Leeky chard in the Dewy Grass: Unbroken Waters in the Mad-Boy-and-Baby Bonanza

As Pre-Term Turns Early Term in the 37th, the demons of diapering dug up chasms of mom-guilt-anxiety, while hugged-trees are huggied into death-throes. The case of the missing junk-in-trunk remains open with few leads beyond the bulging belly. The Cute Shard of Cantaloupe prepares her moat for an onslaught of visitors, while chaotic cousins began the battle. Carseats took the heat at fire stations far and wide. Falls of the Whatcom ways presented no peril for the foolhardy group of visitors. And a very distracted final trek up the Alps for final cycling glories faded in psych-out sessions of food truck deliveries. 

In the 38th week, Volcano-face Wright reels in the deadly spiker-sponge in momentary detente while massage maces are readied for the legendary Nephew Melee 2015. Perilous oceans of grassy uncertainty hit heights in the statistical window, while emergency fruit kits are mentally prepared by frantic fillies Rubbery rhubarb kung-fu babies launching their assaults in the hinterlands. Battling boys down the dew and take their struggles across the ocean. Sleepless evenings in the chamber of fire and ice spark gravid grumps in the morning light. Bursting water mains and mathey moments bring us to the uncertain future of a chillin' work week with options for spontaneous life-altering contraction chaos!

Nephew Wars 2015  and the Battle of the Bumping Belly A Ceasefire on one front while tensions escalate on another

Perhaps this is merely a ruse to lower my guard, but the domestic assault on my baby bump has momentarily reached a standstill. Well, ok, I've opened several doors into myself in the last week, but gently at least. Advice from a preggers pro: Never barge through doors when you have an extra 10 inches around your midsection. It's just ill advised. Always test the waters gradually, and try to hinge from the hips a bit. 

Door aside, however, the perilous hinterlands of countertop edges have settled quietly into a momentary safety. Yesterday, the sponge was tucked gently along the rim itself. Not 100% safe. I certainly spill out over the countertop due to my height and bellyliciousness. But however low the baby is into my bladder, I'm still not "dropped" enough that I actually run into things just near the edge of the counter (again due to my height)... most of the time, anyways. So progress... And then today, the pointy sponge missile was actually safely ensconced inside the sink itself! Victory!! Respite! Belly creature breathed an amniotic sigh of relief (and then started hiccuping like mad, as she does between jail break jiu jitsu on my innards)!

But where war dies, another battle begins. At least this one minimally involves me. I'm mostly the arms dealer in this scenario. Who knew my many massage devices  could be such weapons of mass destruction?? Those foam rollers are lethal, and we'll not speak too much of the back roller mace or birthing/exercise ball bombs. 

Yes, I had guests yesterday! First at the office - largely because I refused to join them at Jimmy John's (a deli type place that turns out to be a national chain, who knew?) on the grounds that (1) it would be hot and (2) there was no food there I'd really like. I did offer that we could meet somewhere shady - er shaded... I leave the shady until after dark. Or at the office. Perhaps the containment of the office appealed more. Not that I failed to burst into face flames nevertheless. If I am not directly in front of air conditioning, I am prone to these silly things and can rapidly go from rosy to raging in a way that will make other blanche and feel very uncomfortable for me/around me. 

But volcano-visage aside, the real show was the boy-on-boy battle raging after lunch and through to my house. There was a brief naval interlude at my condo pool, but I admit to missing that part on the grounds that (1) it was warmer out than I'm comfortable being in, and (2) not matter how soothing that cool pool water might be, any exposure to the sun inevitably results in some kind of heat reaction that also leads to sizzling red skin, (3) indoors has air conditioning


I only know that no combatant delivered a final quietus to any of his brothers and that Gramma Pam and mommy Rachel survived mostly on the sidelines. Mostly. 

Let nobody say that Adella's house lacks in "toys" as requested by the boys. They might be tools for some, but boy do we have enough to keep the hounds a howlin'. At least for a while before Braden wants to rendezvous with some chickadees at Boulevard for a B'ham play tryst. Sadly the girls weren't actually there as promised, but I hear that much rollerblading and scooting and tiring-out was accomplished. 

Parenting three boys is kind of like playing a videogame in which the main goal is to tire them out before their energy quotients rise to a nuclear level (but not too much lest they get overtired and - as seems to be the going trend - alternate between grumpy outbursts and being totally unable to sleep at night due ironically to an escalating sleep deficit). A constant grab at uneasy equilibrium using whatever tools necessary. At home? Use sports, camps, and extracurriculars. On the road? You'd better find at least three playgrounds before noon. And whatever you do, don't let them go home. Distract at all costs when they request to do so. Take them out for meals. Keep them out between meals. Don't dare rest for a second; be constantly vigilant for flagging moments - they are illusory attempts to gather second winds that will destroy you and all you've built. You may occasionally pick up an extra life or two, but you start with three and that's all you get before you have to start over. So choose carefully. 

At least that's how it looks to me. I'm exhausted hiding out in my room most of the time, so - while I know I'm on the verge of a good several month experiment in extreme sleep deprivation - I'm still glad we're starting with just the one little baby. Who probably lacks coordination to wield my massage stick as a bludgeoning device... for a while. And if she tries, we can swaddle-straight-jacket her without prompting CPS calls... for a while. But you've got to train up to this parenting thing after all. 

Until that pending blessed day, I'll do my best not to totally fail as an auntie (although, my current limitations are really cutting into the A for Awesome on my Auntie card). And keep a watch on those countertops. Never be lulled into a false sense of security when it comes to sponges and countertops... 

Windows 38-Oh-What-Was-That? Tummy McFlameface and the Dewy Pre-Pre-Prodromal Pants

Batten down the hatches and break out the rubber sheets: this gal could blow at any time! Or weeks from now. But according to the grand statistics, the odds are now 50% or so that I'll give birth in the next two weeks. I also have a 1.5% chance of spontaneously going into labor today. That doesn't sound particularly high, but the highest percentage chance on any given day is 3.9% on my due date, so... I further have an 8% chance that I already have gone into labor (think I'd have noticed, but we'll get to that part...), a 6% chance of going into labor in the next couple of days, 20% it'll be this week... Of course statistics are fairly meaningless once the little belly creature decides to flutter kick her way out, but they're oddly entertaining at least. 

We are within the month that straddles my due-bee-doo-bee-doo-date. And that is the big window in which 80% of women give birth. So bring on the hijinks! Or sit on some dewy grass in thin pants, and spend a good fifteen minutes googling "water breaking without knowing it" after discovering your underthings are saturated beyond imagination (seriously, didn't realize it was that wet on the ground), before affirming with another grass-sitter that the grass was indeed just damned wet. 

Rinse. Repeat. Serves me right for repeatedly announcing that I was not feeling close to giving birth and that I was pretty sure she was in it for the full term or more. 

Those googley seconds of ambiguity brought home the whole "any day now" part of things. Good moments of trying to problem solve getting the rest of my hospital go-bag in order. It involved somebody taking a trip to Costco to buy me several tons of grapes and frozen pineapple. Because this is all I could really think of when contemplating several hours of labor. That, gum, and some soda water. Maybe a fluffy pillow, but I have several of those at the office already. 

Whatever else, one thing is clear: My little blue-eyed (for now) brute is ready for action inside or out. She's been showing no signs of relenting in all her activity. I should have eaten more through pregnancy. Taken growth hormones. Anything to make her a huge baby so she'd lack the space to do her full MMA sparring practice on my innards. Her new found novelty seems to be head-butting my bladder and various pelvic hot spots. I'll be walking along just fine and dandy when suddenly a groin muscle flops like a marionette with a cut cord. A quick stumble and an "oh my" and the sensation is gone... but usually just somewhere else. 

She is apparently a leek again. I'm pretty sure she's been a leek before, but she must have enjoyed doing so, because she's back to basics. Or she might be rhubarb, which is certainly more novel but sticking with the long and lean imagery for sure. Canary melons flew straight away. 

And more or less her body is ready for the outside world. The next few weeks are largely about adding some chub to those cheeks and tears to those ducts (actually, that has finally developed just in time for a nice birthing wail!). Possibly giving me a few more precious hours of time to sleep (which I will instead spend running around restlessly doing everything but the final things necessary for "baby prep"). 

Oh and these last few days to weeks, she's developing billions of neural connections and fine tuning her nervous system so that things can totally tweak her out and overstimulate her even better. Thus prompting us to whip out The Happiest Baby on the Block and SHHHHHHH-ing into her shaken-not-stirred sideways ear until she quiets down in her little baby straight jacket. 

Maybe instead of the Happiest Baby methodology, we should apply the classic Happiest Millionaire and let her ride on crocodiles while bursting into song about her Irish heritage. But I get ahead of myself. Baby is properly swaddled (yeah right - as she does another roundhouse kick to my spleen) and shhhh'ed in there for now. 

And me? Well yadda yadda yadda. I've lost all concept of what not-pregnant feels like. People look in horror at my suddenly flushed face and I shrug and say "what, it's hot!" I don't really believe a day will come where "comfortable room temperature" means something other than "64 degrees and I've got an ice pack on my head." I've grown accustomed to babbling at my belly instead of into space. And the odd waddle is just sort of inevitable. I feel a little sense of shock and awe when I see a photo of myself from this time last year. Or remark on how very small my female relatives relative girth is. I'm resigned to wearing my stable of compression socks (very attractive compression socks) until the end of time. And I've got my maternity wardrobe on rotation now. 

I'm in for a rude shock pretty soon. But I'm sort of preparing for that as well. Sure the bridge between this life and the next still lies at labor, but if you aren't already obsessing over breast-feeding and diapers and play dates, well, hormones aren't doing their proper job here... 

To that end, I've tentatively joined a newly forming childcare co-op with five other new-or-almost-there-moms. The idea is that we will each have a certain number of credits for free childcare with one of the families in the group. And we'll gain credits for providing our own childcare for other moms. Should be interesting. But I like the idea of having a steady set of reliable families and playmates for the little one. Lest my parents actually need a break from time to time. We met yesterday - in the very wet grass, apparently - to discuss formation. There is now a facebook group and a google calendar. I'm not 100% sure anyone wants me watching their three month old baby just yet, but moms have got to do what they've got to do for some personal time. 

In more immediate preparation, I'm off to the OB yet again today. We've got a standing Friday date until I'm smack dab up against my due date. Hope they give me flowers this time! 

Caffeinated Composting Garage and the Ultimate Cage Fighting Cuddle 

And it's eye-o-the-storm (and maybe "eye of the tiger" depending on my labor timeline, although I still swear that I'm probably a little ways out from the blessed event) time in the grand Nephew deluge of 2015. As of 6 a.m.(ish) this morning, the entire Falconer clan is off to Canada with Grampa Ian. By god there shall be baking. And pickleball. And kayaking. And lord knows what other insanity. But it'll be intense... -ly relaxing. Or something.  

Not unlike what I imagine occurred last night after I parted ways with the wee little dervishes. Rachel had things to do last night. Non-boy things. Well, things that served the boys. Like picking up the twenty tons of groceries that are targeted at ensuring some snack will hopefully hit with each individual boy on any given day. This requires more trial and error than all of medical science devoted to treating cancer and Parkinson's combined. Since there aren't really grocery shopping options up in the Gulf Islands, the pre-shopping duties are vital.You can't predict what the boys will actually eat in any given minute, but you know that they will be quite finicky. Oh and one of them has a fairly serious allergy to several common ingredients in pre-packaged foods. So you'd best err on the side of caution and bring a small township's worth of food.

And after groceries, there was driving down to Seattle in their second rental car of the trip (exchanged yesterday since the last one did not actually lock and this was problematic for leaving parked on Galliano for a week). There will be another rental car by the end of the trip. But in the meantime, this sufficed for retrieving Daddy Ryan. Our mystery man. Who is shockingly actually staying in Bellingham for a full three to four days after Parker. This is a long stretch for him. He kind of comes out here for Parker and sends the family to Bellingham when he can. We all have our means of vacationing. 

Anyways, last night Rachel was gone. The boys were let loose. To rage in their cages. Or something like that. Or for Braden to purportedly have an epic paroxysm at the thought of mommy leaving him. This involved screaming and grabbing and physical intervention. Sounded quite dramatic. He had mellowed by the time I met up with Gramma Pam, the boy-toy and the boy-boy-boy-beast-of-three.

By "mellowed," I mean "ameliorated his psychic pain with video games, then snuck some Mountain Dew into his soda and psychosomatically assumed the mien of a major cocaine binge type high." Which worked well with Ian's psychosomatic Cherry Coke high. They told a series of very post-modern knock knock jokes (knock knock - who's there - pizza hut BUIPPPPFDJEE - pizza hut buipppppfdjee who? BWAHAHAHAHA). Then they were properly inspired by some very mediocre cage fighting on the television to ... well... do what they always do when they aren't actively sulking, hugging, or playing on a device: pummel the crap out of each other while cackling like banshees. 

So seems like all cleared up ok. They were planning to stay up until mommy and daddy got home in the middle of the night. No idea if they managed. 

On the home front things are eerily quiet. No Tour. No nephews. No particularly plangent pangs of labor (yet). Even the spike-sponge attacked with a half hearted snuggle. Andrew is downstairs "sorting out the basement" and I have been grocery shopping but have yet to do much else in terms of productive activities. Well, I dealt with the traumatic discovery that my compostable garbage bags are pretty darned compostable. I had put smaller trash bags in a larger lawn and leaf bag to take to my mom's house after some storage in the garage. I don't recommend doing this. Use a nasty plastic garbage bag at the very least. My poor garage was soaked in coffee grounds, carrot peels, egg shells, and rotting food. No wonder we've been getting fruit flies! So I did survive the scrubbing spelunk through a few weeks of breakfast there... 

But once I've recovered from that, perhaps I'll do ... something... anything. Who knows. Maybe nothing! It's getting warm here again, so there's a high likelihood I'll flee to an air conditioned space soon. 

Marveling at Magic-Month and the B-Day Birth Day

So, this actually happened yesterday, but I forgot - in a haze of nephew musk and mountain-dew hangovers - that we're now officially in the month that is almost certain to be the birth month of the little belly creature! And my birth month, incidentally. One of these events may eclipse the other. Like basically, I'll probably go late and then give birth as an afterthought while eating cake and demanding presents from people who maybe thought they'd get away with just giving me five bajillion baby toys and calling it good (um, no, I said "an annual membership to the gym and a personal masseuse/trainer", not "squishy rhino teether"). But both are gonna happen. 

So yeah. Deny as I might, I'm going to be a parent this month. Probably of a proud little Leo just like me, although she's got about a week of Virgosity to potentially play with before induction gets pretty well slammed on the table. 

Who on earth approved me to be a parent? Are they insane? Poor little belly beast. I am going to owe you big time!

Don't worry, little beastie, I'm preemptively starting to make up the infinite debt with plenty of awesome for you. That is, if the stuffed animal brigade is willing to share with you! I think they'll be amenable. If not, your in utero kickboxing sessions clearly demonstrate that you'll be tough enough to claim what's yours from those doughy little luvs.

Thanks to proto-daddy hubba-hubby  for assembling the very last of the nursery things. We now have a monkey swing and a changing table. This was a weekend we weren't sure we'd get, and every last magical weekend day of calm-non-event will be cherished especially for the fleeting nature of such days. Needless to say, we lived it up (W)right style. In other words, Andrew took a long bike ride and I hid out in front of the air conditioning at the office for much of the day. Did I mention it's still all hot hereabouts? I'm so looking forward to, say, late-October. For the cooler weather and for the adorable newborn costumery!

In the meantime, let the denial continue for just one more benighted week or so. Mr. (W)right has it on good statistical authority that for folks like us who know their date of conception (instead of the old standard LMP), most women give birth plus or minus 8 days of their due date. So this coming Thursday, I'll really get around to finishing off that hospital go bag. Really. Hey, I bought fruit. Lots of frozen fruit! And given how long first time labor takes, I will probably have some time to make Andrew put the upstairs toiletries into whatever garbage bag we improvise when we realize that we are already well out of space in the bag we've already started. 

Sleepless Nights in the Weltering Wind-Tunnel O'Connubial Chaos
We did not sleep well last night. That's a different "we" than the one used in "we are pregnant." It's more of a "respectively, the members of the (W)right household are feeling less right than rain due to a dearth of our own individual snoozes." 

I did not sleep well because... well... I'm pregnant. I forget these things. Or minimize the impact of pregnancy on certain symptoms. But it's a pretty convenient overarching excuse.

 On the one hand, no matter how convinced I am that actually everyone else I love has recently developed a thyroid condition (seriously, I keep finding Andrew sleeping under a blanket and with long sleeved shirts in 73 degree rooms! This is not normal! I think! I don't even know anymore!!), there's a possibility that my current tendency to go full on flame-ball in a 68 degree room is not actually normal for even the delicate sensitive flower that constitutes Adella. It's possible that maybe in non-pregnant moments of my life, I might be able to sleep in a room with the air conditioning directly on me and supplemented by a second box fan at medium-strength. It's possible that same well conditioned wind would feel "cold," or that I'd at least have the decency to require a blanket and/or do something other than continue breaking into flames on at least one side of my body. It's possible. 

On the other hand, maybe if I weren't pregnant I wouldn't constantly be plagued with the tag team of an insatiable hunger and a screaming bladder. Because yesterday night I was starving. But too tired to go feed myself. And too irrational to imagine that would help. And just when I managed to forget that pang, my bladder would start shrieking like a baby-battered banshee. 

On the other foot, I also probably wouldn't suddenly become obsessed with sleep positioning on the grounds that my little creature is clearly "sunny side up" at the moment. Sunny-side ain't so sunny or funny in pregnancy land. Ok, it's cute right now. It basically means that she's facing my belly. Ok, given her positioning today, more like my pubic bone. But you know, up. So I get her little elbows and knees and feet sticking out of my belly. And her little fingers tickle the most delicate of lady-areas. 

You say "engaged," I say "engaging in guerrilla warfare against my nether-parts." Potato-potahto.

But yes, posterior babies can be a pain. If they stay that way for the labor. The heavy part of their skull can hit right up against the tailbone, and they can't tuck their chins in the same way. So there's a potential for all kinds of fun: prelabor broken water, prolonged labor, the infamous "back labor" (horrible pains felt in the back), and baby not being able to actually make it through the birthing canal. Most posterior babies will flip around during delivery, but I'm pregnant, so begin the obsessing.

There are things you can do about painful back labor during labor. According to the actual scientific review, studies basically have yet to indicate that there's anything you can do to flip that sunny-side to a nice mooning baby position before labor. Or studies  suggest that you can maybe flip that little omelet, but all that work won't impact labor. Babies can flip back if they're determined! And frequently do so. 

Nonetheless, there's a trove of unconfirmed advice about getting babies into position. Much of it I already follow: I walk, I do cat stretches, I lean forward over the back of chairs, and I'm known to sit on my hands and knees airing myself in front of the air conditioning.

But the conventional belief is that if your pelvis is sloped in any way where the knees are higher than the pelvis, then the baby will be apt to fall into posterior position. If you're at an angle where the opposite is true... praise be to baby, you're better off. And if you're upright, that's good too. Basically, the baby spinners and midwives of the world suggest I should spend all of my time draped forward over things, stay in an all-fours wiggle position for at least ten minutes a day, use pillows to elevate my toosh should I need to sit down, never slouch or lean-back, and by god if I'm going to sleep, sleep on the magical "left side" that everyone was touting as the end-all position for babies.

As above, there's actually no evidence that any of this helps. Epidurals do seem to decrease the baby's ability to turn herself, they know that. There's no harm for decreasing pain by assuming an all-fours labor position. But all that advice above... who knows.

 Still, I'm pregnant. I have baby hands coming out of my venus mound. I am routinely obsessed with some trivium like this on a rotating basis every two or three days. So last night, I had to sleep on my side. Anything but on my back with my legs propped up on a pillow (knees over pelvis - the mark of sunny-sided doom), which is unfortunately the only way I can actually sleep. 

This is theoretically a fine position for me, but ... not recently. Since this pregnancy began I have found that sleeping on my side inevitably has resulted in (1) hip pain, (2) shoulder discomfort, (3) totally dead-arm, (4) fiery flame ear for whichever ear is nestled into the pillow itself. 

It's better at this stage of the pregnancy than the first trimester, but it's still not ideal. Still worse, one side of me always gets overheated from being buried in pillow and mattress while the other is in the full fan blast that even I find daunting. Commence the tossing and turning. Between bathroom trips and food fantasies. 

Also, there's a possibility that when I'm not sleeping propped up on a mountain of pillows, I don't provide any break from the breeze for Andrew. It's possible. This is as yet unconfirmed. 

Andrew didn't sleep well either. He slept in the basement. There's always a pall cast over the morning when Andrew has had to sleep in a different room. I'm not entirely sure why. I actually think separate bedrooms are quite reasonable for couples. Besides, the few times I've retreated to the downstairs couch in a torrid torpor, it may be mentioned (by me) in passing, but is rarely observed as much of an event. 

I suppose this is partially because I get up first anyways, so Andrew probably didn't even notice the absence. And, well, when Andrew's tired he gets kind of a default face of "I'm a four year old boy whose puppy you just killed." Even if he doesn't mean it directed at you. And we'll go with I'm pregnant again to say that I may get overly "are you ok??" in alternating spells of defensiveness. 

Almost sheepishly he came up from the basement and made probably the worst possible joke to smooth over the sense of failure hanging in the air: "just think of it as practice for when our daughter cries so much she drives me from the bedroom." Bringing to light every fear about parenting I can conceive, all wrapped in a dead-puppy-ribbon: sleepless nights, disengaged father, being abandoned and completely at baby's mercy while my partner prioritizes himself, resentment... apocalypse!! AGH. I did not respond with a sunny side up. 

Needless to say, the morning devolved into a thorough dialectic on how the fans are a metaphor for our crumbling marriage... er, I mean, of how we might rejigger things to make the room comfortable for both (or at this point either of us). Andrew had forgotten that I have always preferred a breeze and that we had discussions like this about fans and windows before the pregnancy. And I - of course - had forgotten that I'm poppingly parturient and a human flameball. 

I barely resisted the urge to go all district-attorney on his ass and poke a million pointillist holes in his "my wife is a crazy pregnant lady destroying my sleep" version (as I clearly took it) of the prior evening. Although I wanted to at least figure out why last night versus any other night. Since he frequently sleeps just fine in similar conditions. And I will add that he noted he did not sleep particularly well downstairs either. 

Partially because he was trying to sort out the air mattress, but also because his mind "kept spinning." (Pregnant lady panic - OMG are you alright??? mixed with DA - "AHA! And yet my precious fans are blamed for your inability to sleep!!) 

And we did both acknowledge that when I'd come home yesterday around 5 p.m., he was completely passed out with full cup of coffee (that he subsequently finished). 

Still, I'll try to figure out the fans a little more. And we'll just see about this side sleeping nonsense. I actually prefer it in several ways, but it just doesn't work well long term. Then again, the little belly creature's constant assault on my lower body kind of keeps "long term" as very theoretical anyways. 

And, as I finally concluded, I will not be ok with being left upstairs to take care of the baby at night (we're in this sleep deprivation thing together), but if our sleeping conditions are just so disparate that he wants to sleep downstairs until she's born, that's actually fine with me. And after she's born, we'll have a lot more to worry about than the fans, even if my internal thermometer doesn't reset automatically. I hear I'll have plenty of delightful internal fluctuations leaving me freezing one moment and drenched in sweat the next! 

In the meantime, I feel surprisingly well (for now) given how little sleep I achieved. We'll see what happens with this coming splurge of work before the nephew and baby cocktail cha-cha right back into view next week!

Two-percentage Oddity Day

Last night, my darling hubba-hubba dreamt that I was having severe contractions. I was refusing to acknowledge them, instead insisting on going to work (pausing through the really bad bits and then carrying on). I think he knows me a little too well. 

Maybe the reason I made such a "any day now" and "it's going to be really intense" type prognostications as early as July was that I knew that once I got to the actual event, I'd have a healthy sheen of denial about the experience for a good part of the earliest bit. You know, until I couldn't talk through it and tears started involuntarily leaking... I imagine at some point, the evidence will be insurmountable, but until then, I continue to wonder "was that a little contraction there or a really uncomfortable muscle tweak/stomach upset/baby kick/spasm-related-to-anything-other-than-contractions?" pretty much every time I feel anything in the midsection that isn't baby-elbow shaped and obviously pointy. 

And the closer we get, the more I'm kind of ok with waiting. I'm not scared or nervous. I just kind of enjoy our status quo and want to enjoy these last moments while I can. I may do five bajillion quotidian activities that theoretically facilitate or induce labor for the desperate, but... I'm happy to go with her timing. Especially if she feels patient and wanting to suck up just a little more in utero time.

But que sera sera. Baby will happen when she happens. My favorite statistics site (for now) says that I have a 2.42% chance of spontaneous labor today and about a 30% chance of going into labor within the next week. Weird! My "tempting the fates - it would just figure" metric suggests that I really have a high likelihood of holding out straight until August 21st, a day in which my second coach/mombossa has not one but two hearings and the day in which Andrew's father and grandpa come to town for the weekend. 

Sounds like a friend of mine who was due on the 24th just discovered her water had broken last night, so I'm not sure if that marshals for me to follow suit or to politely put off my big entry into the baby world. Or did it? After much debate and a morning phone call to the nurse, she decided it too had been a false alarm. Whoever keeps saying "you'll know when it happens.." Maybe, but we all sure won't when it doesn't!

In the meantime, I'll just be chillin' (with the a/c on full blast even if the weather is easing up a bit) at my treadmill desk pretending to work or working and pretending not to work too hard... depending on my whim. It's just been such a nice quiet and productive little workweek so far. The office is technically closed and Mombossa is technically on vacation (despite a number of appointments), so the general frenzy is muted. But we have plenty to do and it's the sort of highly focused activity that is ameliorative after a fair bit of chaos.