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The Latest

I'm back from all the crazy traveling and thankfully I didn't miss the whole show. No, not the American Idol Finale (or Finally, depending on your point of view), but the birth of the Little Lady. Birth Prep classes are in full swing, the nursery is as good as it is going to get (until the move), the car seat is installed, and despite all of this, each day I think of something else and it seems like we haven't even begun to prepare for her arrival!
I am so thankful that eventually there is a date where preparation turns into practice. Otherwise, I'm pretty certain that we would rearranged the household furniture 4 more times and I would have spent countless hours researching the latest must-have item until every square inch of the house is some shade of pastel. But alas, poopy diapers will be here and that will take the priority. Does it seem a little sadistic that somehow caca-pants are going to save us from driving ourselves insane?
I hope you enjoy the new photo. We figured it was time to update since we hadn't had a family photo since March and believe me things have changed. Calvin is the only one getting thinner and frankly, it's negligible. It looks like that threat to ship him off to the person who most accurately guessed the Little Lady's birth stats has paid off and caused a relatively insignificant weight-loss. Honestly, we have been a bit nervous about how he will react to another human in the household. When our friends have brought over their children, his first point order is to hide for the duration of their stay. There are signs that he is considering other options, however. He has been quite curious with all of the new "pink" products that are floating about our place and has been a lot more "lovey dovey" to Tracey when he's not biting her ankles.
I'm excited to be in this stage of the pregnancy and I know Tracey is as well. Although we have no control of when the next phase begins, I know we're ready. Oh, shoot. I just thought of something...maybe tomorrow.

Alone here with Cal.......

Well, I've been ditched again. Tom conveniently clogged up the kitchen garbage disposal last night (artichoke leaves were the culprit!) and then decided it was time to get out of town and head for the Midwest leaving his 8 months pregnant wife at home. Not very nice! Actually, I'm being a little too harsh. His departure is, of course, for a very good couple of causes. First he is flying one of his squadron's jets to Ohio for the wedding of a good pal from Notre Dame, Brad Billick. I'm sad to be missing the wedding, of course (Congrats to Brad and Tina!), but I'm very sad about missing an opportunity to see Tom with all of his ND friends - they are hilarious when they all get together! After the wedding, Tom is jumping back in the jet and heading to Chicago where he and a few other guys from the squadron will be doing the fly-over at the Cubs v. Whitesox game on Sunday afternoon!! So if you happen to tune in to the game on Sunday, keep your eyes peeled at the very beginning for a funny looking jet (pictured above) flying over the stadium - Tom will be flying it! I know the game is televised here at 11:00am (pst) on WGN. The fly-over should happen just minutes before the first pitch. So, I immediately had to go out and buy a onsie for the Little Lady that says in bold writing across the front: MY DAD'S A SUPER HERO. I think that's pretty fitting ;) even if I am pouting about being ditched (again).
I want to say a quick "hello!" to my old Nadadore friends who informed me that they've been secretly reading the blog --- it was so great to see you guys last weekend!! Everybody looks so great and I can't wait to be able to have a couple of beers with you all as soon as I'm allowed. We'll have to be careful not to ruin your taper for the Master's World Champs, though (wink wink).
I hope that everybody has a great weekend! The sun has finally decided to show it's face here in San Diego which certainly makes me happy.

This Phrase is the Last Coherent Thought of this Post

So it's back to Meridian for me this weekend. Tracey and long time friend/fellow KU swimmer extraordinaire, Adrienne Turner will be San Diego having as much fun as you can at 33 weeks pregnant. Adrienne is not pregnant; I think I just made a sentence with a misplaced modifier (see any 8th grade English text), but I'm tired of trying to fix it. Anyways, I have no idea what they'll be up to, but I am grateful that Ade will be here with Tracey in my absence. That's not to say that I wouldn't want to be here when Adrienne was here, just that I'm glad someone is here with Tracey whilst I'm not. This post is killing me today!
I'm going to check on how the house building is going and answer some questions about flooring, landscaping, countertops et cetera. Rob and Leea Myers, our future neighbors, have been flooding our inbox with pictures and everything seems to be going fabulously. We have painted walls, the cabinets are in place and the ground is level outside. There has been a lot of progress, but until I stick my hand into the siding, I won't really believe what I've seen or heard.
Call Tracey this weekend to say "Hi!"

My own mini boycott....

It's been a long time since I've blogged about the pregnancy and since I am currently about to pull my hair out over my job at this moment, I figured it might be a good time to stage my own little boycott from work for the next few minutes while I try to let the workplace frustrations roll off my back (or really my belly at this point!). So as you can tell, my job has been less than pleasant these past few months. The only good thing about it is that I have been relinquished of my travel duties for the duration of the pregnancy. Ironically, nobody on my project team will be traveling for the next month because we are currently playing "clean-up and catch-up" in house for the entire month of May. I don't mind the "clean-up" etc., but when the very root of the problem that caused the disaster in the first place is ignored, it kind of makes one wonder "what exactly is the point"? Hence my frustrations.
HOWEVER, when the work day is done (or during my little boycotts) I couldn't be happier! This pregnancy has been a dream - a long dream, but a good one :) We're almost to 32 weeks and things are going very well. Yes, the belly is really getting big and the discomfort and sleep issues have increased too, but really it hasn't been too bad yet. I did have to get up at 4:30am this morning for a bowl of cereal, but after about an hour and some serious acrobatics performed by the Little Lady, I was able to fall back asleep (Tom, unfortunately, was not able to - but that's ok, he's had more energy than a 5 year-old on Red Bull lately!). All in all, I have loved being pregnant and I know that this 9 month stint will be over before we know it and when that happens and the Little Lady is here, I know that the "halo effect" will certainly take over and I will only remember the very best parts of being pregnant (ie Fetal Hiccups and Pineapple cravings). So in attempt to be a realist, I would like to put in writing my three "major" complaints of pregnancy, so that 6 months from now, when we are riding the "new parent high" and thinking that we should just have another one right away, we can re-read this blog and maybe it will help us with our spacing at least a little. Here they are:

#1 The constant runny/bloody and super booger production factory that is my nose and has been since day 1 of pregnancy. My doctor says that this is the #1 complaint of his very "fair complected" patients. Yipee! So not only do us "albinos" get to suffer through severe sunburns and face certain melanoma sometime in our lives, but we also get this?! Who would ever want to be tan???Actually, this really isn't a big deal when I am at home, but poses some uncomfortable moments when caught in public (or worse, at a site for work) without a mound of Kleenex.

#2 Enough said. Actually, this one is really too gross to put on a blog. Yes, it has to do with "#2" but it's probably not what you're thinking.

#3 THE PRESSURE! (and this is not mental or psychological pressure that I'm talking about). This is not what Tom and I have been calling it either, but our name for it, once again, is really not appropriate for the blog. Anyhow, any woman who has ever been pregnant certainly knows what I'm talking about here. It started sporadically, early in the second trimester and has grown increasingly worse and more frequent but at this point is THANKFULLY not a constant and I am very grateful for that! Only 8 weeks to go!

So there you have them..... my pregnancy woes. Really, they are more laughable than anything and I certainly feel blessed for that. Hopefully they have provided you with some giggles as they have for Tom and me over the last 32 weeks.

Well, the boycott must come to an end now. I'm sure that my 20 minute absence has led to an absolute reform of my study project and that all internal flaws and "disasters" have been corrected. That's how things work in this country, right??

A John Candy Classic Weekend

There is nothing like getting a lot of response from a blog post to really make my day. Just when I start wondering if anyone reads this mindless drab, a short post turns in our best response of our existence! Cal has been proudly stating that all the hubbub has been made for the possibility of gaining his companionship and maybe he's right. How else could I explain the voter turnout? I suppose now would be the best time to let you know that Calvin is not going to be relinquished to the closest guesser. And yes, despite Kelly's best efforts (ask her about it...quite funny), all of Cal's kitty litter will be staying where it belongs...in our carpeting.
Truthfully we haven't been sitting back as the votes were tallied and ordered; all of that is done automatically anyways. We've been pretty busy. Tracey's attempts to get her company to lighten her workload has had a total reverse effect. Phones have been ringing right off the hook and the seemingly endless paper trail has been...well, endless.
I've been pretending to be busy too. Having grown tired of 3-day weekends (yeah, right), I decided that I would travel to Galveston, TX for the Spirit of Flight Airshow. My friend in the squadron Eric "Cooter" Gould is from Galveston and he was in desperate need of a pilot to fly down there with him. It was a great time despite the weather. We were treated like rock stars; a welcoming party was thrown for us on the night we arrived. And they all pretended to that the S-3 was the coolest airplane in the world. That was a nice touch. As it turned out, it was to be a true case of planes, trains and automobiles for me. Oh, and by the way, I'm "Snowball."