31-35 Weeks - Fruit of the Womb

From four navel oranges to a large jicama (a wha?) to a pineapple to a cantaloupe to now, a honeydew melon, my little chica has grown leaps and bounds since my last update and... holy crap. I am a serious blog slacker. Between work demanding of all of my daytime energy and all this "getting ready" for baby, I just have not had the time nor will to spend anytime online. But - I think about blogland often and I'm damnwell determined to keep some sort of log on this pregnancy stuff. After all, I want to look back next time around to see how "easy" I had it!

Really though, I am a case study for the perfect pregnancy. I feel really bad for all the women out there who have not had such an easy time and believe me, I AM extremely fortunate. I've been comfortable 95% of the time and I have not thrown up ONCE. Aside from the non-stop urge to pee, some icky sinus issues, this protruding belly, and the now incessant kicks / flips / jabs going on down there, I am virtually symptom free. Sometimes, its almost possible for me to imagine myself NOT pregnant... not that I ever do that because I am absolutely infatuated with this little baby girl in my belly. My only hope now is that I won't have to pay in labor because I hace had such a glorious 9 months!

I am obsessed with baby movements... and she feeds my cravings quite often. She's probably around 5.5-6 pounds right now so her former little wave like movements have become much more pronounced and impossible to ignore. At any given moment, I am known to stop dead in my tracks to patiently watch my belly for pokes and rolls of baby underneath my skin. It is totally wild and NEVER gets old.

We had our baby shower a couple weeks ago and it was absolutely amazing. I have the most amazing family and friends who went above and beyond the "normal" shower duties to create an adorable and classy affair. They stuck with my jungle animal theme (MONKEYS!) and created a little safari event... as displayed below:


My beautiful 3 tiered, monkey cake! AND, it tasted as good as it looked!


A diaper cake... not edible but equally adorable!


Centerpieces... stuffed jungle animals for our baby!




Clotheslines full of the most adorable little outfits!


The Baby Daddy made an appearance... at the end, of course!

Not to mention, the loot... holy moly. I was opening for hours, it seemed. We are just now coming out from under the pile of goods.

I cannot express enough gratitude to my Mom, sister in-law, mother in-law, and BFFs for putting together such a PERFECT and humbling baby shower. I am so blessed. And I love you all.

The past 3 weekends have been devoted to all things baby - laundry, organizing, assembling, and shopping (or making returns) have been our favorite hobbies as of late. But - we are nearly finished. Last things include: cleaning our cars, getting last minute baby room goods, assembling the pack n' play and bouncy seat, finishing the baby room artwork, and packing the hospital bags.

Speaking of, I've been sort of stressed out about what to pack. I am a prepared queen - I don't like to be without anything that I might need or want. In the same sense, I am trying NOT to pack a suitcase's worth of stuff because I know I'll have no energy to unpack or deal with it once we're home. I'll post my list once I finalize it... it may help some other mommies to be out there but mostly, it will help me make some decisions about what to bring and what NOT to bring.

We attended an all day childbirth class this weekend, held at our hospital of choice. I had heard a range of reports on this class and none were all that positive so the hub and I had low expectations when we went into it. But - I must say, I am very happy we attended and I feel that I learned a lot more about what is going to go down in delivery... and NOT in a bad way. It did get a little weird at the end when they turned the lights off and had us all in "labor rehearsal". Really... I just don't feel its something you can "pretend". In any case, another notch on our belt of becoming informed parents.

So - that's about the gist of it, in long-winded, overdue fashion! We are EXTREMELY excited about how close we are... its hard to believe we'll be meeting our baby girl in just 5 weeks!