Erin Shaw Street

Maternity Shots

I'm posting some pictures that were taken when I was at 30 weeks -- check out the "Baby" Album to the right. I'm much bigger now! The pictures were taken by Shea Miller, who is a talented Birmingham artist and mom of two.

Today during my first weekly doctor visits leading up to the big day the doctor said she thinks that he has flipped -- he was side-to-side -- and is now head down. We'll know more when we go next week for the 35 week visit. I feel like he is getting huge, leaving little room for me to eat and breathe. Phew!

An Afternoon at the Swan Coach House

Just returned from Atlanta, where yesterday Stephanie and Manisha threw me a lovely luncheon. It was at the Swan Coach House, a historical former coach house (hence the name) that has the most amazing chicken salad, which we enjoyed Link to the Swan Coach House . Mom and I drove over, Syl came up from Gulf Breeze, and Terry and Ashley joined us too. Stephanie's mom Carol was there and Manisha brought baby Nikhil, who is now in the lead for Cutest Baby of 2006. (When our baby arrives they can share the title.)

Nikhil is so animated and has a full head of hair. His magnetic personality drew in all the women at the table and around us -- he's a charmer! I enjoyed holding and chatting with him. Mom thought I might drop him but I pulled out my Red Cross Babysitting Certification experience and did just fine.

It was really nice to have everyone gathered together. Big shout outs to Stephanie and Manisha for hosting such a fun lunch -- it really meant a lot! For more photos, see "Atlanta Luncheon" photo album at right

After words, Stephanie Mom and I went to IKEA IKEA Online  . I am embarrassed to say I've never been to the Swedish superstore (and I call myself a hipster -- here is proof I most certainly am not) and it was everythign I imagined and more. I was sucked into their linen section and came back with bags of vital new household items, a clear response to my ever increasing nesting. 

The night was capped off by dinner at the one and only Steak and Shake (actually there are a lot of them but just not in Birmingham), where I had a most healthy burger, fries *and* onion rings. And chocolate shake. It's probably for the best they don't have those here.

Oh -- we also went to Walgreens where Mom cleared the shelves of their entire stack of Puffs To Go, which my dad is obsessed with and which they no longer carry around here. He has written about his epic quest for the Puffs To Go on his blog, and I highly encourage a visit to his site to read about it Dad's blog . I think they might hire him for PR.

It's Hard Out There For A Greek

At least five people shot at a fraternity party in Columbia. All I have to say is we never had to worry at a Mortar Board or Women's Student Association meeting. But they'd cut you if you wouldn't participate in Into The Streets.

Fraternity shooting at South Carolina

Prepared Childbirth Class

We are official graduates of Brookwood Hospital's Prepared Childbirth Class. I don't know if I am any wiser or more knowledgeable on the subject, but I sure have had my fill of instructional videos. This is the class where you see the video of the birth. Like the instructor said, 20 years ago a class like that was the first time many people had seen a baby born, but now with the ever-addictive "Baby Story" and similar shows, it's not so much of a big deal. (Now the separate video showing the animation of a C-section was a little more up close and personal than I'd gotten from TV. Wow, I think I'd rather not know the details.)

All in all, between the Internet and a booming pregnancy-labor magazine/book industry, there's more information than ever, and these classes seem almost obsolete. The most useful thing for me was actually seeing the rooms and learning about a few hospital-specific procedures (Shane was very intense about making sure he understood where the drop-off is for labor and we drove by it just to make sure.)

One of the things that sort of bothers me is that this hospital sort of seems medication crazy. It's just assumed you will get an epidural (95% of their patients do). When we had specific questions about risks related to that the instructor couldn't answer them, and really downplayed them. You got the sense that people who were considering non-epiduralized birth were crazy. To give the hospital credit, they do offer an unmedicated childbirth class, which we took. The biggest thing that I struggle with is that it seems to be difficult to find a good source of unbiased information on the topic of medicated vs. unmedicated childbirth -- people really have strong views and are quite judgemental of the other sides. I feel like I need to do one more search of the medical literature for more answers just so I know the numbers better.

Although the list for preparing for the baby is loooong, I decided to use the rest of my afternoon to hunt down a cool and functional pair of shoes that one of the women in my class was wearing. I can't decide if they truly pull off the sassy trainer look or are mom shoes. I told my mom I thought they were "mom shoes" and she said, "Well you are going to be a mom. Right." But I still want to be hip. Is that so wrong?

Speaking of hip, I was sad to see that Oleg Cassini died ABC News Story . I think Jackie welcomed him at the pearly gates wearing her inaguration gown and pillbox hat.

All Sorts of Good TV

There was so much good TV last night I didn't know what to do about it. Of course I didn't get to watch it all till tonight (thank you TiVo). My thoughts: "The L Word" was powerful. Truly shocked that one of the main characters died from breast cancer -- I just didn't think they were going to go there. I disagree with the post-show pats on the back as if they were the first ones on television to talk about that specific disease, but do give them credit for showing realities of diagnosis and treatment. It would have been easy to wrap that up with the character (Dana, see photo) getting better, but they took us through the entire process. Now if other shows would address other forms of the disease we'd be making progress.

After five years of not watching and even actively loathing "The Sopranos," I've given into it. (I pretty much know all the characters now since Shane has watched each episode 4567 each in reruns). Have to say that I was impressed by that one too, especially with Tony's uncle shooting him in a delirious state. Stay tuned.

Still haven't made it through the pilot of "Big Love." Giving it a chance, especially because the brilliant Mark Mothersbaugh (who did the music for "Royal Tennenbaums" and other Wes Anderson films) is doing the music. Despite the fact that it has annoying Choele "Look at me at fashion week" Sevigney.

Speaking of TV, this just in ... Peter Tomarken, host of one of my all time favorite game shows, "Press Your Luck" (aka, "No Whammies!") died in a plane crash today.
Press Your Luck Host Dies

There's No Shame In This Game

I can't believe that we've come to this.  It used to be that on a warm spring night we might go out for a late dinner and then open a bottle of wine. Next thing you know I'm standing over Shane holding a black light in our pitch dark house while he says, "Wow, look at all the places Lola peed on the carpet!" It's terrible I know, but also terribly funny in a way. Since the dogs regressed with their housebreaking we've tried about everything to clean the carpet. Today I finally caved and bought "Urine Gone," "As Seenon TV." I highly encourage anyone with a similar issue to at least visit the website and watch the cheesy infomercial As Seen On TV! . It's too early to tell if it's actually worked to get the stains up, but it was great fun to see them all glowing in the dark. Sort of like riding on the Pirates of the Carribean or the Haunted Mansion.

Then again, it's not good to get a person this pregnant even more freaked out about how not clean her house is. I'm calling a new cleaning person first thing tomorrow. Urine, be gone!

Nursery Progress

 The furniture has arrived and the nursery is starting to come together. I've uploaded some  photos in the  "Baby " album to the right and will continue to add more as we  add the finishing touches. I'm really excited about the furniture --  the crib is super solid. Here's a picture of me in the super comfotable chair . Lola  is asking  "Who is this Little Prince and what's in it for me?" In the crib is the one and only Skipper Puppy.  In the past day we've also assembled the stroller, which is super fly, and picked a pediatrician.  We're also working hard on the rest of the house, and I hope to have pictures up of the inside soon.

Oscar Thoughts

First of all I can't believe I stayed up to watch the whole show.  We are thrilled that "Crash" won best picture because you know what --  it was. "Brokeback Mountain" was a good book but totally overrated as a film. Also happy to watch "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp" performed to interpretive dance -- wow. (I bought the soundtrack yesterday and giggle when I blast it in my car.) And pretty amazing that they won best song.

Did not like ... Reese Witherspoon (would you cut the self-righteous, "down-home" Tennessee thing) and her annoying underbite; Michelle Williams' canary yellow dress and red lipstick (but she does look good having just had a baby), Issac Mizrahi on E!'s red carpet (stick to designing for Target, IM).

I'm off to the after party now, Hoover style, aka, sleep.

A Sneak Peak

Here's a glimpse of the baby taken earlier in the week with 4-D ultrasound. You can clearly see the shape of his face, eyes and a bit of his nose, then the rest of his face gets a bit obscured. It took us three visits to get this one down! I only looked at the photo 5678 times that day!

Today is 32 weeks and I have officially become crazy with a term most call "nesting." I think it's just a bit of insanity, namely focused on an obsessive need to find curtains and decorate the entire house.  I haven't gotten into organizing or cleaning everything, but am convinced that if I don't have things aesthetically working the universe will be out of whack. This doesn't make any sense and I know that logically but that doesn't matter. I look at my t0-do lists, glance at the calendar and wonder why TJMaxx isn't open 24/7. Part of me just wants to say, "whatever" and spend the weekend seeing all the Oscar films we haven't seen, but I can't turn away from Linens N Things and Nate Berkus' picture smiling in such an inviting and evil way. Why Nate Berkus, why!