full weekend to prepare before the big arrival. I've been working feverishly on the outside of the house these past few weeks, knowing that the yard and outdoor items would be abandoned as free time will quickly diappear.

At the same time, we are reconfiguring the inside of the house a bit. "Macy's room" is now officially ready to be "The Girls' Room." Next to the crib we've added a toddler bed. While Macy won't be evicted from the crib for another few months, we wanted to try and ease the transition by giving her a chance to play on the bed and get used to it. As an added bonus, playing with Macy on the floor of her bedroom has become easier, now that I can sit and lie on the mattress. I think my knees are appreciating it the most.

Besides the nursery, my office/guest room needed some work, allowing the "guest" portion of the room to be active again.  I don't want to say there was pressure to get the room ready, but I am typing this post while watching the clock. I only have 30 minutes before I shoot off to the airport to pick up Grandma, who is flying in to take care of Macy while we are in the hospital. She's clearly doing us a favor, but something tells me that she's not going to complain about getting a week of up close and personal time with Macy.

I almost forgot. I've just updated the Progression video again and this time it goes all the way to week 34, which means there will only be one more update after tonight's version.

With the early arrival date, we are now officially inside of 5 weeks out. It doesn't seem possible, but what was 3 will become 4 in just over a month. We really need to settle on a name. The hunt has seemingly come down to two choices, but it wouldn't surprise me if a previously yet disccussed name jumped into the fray at the last moment.

Other than the name front, I think we are just about ready for her arrival. Tomorrow night we are taking a tour of the hospital. I know what you are thinking...weren't we just there? Well this time we are going to pay attention to the C-section portion of the tour. I think Annie and I talked through that whole part last time. The tour also has a surprise addition this time, which works out great for us. They now include the NICU, which is perfect since we might have a temporary resident. (Still crossing our fingers that we can bypass it....) I still can't believe that they include the NICU in the tour, so I'm anxious to see where they actually take us. I'm betting on some viewing window that overlooks the NICU and that we don't actually cross into the room, but I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

Now that I think of it, Annie hit week 30 and it is time to update the progression video. I just added the past 6 weeks. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm enjoying watching the comparison of Macy and her sister in the side by side shots.

Watch the Video.

Studies show that when you have two children close in age, things go better when you prepare the toddler for the new arrival. Not being the types of parents to ignore well established plans, unless we don't agree with them, Annie and I are working on ideas to make the transition easier for Macy.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it yet, but Macy's daycare class has a handful of infants so she's getting to spend lots of time around little little ones. At home we are continuing the preparations and we recently bought Macy a litle baby girl doll. The thought is that if she gets used to having her own little baby, she won't complain too much when mommy has one too.

I happened to catch Macy playing with the doll and thought it would be fun to record her actions. Even as I filmed the video I could tell it was going to be really cute and I knew it was going to be YouTube quality. What I didn't know was that it would have quite an unexpected ending. I'm not going to ruin it by telling you what happens, but make sure you have your volume turned up because its more of an audible moment than a video moment. After you've watched the movie, I'll tell you more about what happened. Ok, go ahead and watch the movie. I'll wait...

Welcome back...I can only assume that you heard a "bang" at the end of the clip, just before the camera shook violently. If you watch closely, you can see Macy start to raise her baby up over her head. What you can't see is that after raising the baby up, she then swung it down striking the hard plastic baby head against my cheekbone, which explains why I couldn't keep the camera steady. Since that moment we've adjusted our plan a little to introduce the concept of GENTLE treatment of the baby.

Please excuse me while I go and gently apply some ice to my face....