- Only 3 weeks til my due date. At my check-up yesterday I asked the midwife if she could estimate the baby's size, and after feeling around a bit she said maybe 7 or 7.5 pounds. If this seems normal to you, awesome, but to me it is hella scary. I was thinking she might would be 7 pounds when she came out and was none too jazzed about that, so now that I know we have probably passed that mark, I am extra freaky outy. I know millions of women do this, but I'm telling you guys, in terms of stretching and accomodating and expelling, it just doesn't seem possible. Also when asked if I was experiencing braxton hicks contractions, I said I don't think so, because there's been nothing especially unpleasant going on, but then she tried to explain how they feel by saying "it's like her rear end is pushing your belly and it gets hard for a minute," and I've been feeling THAT for about a month now. Soooo... I dunno what's going on.
- My right foot, and by about 5pm my left one too, is ready to cry uncle. Y'all, it is so puffy and fat that I can hardly wear a shoe. Any shoe. And I have the narrowest feet in the world, so in most shoes I've got a good bit of wiggle room. I know there are people who can't stand the sight of other people's feet, so I will spare you photographic evidence, but it is ridiculous.
- Fall. It is delicious, and it is coming. We've already made chili and cornbread, chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin scones, and cranberry apple crisp. Much to the dismay of grocers everywhere, it would appear, because apart from Ocean Spray NOBODY sells cranberries in September. I looked high and low for them yesterday, at two different stores, and they are not to be found. What gives? Why not have frozen cranberries year round the same as strawberries and raspberries and blueberries? With all this shopping and cooking I've been doing, it's no wonder my feet swell up like blimps, but you can't not cook delicious things this time of year. The SC State Fair is coming up, and pumpkins and apples and scarecrows and Halloween and Thanksgiving and orange and brown and yellow, and I'm just so excited I could pop. Everybody wear corduroys and drink out of mason jars and have desserts with apples and butter and oats and cinnamon and ice cream! (Once at a mexican restaurant my sister went to, the 'fried ice cream' was a blob of grocery store strawberry ice cream rolled in cornflakes. Cornflakes! Probably do not allow this travesty to be a part of your fall food library.)
- My Mama had a birthday last week, on the 11th. She does not read my blog, because she doesn't know of it, but she is just too great not to talk about. She does every single thing more patiently and thoroughly than I could ever have thought possible and she doesn't complain, and she always knows what's most important and always makes time for her babies, and she gets up every morning to walk on the treadmill, and she does my laundry, and she loves the Sound of Music and petits fours and James Taylor, and she makes room for dessert, and she can take care of everything, and everyone would be lost without her. Most especially me.
Here we are decorating my Christmas tree last year. If you can just ignore the fact that I'm wearing rubber gloves (the tree was stabby!). Also my weird shape (cookies are delicious!). Mama loves Christmas (it was her mama's favorite time of all), and I love her!
