Updates for 38 weeks...

Here are some more pictures. The room is mostly done, with only a few finishing touches here and there. I am planning on moving in all the furniture and organizing her stuff this week. I think the room turned out really adorable.

38 weeks

Two weeks to go! Khloe is about the length of a leek now, 19 1/2 inches long, and approximately 6.8 pounds. I don't know if she is really that big, but that is the average. By now she has a firm grasp and her organs are matured and ready for life outside! So it seems like now all we are really doing is waiting for her to be ready to be born.

The boys are replacing base boards and outlets as I am typing this, so her room is almost ready for her. Woohoo! I am very grateful for all the hard work they are doing.

Khloe's Room in progress.

Eric and his brother BJ have been working really hard to get the painting and texturing done in Khloe's room. Eric goes to work on Wednesday, so we are hoping to be able to move furniture in by tomorrow evening. In the room, there is one wall that is green with a white stripe, and the other walls are white with a green stripe. On the white walls, Eric decided to paint orange and yellow flowers in three different sizes above the stripe. It think it looks really adorable in her room.

Eric had one wisdom tooth pulled last week and another one pulled today, so I am amazed he has been wanting to work so much in her room. He is getting just as excited as I am.

If she is born on her due date, then in Eric's next set of days off, we'll have a baby! I am actually hoping that she will come early, like the 4th or 5th of February, since that is the beginning of Eric's seven days off. We'll see.

I am open to suggestions of not creepy or disgusting ways to help start labor. I have done some reading online, and some of the home remedies for trying to start labor have horrible side-effects, like severe diarrhea or hemorrhaging. No thanks...

I went to the doctor today, and he said nothing is going on yet...I'll be pregnant for at least another week. That is ok, but I am hoping for not too much longer than that.

Starbucks Pledge 5

http://pledge5.starbucks.com/

A free tall coffee for promising to do five hours of volunteer work. Go Starbucks.

37 weeks

This week, Khloe is considered full-term! Yahoo! On average, she should weigh 6 1/3 pounds and measures a bit over 19 inches, head to heel, like a stalk of swiss chard. She could even have a full head of hair by now.

Eric and his brother BJ have been really working hard in her room, even to the point of starting painting this morning at 4am! That is dedication. Eric has decided that he wants to paint some orange and yellow flowers in her room, also, so I am expecting it to look really cute.

I was not surprised when I was bitten by the "cutsie little girl" bug, but it has caught me a little off guard that Eric is getting it so bad. We are both growing more and more excited with every day that passes.

36 weeks

Four weeks to go! Khloe should be as big as a crenshaw melon this week (like I really know what that is). She should be about 6 pounds and 18 1/2 inches long. At the end of this week, she can be considered "full-term." Time is really going by quickly.

People often have been asking me how have I been feeling...well, I feel pretty pregnant, but not too bad I guess. I am sure people have felt worse at this point. I have been pretty tired, but I suppose that is normal. I am trying to work a little bit still. I am also getting more and more excited and impatient. Eric and his brother have started working in Khloe's room to fix some of the bad texture places on the walls, and I have all the base boards painted. As soon as Eric is off work again, we hope to get the room ready enough to where we can move in furniture.

I think I definitely have nesting syndrome...Tuesday night I slept horribly, and had Braxton-Hicks contraction for more than 6 hours straight. They were almost consistently six minutes apart. I was not convinced, but considered the possibility that she could come sooner than expected. So around 4 in the morning when Eric was getting up to go to work, I was worrying about my whole family not have any clothes to wear, since we have a big fat pile of dirty laundry. My clothes and Eric had piled up, and I have not washed Khloe's yet because I don't have any where to put them yet. Needless to say, Wednesday saw a lot of laundry getting done and a lot of house cleaning. Good things came out my craziness!

35 weeks

Here is my little honeydew melon baby! Khloe should be about 5 1/4 pounds and 18 inches long. She should weigh as much as a honeydew melon. This is also the first time I have actually had on hand the fruit or veggie for comparison purposes. I have a honeydew in the fridge right now waiting to be sliced up so I really feel her approximate weight. (Like I am not already caring it!)

Her kidneys are fully developed now and her liver is able to process waste. She just need to keep gaining weight and fattening up.

I don't have a doctor's appointment this week, but I start the birthing class tomorrow. Eric is on nights still, so he will miss it, but my mom can go and be my partner so I won't be alone. Time is zipping by.

I'll end this post with a quote from a classic movie...

"To me it's like a lullaby... I'm just flying by... Oh so high... like a kite... tied to a skate..."

Who can name it?

I knew sleeping late was good for me...

3 Smart Things About Sleeping Late

By Daniel Dumas 12.22.08

Start

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1 // You may need more sleep than you think.
Research by Henry Ford Hospital Sleep Disorders Center found that people who slept eight hours and then claimed they were "well rested" actually performed better and were more alert if they slept another two hours. That figures. Until the invention of the lightbulb (damn you, Edison!), the average person slumbered 10 hours a night.

2 // Night owls are more creative.
Artists, writers, and coders typically fire on all cylinders by crashing near dawn and awakening at the crack of noon. In one study, "evening people" almost universally slam-dunked a standardized creativity test. Their early-bird brethren struggled for passing scores.

3 // Rising early is stressful.
The stress hormone cortisol peaks in your blood around 7 am. So if you get up then, you may experience tension. Grab some extra Zs! You'll wake up feeling less like Bert, more like Ernie.