36 Weeks

I. am. so. sleepy.

My head wants to get up and clean the house for this weekend, yet my body won't allow me to move for more than a few seconds at a time. 

Yesterday Dave took a day off to help me around the house.  We finished up the nursery (YAY!) and painted our bedroom.  We had been wanting to give our bedroom a little attention for a while, but somehow, it would always get pushed to the back burner.  Now, it's finally more like we have wanted it.  I really do not want to paint anything else for a very very very long time. 

Oh, but the nursery.  I really feel like a momma bird when I go in there.  It's the only room in our house that can literally change my mood.  I am planning on doing a separate post about the nursery, so I'll hold off saying too much about it.  

I had wanted to have the nursery finished by August, and I have been driven a little crazy that October had come around before we realized it and the nursery still needed this or that.  But now I smile when I walk in there and I am reminded how awesome Dave really is.

36 weeks brought me a present.  One day I had swollen feet, ankles, and hands; and since that day the swelling lets up a little but hasn't gone away.  Ugh.  Dr. B says that the swelling will linger until about ten days after G-day.  Oh boy!  Thankfully the swelling is not related to my blood pressure, instead just plain ol' fluid retention.  My hands feel tight and my feet feel sore and hot.  Just one more reason that I hope that G-day comes sooner than later.  However, I should point out that I am incredibly grateful that I am just getting this now and not any sooner. 

At my appointment yesterday I asked Dr. B if I'd need to take my rings off.  I was crossing my fat little fingers that he'd say "no."  But he didn't.  He told me that we'd need to get them off so we wouldn't have to cut them off later.  Let's just say that I had been planning on taking them off for a little while now, wanting to leave them on as long as possible, but then I woke up with swollen hands that, as I explained above, has not gone away.  Yesterday I tried all day long to get them off, without any luck and just more swelling as a result.  Then later in the evening, with the help of Dave and a glob of conditioner, it came off.  Even though it never seemed like it was coming, and I thought for a moment that my finger from the knuckle up was going to fly off, they came off.  Whew!

I could write on, but my eyes keep trying to close and we have a breastfeeding class later on tonight.  Hopefully I can stay awake for it. 

Newest Addition

So if there is anything that I am not...it is musically capable of anything.  Dave, on the other hand, would be the polar opposite.  Any instrument he touches seems to make beautiful noise in just a matter of seconds.  Most of the time I appreciate his infinite amount of talent, other times I am green with envy.

Dave has been wanting a piano for a little while, and we really had a space that would work for one.  When I first found out that he was serious about wanting one all I could hear was the noise of a toddler banging on the keys.  Then this past weekend while we were at my cousins' house in Huntsville, I heard Dave play along with the guitar while my cousins, Peyton and Isabella, played the piano.  Ahh.....I wouldn't call that noise at all.  So now the plan is to have Griffin classically trained on the piano before he's potty trained.  Maybe, although I'm not counting on it, I could learn to play Chopsticks or Mary Had a Little Lamb during Griffin's training sessions.

We found the piano on Craigslist and it was pretty much exactly what we were wanting.  Very simple lines and dark color, and has the smell of a nursing home.  ;)  It needs a bit of cleaning up, but it has years and years of potential here in the Jeffers' abode.  

TIMBER!

Pictures from the disappearing act of our much hated holly tree.

This is the tree before any cutting ensued. Remember, hollies are normally bushes--not trees.
During the cutting. I was feeling more and more liberated about our landscaping.
Almost there :)
Yay! No more holly tree. Our landscaping is a work in progress (so don't judge our lack of it). We plan on putting another tree, maybe a river birch or dark leaved plum, around where the holly was. You can't see it, but further to the right there are three lovely pink Crape Myrtles that now look a little lovelier. To the right of the door I want to do a flowering bush, maybe a hydrangea, and then spruce the flower bed up.

I no longer have nightmares of that tree taking over our home and family. I must thank my amazing husband and his beyond awesome parents. I swear, I have the best in-laws a girl could ever ask for.

Just a Few Things

I woke up this morning with a hankering to write. The further along we get in this adventure, the more I want and have to share. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I am a pretty open book. In my head I have a million ideas/thoughts spinning around at a time, and most of the time I find it difficult to tell stories or jokes or even just sit and think about a single thing for more than a millisecond. To go ahead and warn you, this post will reflect my ADD.

Pre-pregnancy dog/animal pictures would catch my eye and I could spend too much time searching for cute ones. Since the hormones took over my brain, I just melt when I see adorable baby pictures. I can’t help myself; I just sit looking at the pictures ohh-ing and aww-ing. This morning I was browsing through the blog, A Cup of Jo, and found this, which made my heart smile.
Pictures like this almost bring me to tears now. The images that they play in my head make me so anxious to get our little Bean Sprout here. I’ve said a million times that I don’t really enjoy the being pregnant process, but I know that I can’t even begin to imagine how much love, devotion, and adoration that our baby is going to bring out of me. I can’t wait to be sleepy with him. I can’t wait to be his nourishment. I can’t wait for him to make best friends with the dogs, Jack and Lucy. I can’t wait to see his little fingers and toes and little lips and tiny nose. Even though I didn’t know this 6 months ago, I can’t wait to be his mom.

I have been going back and forth asking myself if I should or shouldn’t post what I will tell you next. But like I have already mentioned, I’m an open book. The subject: Bean Sprout’s legal name debacle. The verdict: ehh....pretty much almost kinda close to maybe having a real name. Let me remind you that if Bean Sprout were going to be a little girl, she would have already been named. I asked Dave, since he’s being the indecisive one, why this was. He said that he knew deep down that we weren’t having a girl so we didn’t have to drive ourselves nuts over if it was perfect or not (although it was), I’m not sure if I believe him. So, we’ve been stuck on one name for months and haven’t decided against it or even thought of anything else. I really like the name and it fits all of my stipulations for naming my child. Most of the time I already think of him as this, even though I haven’t referred to him by this name. I need to get out there before I tell you this name, that we haven’t “named” him yet. (Although, most likely this is it.) I am just going to start referring to him by this, and if our hearts change before he gets here, then we’ll go with something else. Are you ready? Griffin. If you see me on a regular basis you already knew this, but now it’s in writing. There is a middle name that I have a good feeling about, but we’re just going to start with the first name. I’m not sure if I’ll stop calling him Bean Sprout on here, it’s kind of already stuck.

There’s an exciting thing possibly happening today! When we bought our house there was one thing in particular that I already despised. It wasn’t a deal breaker, but I really really didn’t like it at all. On the side of our house we have a holly tree. Hollies shouldn’t be trees; they should be bushes. Sometimes I dream that I am in a terrible horror movie where that awful tree is taking over our house and ruining our lives in the process. It is ugly. The more I look at it, the uglier it gets. In a year it has seemed to grow exponentially, just as my hate for it has. We have talked and talked about cutting it down, but just haven’t got around to doing it. Yesterday our neighbor had a tree cutting service at his house cutting some of his larger trees down, and then another neighbor got them to cut one of his down. Dave wanted to go ask what they would charge to make our holly disappear, and I was willing to pay whatever they quoted even if I needed to get a second job to afford it. He finally decided against asking them, worried that he’d be too tempted to pay what would definitely be much more than doing it ourselves. What is worth more than all the money that a second job could have provided is the determination that he got to call his Dad and ask if he would mind helping do it today!!! Oh happy day! I’ll post before and after pictures later.

I should stop here. That’s enough for today.

P.S. Happy 6 months Griffin “Bean Sprout” Jeffers! We’re almost there.