Overdue...

I am sure there are many of you, possibly thousands, sitting anxiously on the edges of your seats, wondering, "Is Jessy's precious crib finished as her dutiful husband so promised it would be come January 29th, the official due date for said crib?" Unfortunately, adoring fans, I have sad, sad news. The crib is, as we say in the baby business, overdue. If that doesn't paint a clear enough picture for you, then let me put it plainer: the crib is in pieces, sitting unfinished in my basement. Yet, somehow Josh is now on a plane to Utah where he will enjoy a fun ski weekend with his entire family while I sit here, staring at my unfinished crib and my empty nursery, sobbing into my pillow alone at night. Don't worry about me, though; I'm not bitter. I am, however, 8.3 months pregnant and crying does come easily these days. Hopefully, my little baby boy will be more cooperative than his crib and come ON TIME (and finished)! And, hopefully, he will have somewhere to lay his little head at night once he does arrive.

P.S. In all fairness to Josh, he hasn't finished the crib because he has been helping me with other projects: moving our office downstairs, painting the nursery and helping me make some art creations for the baby's room. But let's face it--when one is this pregnant and this hormonal, one will very rarely be fair. (By the way, I will post pictures of my art creations soon and I am sure you will be AMAZED with these artistic renditions, speculating how long I've been a closet artist and why I've been hiding it so).

Letter to Willy...

Dear Baby Willy,

If you could be so kind and please see that you do the following for me, I would appreciate it greatly:

• Please, oh, please, stop pressing on my bladder. I MUST stop: waking up every two hours to use the restroom, going through a roll of toilet paper a day, knowing the fastest and quickest route to any given bathroom in all public arenas and, worst of all, I MUST, MUST, MUST stop wetting myself every time I laugh, cough, cry, blink, think, drink....
• Please, oh, please, kindly remove your feet from my ribs. It is imperative that I breathe and this rib-kicking is making it mighty difficult.
• Please, oh, please, STOP growing. I am determined that you will: A. be a small, 6-lb. baby, B. have a teeny-tiny head and C. be extra slippery. However, the doctors are telling me that A. you are a BIG boy, B. I am a BIG girl (as in extra heavy) and C. you are mighty comfy in this home I've created for you.
• Finally, please, oh, please, come on or before your due date. And while you're at it, see to it that you get here quickly, safely and, most of all, healthy (all while I am happily drugged with my heaven-sent epidural)!!!

I can't wait to meet you. See you in four weeks! (Or before, right?)!!!!

Love, Your Mama

Crib Progress!

Happy Day, there is actually something to report on the crib front! Since Josh is the self-proclaimed king of procrastination, he has left the crib-making to the very last minute. And we are getting to the last minute, people. So, alas, he has rallied his efforts and started fiendishly working on said crib. (Plus, it doesn't hurt that he has a little incentive: a ski trip to Utah. His dad and brother are going skiing the first weekend of February and I told him, of course he could go, as long as the crib was finished so I could spend the weekend getting the nursery ready). Well, it worked like a charm and finally the crib is really coming along (this week there was some slow progress because he thought he lost the special router wrench that can change out the bits; without it, he was at a stand-still. After going through every bag of trash and then searching everywhere, he finally ordered a new one on the Internet. Then, on Saturday when he was working on something else at the table saw, he found it hidden inside a crevice of the saw. I knew instantly when he found it because I can hear everything through the vents when he is working in the basement--we even communicate that way--like I say, "Luke, I am your Father" and Josh swears I sound just like Darth Vader.....Anyway, I was upstairs, reading in our bedroom two floors up and I hear this, "Oh (insert your favorite expletive...just like Josh)! Are you kidding me?!!!" through the vents. I knew he must have found the wrench and so I ran downstairs and sure enough, he had).

Sooooooo, ladies and gentlemen, for your viewing pleasure, behold the beauty that is the crib-in-progress. Josh did a "dry fit" of the crib and it's so fun because it actually looks like a crib. He still needs to route the edges to make them look more polished and add some decorative elements and, of course, I will paint it, but it is well on it's way to being fit to house our little baby Willy. Nice work, Joshy, and please, please, keep it up. For those of you keeping tabs, the official "due date" for the crib is January 29th (the day before he leaves on ski trip)!

Here is Josh, posing by the crib. In his defense, I always make him do a fancy pose. However, how he poses is his choice. I guess today he just felt like showing off a little leg.

The Holiday Armadillo!

We had a lovely, wonderful, relaxing and low-key holiday celebration, complete with NO PICTURES! Shocking, I know, but our camera battery died, so I will just have to describe it all in such vivid detail that it will be like a picture in your head. Since I was not willing to fork over thousands of dollars for a day-long plane trip that would leave me crippled from intense discomfort, Josh and I decided to just hang out back East for the Holidays, traveling to his brother Nate's house in Vermont. And, since Josh is trying to save up all his vacation days for when Little Willy comes, we were only there for a few short days. However, in those few short days we sure had a grand time. Here are the highlights:

• SLEDDING. Yes, even I ventured down the hill, screaming like a school-girl the entire way, mind you. The hill: not so big. The tuber (me): oh, so big. The screams: even BIGGER. The walk back up the slopes: the biggest of all. I guess you know pregnancy has taken its toll when you need to be pulled back UP the wimpy sledding hill. At least I had company; little Beth wouldn't walk back up the hill either. Then again, she IS just three. (I actually did walk up the hill, taking many breaks on the way up and huffing and puffing the whole way. I'm not sure anyone COULD have pulled me at this point).
• EATING. Of course we ate. And then we ate and ate and ate some more. The best part about this eating, though, was WHAT we ate. On Saturday morning, Amy and I decided to head to COSTCO (crazy, on the Saturday before Christmas) and get all the fixins' for a grand Christmas meal: turkey, stuffing, corn, rolls, etc. For Christmas Eve we thought we'd just go out to a fancy restaurant. Well, then we realized we were poor, thus the restaurant was out, and thus for Christmas Eve dinner we had quite the random smorgasbord: 'Lil Smokies, chips and dip, Casear salad, peanut-noodle salad, stir-fry and yummy homemade French Onion soup. And boy was it tasty. So tasty that guess what we decided to have for Christmas dinner? LEFTOVERS! Yes, round two was just as good as round one and oh, so little effort, which both us wives (being preggo) delighted in.
• SINGING. Who was singing? Why, Little Beth, of course! Every morning at around 8:00, we were awoken by the beautiful voice of Beth, singing at the TOP of her lungs, "Glo-o-o-o-o-o-o-ria, in every day-o" over and over and over again. Since we were all comfy in our warm beds and she seemed content in her crib, we just let her sing and sing. And don't worry if you're thinking she didn't get enough singing. When she woke up from her nap, she sang some more and, of course, she sang the same thing. It's a good thing she has such a sterling voice.
• WATCHING. We watched many a good show from "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (I got that for Joshy for Christmas) to "Christmas Vacation", but the best thing we watched was Beth opening all our Christmas presents. Since it was just the five of us and since, as stated above, we are all poor, there really weren't a whole lot of presents to be opened. However, it took us quite a long time to open the presents since we let Beth open every one of them. Of course, we made her stand in front of the person receiving the gift so they could watch, but on the whole, she opened them all and, of course, she LOVED it! Baby Willy had quite a few presents under the tree and she loved opening those as well. I do love Christmas with kids. So, entertaining!

Well, folks, there you have it. Our Christmas 2007 summed up in vivid detail. I'm sure that my expert writing created such a vision in your mind's eye that it was BETTER than pictures. Though Nate and Amy never read this blog, we'll send a shout out to them anyway, saying thanks for a grand Christmas vacation. Fun was had by all....

P.S. Our New Year's was fun, too, spent in Conneticut with the Palmers--even if we did get caught in a snow storm and it took us four hours to get home. We did have fun, though, playing in the Andros/Palmer family Olympics (which, no matter what anyone else says, Josh and I won), eating, (ironically enough, 'Lil Smokies and chips and dip), and playing with their cute, cute kids. Thanks, Palmers!