Life Day by Day

It is HOT today - I think it got up into the low 90s...and our little window air conditioner was not up to the task. I am just glad that the temperature is beginning to drop. Whew. Luckily the swelling in my ankles seems to be under control and the heat hasn't made it worse.

It was something of a slow day today - they all seem to be rather slow lately. I watered the lawn, mopped the floors, vacuumed, made Tim lunch, de-flead Rain and spent all down time with my feet up. It was nice, though, because Tim got off early from work today since there was a squadron picnic that we didn't want to go to due to the heat (it was at Clear Lake and we'd swelter). He's been home since about 11:30am, and taking full advantage of extra time off by playing WoW...I figure that means I get him almost all day tomorrow to get stuff done around the house. :)

Tim has been getting very protective of me and baby in that he doesn't want me to do pretty much anything. The only time he's happy is if I'm sitting with my feet up. It's sweet in a way, but it is also driving me crazy. I feel I know what I can and cannot do and what is too much for me, but he doesn't necessarily agree. I hate just sitting around doing nothing. It makes me feel useless and lazy. I end up doing what I feel I can do even though it bugs Tim a bit. After all, I AM the one who is pregnant and I DO know what I can and cannot do safely and carefully. I'm not breakable or fragile and I keep an eye on signs whether I'm pushing myself to hard or not. I don't want to be a couch potato the last few weeks of my pregnancy. Tim seems to think I'm constantly on the verge of hurting myself unless I'm laying down. I'm hoping that he'll soon realize that pregnant women are made of stronger stuff then that.

On a side note, and it may gross some of you out, but I think I may have lost my mucus plug yesterday. I'm not sure, though, because it wasn't all obviously lost at once, but seemed to be over the course of 6 or so hours. I'm glad progress is being made and the time is coming up. According to what I've read some women go into labor shortly after losing the plug and for others it could still be a couple weeks. Baby has not "dropped" yet so I figure labor isn't imminent. :)

I think we're almost ready for baby now. We have everything that we need (I think) except baby clothes - and we can get those after we know if it's a boy or girl. We have our hospital bags packed, casseroles in the freezer, the house is clean (makes me feel more prepared for anything really), and everyone knows who they're calling and have directions to the hospital. I'm hoping to be able to have the car cleaned soon to get most of Rain's hair out of the back seat, and review the Bradley Method a bit more before baby comes, but other then that I think we're good. Oh, and we need to figure out what we're going to do with Rain while we're at the hospital. We can't just leave her indoors, and we can't just leave her outdoors...so we're going to have to figure something out.

Anyway, it's dinner time and I'm going to go get it made. <3

Well, we just got back from our 37 week midwife appointment. Everything is looking good - negative group B strep, 118/62 BP, baby heart rate in the 150s with good reaction to stimulus, good positioning, and my braxton hicks contractions seem to be starting to be somewhat productive in that some of them are starting to feel like really light menstrual cramps. It will wake me up at night every once in awhile. My hope is that by the time I go into labor I'll be a centimeter or so dilated. :)

My feet have been trying to swell a lot lately, so I am now under orders to take it easy when they start to swell. I have been trying to do that as it is, but it is very hard for me to just sit with my feet up. I don't like to do nothing. No fun at all. As I'm sitting there, thoughts of all that needs to be or could be done run through my head. Ack.

Anyway, I just wanted to keep up to date.
Holly out. <3

It has been way too long since I blogged last. We've been all going and going this summer it seems. Exhausting though it may be, it is also really nice to be able to see family as often as we have this year. :)

It has been HOT here, averaging in the mid-90s and the Eastern Washington breezes I have been counting on seem to stop in the middle of the day. :( The house has no air conditioning, and all we have (which really has saved my life) is a small window air conditioner that Josh and Amber are letting us borrow. Even with that, however, the house stays roughly around 85F during the day. I have been fighting a constant battle against puffy ankles and am currently sitting here with my keyboard on my lap so I can have my feet elevated. I tried on my shoes for Brynne's wedding, again, and found that they are now too tight. Tim and I will have to either return them for a bigger size that I will likely never wear again after this pregnancy or go buy something at Walmart. Nuts.

It's really weird how much my body has changed...I always thought that, unless you gained a lot of weight during pregnancy, your body would stay pretty much the same and all you'd have is a big tummy and breasts (and extra padding here and there - in my case my hips and butt! :). Boy was I wrong! Boney places on me have even expanded - like the balls of my feet are now wider (thus the non-fitting shoes), my actual knuckles are thicker, and my ribcage has spread. I can still feel my ribs just as easily as I always have so I know that I haven't gained weight around there, but I might have to go up a bra size from a 34 to a 36 'cause I'm on the last little clasp and it's starting to get snug! Very odd. I hope my basic structure goes pretty much back to how it was or else I'm going to have to get all new shoes, rings and bras lol.

The nursery is pretty much complete. All I need now is baby clothes. We have nothing except a few jammies and lots of onsies. I'm hoping to be able to pick up a couple bags of clothes at Brynne's wedding - then I'll feel a lot more relaxed and ready. I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff I need, and I'm sure I need more of some things and I probably have way too many of others, but I figure that we'll just wait and see what we end up using and go from there.

We have been continuing to work with Rain on meeting people in a sane way. She is slowly making progress. I think what we need to do now is hire someone to come over and ring our doorbell, come and go through the door, sit in our living room, etc. while we work with her. The problem has been that when we do have guests we want to focus on them and make them comfortable while all the while Rain is having a minor melt down at their feet or jumping up on them. It is getting very irritating and it's time for that to STOP.

On another Rain topic, we have run across a pretty big problem here in good ol' Washington state. People here are extremely prejudice against Pit Bulls and any dog that appears "pit-like" - such as Rain. From all the research we did before we got Rain, we knew there would be some prejudice and fear, but nothing as bad as what we're finding here in Washington - the land of labs and cow-dogs. In Georgia, Rain was practically worshipped and we couldn't bring her anywhere without feeling like we were walking with a celebrity. Pretty much every kennel there accepted her without question, and all was good. Now that we're here in Washington, we get dirty looks just for having the audacity to actually own one of "those dogs" - no matter that she's walking nicer on the leash then any of the other dogs around currently, or that she's being sweet and cute to us.

The latest saga is that we finally found a reputable kennel which accepts unaltered dogs, and we were hoping to board Rainy there for Brynne's wedding. They said on their website that they don't accept Pit Bulls and "some Pit Bull mixes", so we thought we'd be safe and call to make sure they would accept an American Bulldog. At first they had no problem with it at all - then they must have looked ABs up on the internet or something because we got a call back and said that they don't, after all, take AB's because they LOOK like Pits (they had originally thought we were talking about a dog that looked like an English Bulldog). They even said they would still not consider her after the personality and social evaluation they give all the dogs that come to their kennel, and would, under no circumstances, allow her to socialize with other dogs.

We were a little put off by the fact that they were turning her down for no other reason then her appearance without so much as considering her actual breed (AB not Pit) or HER as an individual, so we got in contact with the owner to find out what the deal was. He said that he, personally, has no problem with Pits or ABs and that "they make wonderful family dogs and can get along just great with other dogs." The problem lay with the owners of the other dogs who would call and complain - threatening to remove their own dogs from daycare - whenever they let a dog that looks the slightest like a Pit out to play. As I mentioned above, ALL the dogs that go to this kennel are individually evaluated, and the owners that complain know this but STILL have a problem based purely on appearance alone. It has passed the point of breed "racism" to now ANY dog that has a wide jaw, heavy musculature, etc. is a "killer dog" in their opinion. It's like people being scared, first of all, of any African Americans because there are some who are gangsters - and then not only that, but now throwing in ANYONE who has a dark tan and some black features. It's stupid.

People need to do a bit more research in their spare time. Heck, maybe they should actually read about Pits and ABs and not just the few Pits that make it onto the news - maybe they should look up the statistics on which breeds actually do most of the attacks on humans...They should maybe do some research on the problems facing Pits as far as being tortured and used as fighting dogs, then left to wander neighborhoods where kids are playing.

Anyway, off my soap box and rant :) I'm off to go switch the sprinkler. <3