Rockin' (recovered)

Labor day weekend, Phil and I had taken the dogs for a walk one Saturday morning.  On the way back, we stopped by a garage sale that was just around the corner from our house.  I wasn't looking for anything in particular at the time.  But I was kind of thrilled when I saw a glider rocking chair (without cushions).  I was kind of glad it didn't have cushions because used cushions would have creeped me out.  After talking with the owner, he said he would take $12 for it.

We bought it.  Then we went and got some foam and fabric and I made some new cushions.  I knew it would come in handy one day when we had a baby.  I could just recover the cushions and be good to go.

I found out I was pregnant 4 days later.

I think the rocking chair was a rather fortunate find.

When I was working on my novel during November, I spent a great deal of time in the rocking chair and I discovered something about it...  It wasn't that comfortable.  This was going to be a problem.  It needed WAY more cushioning on the bottom and some better back support.

Now I'm not a master seamstress.  Sure, I can sew a bit but I am NO WHERE near a professional.  I would LOVE to just buy some new cushions for the chair, but they are pretty expensive.  And since Phil's still in grad school and I own a business in a bad economy (read: pay cut), money is a little on the tight side.  That's one reason why we have been trying to do everything in the nursery ourselves.  Buying new cushions just wasn't something I wanted to spend $100+ on.

So I bought some fabric on clearance several months ago and set it aside.  I was dreading this project more than any other.  I don't know why.  I think because I knew it wouldn't turn out great.  And also because I hadn't totally figured out how to change the cushion pattern.  But I just needed to get it done and over with.

And I did.

Wednesday night, I decided I would just do it.  Of course, I had a helper:

{Drawing the patterns and cutting the fabric was not exactly comfortable or 

easy with the baby belly.  Thank goodness I had Cotton to hold the fabric down.}

I got most of it done Wednesday night and spent last night finishing the cushions, as well as making a neck pillow (to help me sleep in the chair) and a pillow for better back support.

Don't look at it too closely.  I'm not terribly thrilled with how it turned out.  But I think as it gets used, the cushion will wear well.  I do kind of love the back pillow though.  It is a slipcover, so it can be taken off and washing and it turned out almost exactly how I envisioned it.

It is MUCH more comfortable now (a definite must) and currently residing in its new home, the nursery.

That was my last BIG project!  Now I just have smaller projects to get the nursery all finished up.

1 a Day

I have felt like I haven't gotten a lot done at home lately.  I've had good reason.  It's not JUST that I'm tired (although making a person does take it out of you).  In the last couple of weeks, I have had several events and commitments in the evenings after work.  Some of them have been personal.  Some of them have been for work.  All of them have been great.

But it left me feeling really drained.  When my free weekend rolled around, I found that I got tired by noon after completing only a few tasks.  It was really frustrating to me because I really like making lists and then crossing things OFF the list.

Plus, I have been oscillating between feeling like my due date will NEVER get here and then realizing quickly that in reality, the baby could come SOON.  Most of the mothers of boys I know had their babies either before or on their due dates.  (This also kind of makes me think that I will go past my due date, but whatever.)  But I should probably stop putting things off because we think we have so much time left.

To combat this problem, I have decided that on days when I don't have commitments in the evening, I am going to make it my goal to do one thing an evening.  And the one thing is in addition to normal nightly activities such as making dinner, picking up, etc.

So far this week, I have achieved my goal.  Monday night, I folded and put away all the laundry I had washing over the weekend (because I was too tired to do it after it came out of the dryer).  

And last night, I did all of the Thank You cards for my baby shower (which I still need to download the pictures from and post about because it was awesome).  I sat on the couch and only got up to get my dinner plate, go to the bathroom, and take off my pants (because who wears pants in their own house?).  

Of course I had some help reading off addresses from my computer...

I finally finished at 10:15 which was WAY past my bedtime.  At which point, my hand looked like this:

Oh the joys of being left-handed.  Gotta love smearing ink all over the place.  I still have ink on my hand after several attempts to wash it off.  Also, my hand constantly wants to claw up like that.  I haven't done that much hand-writing in a LONG time.  (Side note: it is shockingly difficult to take a picture of the side of your hand.)

Tonight's task, finish recovering the STUPID GLIDER!  I don't know why this task has me at a stand-still.  One more reason that I just need to get it done so I can move on to other, more enjoyable, projects.

A Bad Dream

I've had some weird pregnancy dreams.  Some of them have been so weird that when I wake up and tell Phil, he looks at me and says, "Yeah... don't repeat that to anyone."

So I don't.

Last night, I had a bad dream.

I dreamt that I had the baby right now, he was 16 pounds (which is terrifying) and then he died.

Obviously, the dream woke me up.  Unfortunately, it returned every time I fell back asleep for the rest of the night.

I hate dreams like that.  You wake feeling vulnerable and scared.  It doesn't matter that I know the odds of any of those things happening is extremely small (especially the part about having a 16 pound baby).  The emotions during the dreams are so strong, you just can't shake them.

This was definitely not a great way to start my day.

Thankfully, the little man has been doing everything he can to let me know that he is more than alright.  We've had a nice little morning of lots of gentle little movements.  Nothing painful or jarring (not like last night when he moved into a position that made it totally impossible to sit down without pain).

Already, he's such a good boy.  :)

{From our February ultrasound.  

He can go ahead and stay in there until he's good and ready to greet the world.  

But hopefully that's before he weighs 16 pounds.}

Weekend Happenings

I had the best of intentions for this weekend.  I was going to get so many things done.  So many nursery projects, including recovering the stupid glider cushions.  Want to know how many I did?

NONE.

Zero.  Zip.  Nada.

I did, however, manage to run some errands, do all of our laundry, get the house dusted, Phil vacuumed, cleaned the kitchen floors, and cleaned the kitchen sink (again).  The one thing I did do that could be considered baby related was that I washed the waterproof mattress cover and got it on the bed.  Does that count?  I'm counting it.

Here's what did happen:

-  Cotton found a new place to lay down.  Totally normal.

-  We got a Kuerig and it has only strengthened my love of drinking out of a mason jar.

-  My NEED for French Toast took over Sunday morning.  And I refused to go out to breakfast and pay for it when I could make it just as well at home.  It was delicious.

 -  All it took was an hour at the park to finally tucker out the crazy pup and get my puppy snuggles.  That's Cotton, resting his head on my belly and the babe.  Turns out, Baby Janney wasn't a huge fan and he kicked like crazy until Cotton moved his head.

Despite my lack of productivity, I'm going to say it was a wonderful weekend.

Lack of Weekend Plans

It's a little strange to me just how much I am looking forward to this weekend.  It's not like we have anything special going on.  In fact, it is the exact opposite.

It's the first weekend since the beginning of January that we have NOTHING planned.  And that weekend in January shouldn't even count because we were so busy getting ready to not have free weekends that we have a really busy weekend.  So let's say it is the first free weekend we have had since the beginning of December.  That's really more accurate.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE weekend plans.  We have been so blessed to get to spend time with people we love and care about.  But there is also something really nice about doing nothing, amiright?

There's absolutely no way we will be doing nothing this weekend, however.  Nesting along with the realization that we really could have a baby in like 5 weeks (not likely but possible) has given me more motivation to finish the nursery, clean every piece of laundry, and scrub every corner of the house probably all in one day.

This post really has no purpose other than the fact that I am SO EXCITED that I can do whatever I want this weekend.  :)  It's not like I'll be sitting on the couch, watching TV, eating ice cream.  Here's a brief list of the things I am hoping to get done this weekend:

-  Sleep
-  A little baby shopping
-  Finish the chenille baby blanket and write post about it
-  Work on wall hangings for nursery
-  Get carseat out of the box
-  Make carseat cover
-  Make Bobby slipcover
-  Make Cincinnati Chili
-  Recover glider cushions
-  Make pillow cover for glider pillow


There's pretty much no way I can get all of that done.  But I have the time to try.  :)

And I'm going to join these guys:

That is definitely happening.

Ok I'm done talking.

It Was Only a Matter of Time...

It was only a matter of time.

Cotton finally figured out how to start the, shall we say... "dance of love" with Taylor yesterday morning.

He's been getting close to figuring it out for a while now.  He'll stand up on Taylor, as a way to coax her into playing with him.  It basically never works.  Taylor's not into that kind of thing.

Or at least we thought.

You know what doesn't send the right message?  Licking his Cotton balls, if you catch my drift.

Such a tease.

We will be doing our best to prevent this behavior, but it's hard when she's not exactly stopping him either.  Thankfully, he usually tries to come at her from the front.  Little guy doesn't have it all figured out.

{His first day home.  It was so much simpler then.}

Not sure this was the most appropriate post I've ever written.  Whatever.

PS - I'm really hoping this post doesn't generate some weird and disturbing Google Search results for me.

Thursday?

A part of me can't believe it is already Thursday and another part of me can.  This week has been jam-packed with activities and I am seriously looking forward to our weekend that has NOTHING planned for BOTH Saturday AND Sunday.  Whoa that was a lot of caps.  But it needed to be done.  We haven't had an entirely free weekend for at least 10 weeks.  All the free time almost makes me want to cry with joy.

What has this week entailed?  I'm so glad you asked...

I'll just tell you what we did Monday.

To celebrate being finished with our Bradley Class, we decided to take another class!  It was a one-night Baby Care and Feeding Class at the Hospital.  I've never had a newborn before, so I am always ready to soak up more knowledge on how to take care of one.  And since Phil has had VERY little exposure to babies in his life, he really wanted more information.  We are nerds... we like research.

We walked into the class and immediately had to grab a doll to practice with.  Phil grabbed the darkest skinned baby doll available, which I thought was funny.  We then proceeded to talk about how each of us would have some serious concerns if our baby was that color.  I believe Phil said to me that I would have a lot of explaining to do.  I agreed with him.  However, I know this won't be an issue and our child will be as pasty and white as we are.

We passed the class with flying colors and left feeling like we won't actually kill or harm our future newborn with our ignorance.  Money well spent.

The class did, however, completely freak me out about SIDS.  I mean, I had known about SIDS and have actually known someone who lost their baby to SIDS, but it wasn't really something I was too terribly worried about.  If you know me in person, you'd know this is a small miracle.  I'm completely and totally anxious about almost everything.  And class woke the anxiety beast in me.

It just so happens that the next day or so, I saw a couple of bloggers mention the Snuza Halo Baby Movement Monitor and I am seriously considering purchasing it.

Sure, it's over $100 (seriously Amazon raised the price $10 since Phil and I looked at it last night), but I think the fact that I won't be sleeping at all because I'll be monitoring my baby's every breath might make it money well spent.  Therapy costs more than that.

Alright, I just thoroughly talked myself into it.

Do any of you have any experience with a monitor like this one?

Happy Thursday!!

Cleaning is Expensive

Sunday morning I was overcome with an intense need to scrub the kitchen sink, hand scrub the entire kitchen floor, and finish all the laundry.  We have a VERY busy afternoon/evening scheduled, so I needed to move quickly because GOD FORBID any of these super important tasks not be completed.  The world may have come to an end.

Can we say nesting?

I got up, put on my robe, threw my phone in my robe pocket and headed downstairs to eat and start the mad dash to finish my very rational to-do list.

After breakfast, I tackled the sink first (which made the least sense later when I realized that I poured dirty floor water down my recently cleaned sink).  A little Comet, a little elbow grease, and the sink looked like new.  I had however, gotten Comet ALL OVER the front of my robe.

Thank goodness I was doing laundry, I thought to myself.  I'll just throw it in the last load.

Cue 2 hours later... I had cleaned the sink, scrubbed the floor, gotten all the laundry through the wash, folded and put away half of it, cleaned out some kitchen cupboards, one bathroom cabinet, and cleaned off all the kitchen counter tops (I also showered, but that's a minor detail).  It was time to dash out the door.  We wouldn't be home for like 9 hours, so I needed to make sure I had everything I needed.

Where did I put my phone?

Oh crap...  I never checked my robe pocket.  My robe, which was in the washing machine.  About to begin the final spin.  We stopped the cycle and waited (impatiently) for the water to drain so the door would open, knowing that we needed to head out the door.

Please please PLEASE don't let my phone be in there.

Phil and I pull out the sopping wet items from the washer including my phone.  My barely 6 months old iPhone 5.

I was livid.  How could I have done that?  I ALWAYS put my phone in my robe pocket, I should have known better.  How much were they going to charge me for a new phone?  We have been so good about saving money, I really don't want to blow all of it on a new phone.  How am I going to handle not having a phone?  What if someone calls me?

We shoved the phone in a bag of rice, hopped in the car, and sped off for our very busy Sunday afternoon/evening.

I was so mad at myself.  Phil spent pretty much the next several hours trying to calm me down.  It wasn't just the money or the inconvenience, it was the hormones.  And then the spousal guilt.  If the roles had been reversed, I would have been pissed at him and here he was comforting me and not mad at me at all.  It was another example of how wonderful of a man I married and how much growing I need to do as a wife and person.

When we finally got home at 9 Sunday evening, I had calmed down a little, but the hormones kept on pumping.  I'm not sure I ever really calmed down.  And at that point, it had nothing to do with my phone and EVERYTHING to do with how wonderful my husband was.

Phil did some research, told me it wouldn't be as expensive as I originally thought to get it fixed, told me he would take care of it first thing the next morning, got me some cookies and milk, and put me to bed.  He didn't know I stayed up another 2 hours, oscillating between exhaustion and then crying over the kind, thoughtful, and amazing man who loves me.

So here's what I learned from my expensive sink cleaning experience:
1.  My husband is even more amazing than I give him credit for.
2.  I'll never put my phone in the washing machine again.
3.  My husband is the better spouse, and I need to work harder to be better for him.
4.  Pregnancy hormones can be a real B*$#h.

At least my sink looks really good.

*Truth be told, I kind of think this would have happened eventually to me anyway.  If not now, it would have been in like 4 months when I have a newborn and am doing laundry every single day, half asleep.  At least this way, I didn't lose any pictures of my baby (just some of Cotton) and Phil had the time and energy to deal with it for me.  Now I feel like I'm more likely to NOT do it again.

Princess Taylor

Phil sent me this picture today after lunch:

Along with it was the following message:

"I think we may have spoiled dogs.  Hope we are better with our kids."

I'm sorry, is it not normal for dogs to take over entire sofas and lounge on pillows with their paws crossed?  Because that would be news to her.

And I love that she isn't even on the blanket that has been so carefully positioned on the couch so ask to keep dog hair off the neighboring cushions.

Personally, I think she looks pissed no one is fanning her and hand feeding pieces of kibble to her.

She's in for a RUDE awakening when Baby Janney arrives.  Better enjoy it while it lasts, lady.

Puppy Cuddles

Cotton decided to be the cutest puppy EVER last night.

-  He was so excited when I got home, that he wouldn't stay at the front door and wait for me to get inside.  He started walking towards me.  He isn't supposed to walk out the front door, but he was doing it only to come see me.  It was so cute.

-  When I laid down because my head was killing me (stupid allergies), he decided to jump up and sit in the crook of my legs.  Eventually he laid down and rested his head on the side of my knees.

-  When I was finishing eating, he crawled up beside me and PRESSED himself as hard as he could into my side.  There couldn't be any air in between us.

-  I went to bed at about 9 last night.  When I walked up the stairs, he stood at the bottom of the steps, staring at me like, "Momma... where are you going?" then bounded up after me.  Phil put him on the bed and he immediately began rearranging the covers so he could lay down RIGHT next to me.  And there he slept for the next 2 hours, until he heard Phil feed Taylor.

It was my goal to be asleep by 10, but I couldn't get enough of the puppy cuddles.  Usually, he doesn't stay upstairs with me.  He doesn't want to risk missing out on something happening downstairs like the rare chance Taylor will be in the mood to play with him.

But last night, it was all about me and him.  So I did nothing by cuddle and read The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding while watching Friday Night Lights and Baby Janney took a kickboxing class in my uterus.

What to Write?

Blogging has been a bit of a challenge for me lately.  It's a combination of things, really which I will now outline for you (because I know you want to know):

1.  I'm tired.  Like all of the time.  And if we are being honest, I've been tired for almost 2 years, since my thyroid started going bananas.  If you've never dealt with thyroid issues, then you'll just have to believe me when I say it messes with your sleep.  I was just starting to feel great and sleep again when I got pregnant (maybe that had something to do with it, who knows).  I'm not complaining about being pregnant, but more stating a fact that I'm tired and that usually means when I get home I am lucky to get one thing done.  I haven't even touched my computer at home in like 2 weeks.  And I haven't even had the energy to download the pictures and share about the AMAZING baby shower my best friend and sister-in-law threw for me this weekend.  I need to do that.

2.  I'm experiencing a lot of emotions these days.  I wasn't moody/hormonal in the beginning of my pregnancy and I think now I am making up for it.  Poor Phil.  He's handling it like a champ.  But I haven't exactly felt like writing about how I've been feeling.  And it is partially because I'm afraid to admit it and also because it's hard to be vulnerable and open sometimes.  And I worry that people won't want to read about it.

3.  Since I've been too tired to do much, I haven't gotten a lot of progress done on the nursery so I can't blog about that.  And I'm not sure people want to read about my feelings, so I haven't felt like blogging about that.  That pretty much leaves blogging about my dogs.  And I REALLY don't think a ton of people enjoy reading about them as much as they ought to.  They are pretty cool dogs.  I mean, seriously... if you met them, you'd love them.  Everyone does.  I constantly have offers from people to keep Taylor, because she is that good and sweet of a dog.  And Cotton has turned my parents (who are NOT animal people) into his biggest fans. My mom even said she'd come to the dog park with me.  That's unheard of.

Why wouldn't you read to read about this:

Taylor takes the term "loveseat" a little literally, laying all seductively for Cotton.  And it worked:

Dog make-out sesh, on the loveseat.


Why anyone wouldn't be thoroughly entertained by the exploits of our dogs is beyond me.  But whatever.  People can't find the simple joy in things I guess.

Anyway... I've decided that I am going to spend a little time to write a variety of blog posts.  Some will include the teeny tiny baby-steps worth of progress we have made on the nursery.  Some will include the emotional roller-coaster I have been on.  Some will include my new obsession with jars and my dogs.  Whatever.  It's my blog and I can write whatever I want, right?  :)

A Middle Name

While we may not know for certain what Baby Janney's first name will be, we have known for A LONG time what his middle name would be.  I'm pretty sure we both knew what our first born son's middle name would be without ever needing to discuss it.  It was just that clear.

Nicholas

I'm not sure how much I have mentioned it on this blog in the past, but Phil has an older brother named Nicholas (for clarifying purposes, I have an older brother named Nicolas without the "h").  He died about 6 years ago in a car accident.  I think he was almost 26 when he died.

We've always known that this little boy's middle name would be Nicholas, after the uncle that both he and I will never get to meet on Earth.


I met Phil the year after his brother had died.  And while I haven't been around the family long enough to see all of the grieving, I have definitely seen a lot of it.  As anyone can imagine, it has been a long process which I don't think has been made any easier with Phil's dad's Liver Cancer being in the picture.

Yesterday was Nick's birthday.  He would have been 32.  Every year for his birthday, Phil and I go out and have a nice steak dinner (since that is something his brother enjoyed doing).  This year, his birthday falls on a night when we have our Bradley class, so our dinner had to be postponed.

So when it comes to Baby Janney's name, here's what we have so far:

_______ Nicholas Janney

Two-thirds of the way there.

5 Things Friday

Oh Friday... you are beautiful.  Sunny weather (although still chilly) and my baby shower is tomorrow!!  I'm so excited.  Hopefully I remember to bring my camera so I can get lots of pictures.  And even though Wednesday's post was completely random and full of non-sense, I decided to put together a list of some random things that happened this week.

1.  I saw this guy heading down the street yesterday afternoon.

I know the picture is hard to see, but he's wearing long athletic pants, tucked in to some tall moccasin boots, riding a segway (with a helmet, of course), and he's smoking a cigarette (not pictured).  We were both stopped at a stop light, so I HAD to take a picture.  It just isn't something you see every day.

2.  I'm having a current love affair with mason jars right now.  It has something to do with the fact that my sister-in-law got me a Cuppow.  Phil affectionately calls it my adult sippy cup.  Whatever.  I love it.

3.  I'm also extremely into hot tea right now.  Chamomile and decaf English tea (with milk and sugar) are my current must haves.  It's been a good way to still get my liquids without a lot of calories.  And it's relaxing at the same time.  Of course, the tea must be drank in a mason jar.  :)

4.  I made the brilliant move to wear white shirts 3 days in a row this week.  I should have known I would spill on myself at least once if I wore them that much.  So what happened Wednesday?

Dripped tomato juice from my sandwich right onto my belly.  Smooth.

5.  My newest television obsession:  The Americans.  Of course, it took me most of the first episode to realize the protagonists were Russian spies (cause I'm smart like that).  It's ok... I've got it now.  I'm afraid to watch too many episodes at once though because I think it will take my pregnancy dreams to a WHOLE new level and I don't really need that.  I believe that if they wanted to make the show a little more '80s authentic, they would have made Keri Russell wear her hair all crazy curly.  But whatever.  Small details.

My Hippy is Showing: Cloth Diapers

Even though almost everyone around me thinks I'm crazy, I'm pretty resolved in my convictions to cloth diaper.

If I were to breakdown my decisions making process on this topic for you, I would say it is about 85% about cost and 15% about the environment.

It wasn't until I really started looking into cloth diapering vs. disposables that I also found out that cloth diapered babies have fewer diaper rashes and potty-train about 12 months sooner (Joanna actually pointed that one out to me).  I also learned that cloth diapers usually lead to fewer "blow-outs" and that while there seems to be this general idea that if you cloth diaper, you end up handling poop all the time.  Most of my research into cloth diapering has shown that you actually deal with less poop with clothe.

Honestly, the handling poop thing doesn't bother me too much.  Cotton has literally pooped IN MY HAND.  It was not solid.  Like 2 weeks ago I had to wash poop out of Cotton's butt hair.  And dog poop smells so much worse than baby poop in my experience.  That's enough about that.

I thought I would have a hard time convincing Phil that we should cloth diaper and was shocked that he really didn't think it was a crazy idea.  Maybe it's the toxicologist in him, but he was fine with contributing less waste to the local incinerator.  Then I thought FOR SURE we would have to use disposables on the babe at the daycare he will be going to.  Nope.  They will cloth diaper him if we want them to.

I was shocked.  And totally sold.  I think cloth diapering is coming back into fad.

I spent hours online doing research, traded research information with another mom-to-be in our Bradley Class, and was largely swayed by Ashley's experience with cloth diapering her twin girls.  After everything I have looked at, I decided we will go with Flip Diapers.

Ok... So I had my diaper choice figured out.  That was step 1.  Then I thought well what about wipes?  How did reusable wipes work?  If I used disposable wipes, would I have a diaper pale and a garbage can in the nursery?

Thanks to the previously mentioned mom-to-be in our Bradley Class, I had a general idea of what you needed to do reusable wipes.  I still figured I would do disposables.  Cue another few hours of research. I decided if I was going to do the cloth diaper thing, I might as well go all out and use reusable wipes as well.

{Reusable wipes from AsYouStitchBaby on Etsy}

So last night, I really dove into the whole cloth diapering thing and bought a couple of the essentials that we will need:  2 wet bags (one for the diaper bag and one for daycare) and the reusable wipes.  I'm hoping to get the clothe diapers at my baby shower this weekend.

A couple of built-in caveats here:
1.  I don't think we will be cloth diapering exclusively, 100% of the time.  When we travel, we will use disposables.  There's no way I am getting on a plane and staying at a hotel with a bag full of poopy diapers.  Or camping?  Yeah no.  And depending what size Baby Janney is at birth, we will most likely be using disposable until he exceeds 8 lbs (which I kind of think he might do on his own from the beginning).

2.  I reserve the right to change my mind completely at any given point.  However, the fact that I'm cheap plays a pretty big role here.  If I do decide to switch to disposables, it will be because we have suddenly come into some money and/or the convenience of disposables beats out my cheapness/environment conscious (which is entirely possible).

HOWEVER, I feel like I will stick with cloth diapering just because my family thinks I'm crazy for doing it.  I'm stubborn like that.  :)

If you have any questions about cloth diapering, shoot me an e-mail or comment.  Obviously I don't have the hands-on experience yet, but I can point you towards the information I have found.  I know I have lots of questions like How do you wash them?  Got that one figured out.

Mid-Week Randomness

I've had even more blog silence than I normally do the last couple of days.  Honestly, we spent the weekend staying home, away from the ever-growing amount of sick people.  Phil and I each had a list of things we needed to get done.  His included one nursery project and some work.  My "list" involved reading a book for our Bradley class.

I made it through the book.  But that is hardly anything to blog about.  BELIEVE ME.  It was one of those books that was twice as long as it needed to be.  Similar to Twilight, in my opinion.  It's actually a book for the husbands to read, but Phil is so crazy busy right now, he doesn't have the time.  So basically, I read it, told him some things I was reading and then pointed out the 2 chapters I felt were really important that he should read.

Nesting is really starting to descend upon me.  This is evident by the fact that I have cleaned the bath tub more times in the last 3 weeks than I did in the last 3 months, the laundry is all caught up and folded, and I'm having a really strong urge to scrub (by hard) all non-carpeted surfaces.

I've been fighting the urge to nest because I feel like one of the best defenses against getting sick is to rest and drink as many fluids as I can stand.  So far, this is working for me.  I thought a lot of people were sick last week, but it only got worse as the days progressed.  Barely anyone in my office is healthy at the moment.  I feel doomed.  It's likely to strike at the worst possible moment (like right before my baby shower or my maternity pictures or something).

Wish me luck staying healthy!