36+ Weeks and . . . . CHAOS!!

Soooo there are at least 2 kinds of responses to the "nesting" impulse that pregnant couples are told commonly occurs in the final weeks leading up to baby birthing day . . . SOME people do things like wash baby clothes and sheets, organize said washed baby clothes in adorable piles totally negating functionality, eat massive amounts of leftover chocolate raspberry cake, shop online, and eat more cake . . .

OTHER people rip apart the guest room and sunporch  in order to refinish hundred year old weight-hung windows and scrape, spackle, prime, and repaint 2 rooms 3 WEEKS BEFORE THE DUE DATE OF THEIR FIRSTBORN.

Can you guess who is who in this scenario?  (Hint* Jesse eats cake too, but not THAT much cake . . .)

Hence, we have stacks of old windows out in the garage, guest room furniture all over the house, and the baby room looks like a blackhole.

There is light at the end of the tunnel however.  Jesse is officially on vacation (yay!!!) AND tenured (double yay!!) for next year (which gives us piece of mind in a job market where teachers at the school next door are emptying their desks AND their homes into the same Uhaul because no job = no mortgage) so he is free as a bird to get those projects moving along.  I've got 3 more days of Clinic II spread out over next week, so my official last day is Friday July 2nd.  I've been sending Rainy mental messages that I need at least 1 week after that and then she can make her grand entrance!  We'll see . . . if she decides to stay in there PAST the due date, we could count this as her first act of defiance towards her Momma.

On another note, our backyard is lush and growing.  We also got a new addition to our blueberry bush family 2 weeks ago - a friend of ours from the farm sent us over a bush as a thank-you for hosting the POD again this year.  So now we have 3 - it is officially a blueberry grove now!  No ripe berries on the new bush yet, but this past week we've been sampling dark blue beauties from our first 2 from Renee and Ellie - our Blueberry Girl will have plenty to harvest in the coming years!

We also enjoyed a visit from Johnny and Ileana - busrides too and from Brooklyn are not pleasant but we were grateful they could make the trip!  Our weekend was a mixture of house work and relaxing and lots of good food - bread and cake and CSA greens were in abundance :)

That's all for now - I'll do a 37 week update in the next few days since my week will be a little lighter than it has been of late . . . .  Love to you all!

Raining Babies!

Baby Shower - get it??  *Snort snort* 

We seem to go through deluges and dry spells when it comes to this blog - it has been pointed out to me by several readers (and Jess) that it's been a while since our last post :)  I blame this fact on the start of Clinic II combined with dwindling energy reserves and the mixed blessing of a plethora of possible posts to pick from!  Alliteration - whoo hoo!!  Clinic II has been going very well - my CI (clinical instructor) Dan is very nice and patient.  Believe it or not, Dan would be Uncle John Stover's doppleganger - if Uncle John were a physical therapist circa the time when Luke and Ellie were under the age of 6 :)  Needless to say, we seem to get along well and I feel I'm learning a lot from my experience at his private practice. 

But the BIG news of this post is how AMAZING a time I (and I think pretty much everyone) had at the sweet, sweet baby shower co-thrown by Mamas and Sisters (and, really, Dan as well) a couple weekends ago.  Soon-to-be-Aunty Lauren graciously opened her lovely home and two-level deck (thank goodness for perfect weather and that two-level deck!) to the event and soon-to-be-Grandmas Lois and Margaret and soon-to-be-Aunties Liz and Nally all Super-Hero-Style hosted for the day.  Special shout-out to Margaret's sister Mary and stellar cousins Rachel and Mariah for their help that day as well. 

I was treated like a Goddess of Fertility - overflowingly bestowed with the well-wishes of friends and family, generous gifts, an amazing quantity and quality of good eats (several trips to the chocolate fountain!!!), arts and crafts, and love love love all around directed my and baby's way.  You'll notice in the pictures that folks decorated many different sizes of "onesies" for us - get this crew together and you are bound to come out with some fantastically creative pieces!  (A few days later, I was able to finally go through each of them and take a good look at the artistry of our friends and family!)  There was also a beautiful scrapbook compiled containing old and new pictures of both Jess and I with each page's "authors" - we look forward to going through it with baby so she can recognize friendly faces even if they live far away! 

The boys (Jess, Dan, Pops Goodglass, Scott, dear Tom, and Damian) vacated the premises for the bulk of the shower, opting to hit golf balls over at West Point - they did return however to help with the still-copious amounts of food and in time for Jess to get to see/open some of the adorable gifts.  Enjoy the photos we've got here - most are from Aunt Renee - fabulous!!