37 Weeks

The weekly update from the Baby Center:

Congratulations! Your baby is full-term! This means that if your baby arrives now, his lungs should be fully mature and ready to adjust to life outside the womb, even though your due date is still three weeks away. He weighs 6 1/3 pounds and measures a bit over 19 inches, head to heel (like a stalk of Swiss chard). Many babies have a full head of hair at birth, with locks from 1/2 inch to 1 1/2 inches long.

Our little guy is starting to kick and prod and wiggle in the most uncomfortable ways, which I am interpreting to mean that he is anxious to get out of his cramped quarters... anytime from now until a month from now we meet face to face!

I always thought that the wives' tale about the belly shape being different for boys vs. girls was a myth, but it has proved true for me at this point. This is the first pregnancy that I can't see my toes if I stand up straight and look down... weird! I've gained the same amount of weight, but this boy is just fitting like a torpedo or a bowling ball stuck to my middle! The girls must have snuggled in tighter I guess.

Anytime!

~len

Mary

As the little guy gets bigger and bigger (37 weeks now, 3 to go!), little things like washing the floors, doing the dishes (or standing anytime for any length of time), putting away the laundry, etc. have gotten more and more challenging to keep under control. I have to admit that more than once or twice for the past few weeks we've drafted tupperware for cereal and ate with plastic spoons for breakfast.

I would be a much greater emotional drain on Scott if it weren't for a fantastic arrangement that my younger teenage sister Mary and I came up with. She wanted portraits and I wanted a clean house... so every other week for the next couple of months (it's going to be crazy that month after D day too!) Mary comes over for a couple of hours and is my "Mary Maid". It has worked wondrously so far, and has helped alleviate stress on Scott as well ("Can you climb up in the attic and put this away, or pull this tub down, or help me put away all these off season clothes"... not fun to any man!).

This past weekend we planned on a fun hour or two long session at dusk, but it just happened to be the day that a summer storm blew through with enough dry lightening to keep the firefighters busy all this week. The smoke still hasn't let up. Since we started before the fires, there wasn't smoke to contend with, just the clouds and a darker dusk than I'd anticipated... so we will be doing another mini session to add a few more portraits to Mary's collection another time. For now though, here are a few of my favorites. Enjoy!










~len