we'll take a cup of kindness yet...

I just read last year's New Year's post... wow. I don't think a life could possibly be more different in the span of a year as mine has become. It just goes to show that you never know what can happen to you. I don't have much more to say than that. I'm looking forward to a great weekend with friends and an amazing year, filled with miracles. Love you all! Happy new year!

i'll tell you one and one makes three...

Stuck smack dab in the middle of Christmas and New Year's. I guess it's a better place to be than the week after New Year's. Although, I start training my replacement on January 5th, so work as I know it is pretty much through this week, which is sort of weird. I've been trying to get everything all straightened up with my files the past few days, since the new girl will have access to all my stuff once I leave and I'd like it to make sense to her. I really just hope that I don't go into labor too early, before I've gotten a chance to adequately train her. There's just so much that happens in this job that doesn't happen every day, so three weeks of training might seem like a lot when it really isn't.

Also, my throat hurts and I can't take any medicine to make it feel better. More on this as it develops. Or ceases to develop, which is what I'm hoping for.

I am having a baby in, like, a month... does everyone realize this?

merry christmas, darling...

My cousin, Brian, and his wife, Andrea, had their baby Wednesday. My coworker, Debbie, also had her baby last Thursday. So the two people I have been riding this pregnancy train with now have healthy new babies. This makes me feel good, since their pregnancies both turned out all right. It also makes me jealous, because I want my baby now and I want to not be pregnant for the holidays. Although if, for some reason, she was born now, she would have nowhere to sleep, since the room is still not ready for her and the living room is full of Christmas presents. So it's probably best she chills out a little longer.

My iPhone had a panic attack or something on the bus this morning, while trying to load a pic on Facebook, and now I can't turn it on again. I probably have to stop by the Apple store at some point tonight or tomorrow, because I can't stand being without a phone. I'm afraid the solution is going to be restoring it and it's hooked up to my parents' computer, so I think I have to do it there. I won't be going there until Christmas Eve... grrr.

I am really excited about the holidays this year, especially since I am actually finished with shopping before the week of Christmas. I think Dan and I did really well and we have a TON of presents. Plus, we are having a holiday party on the 26th, then going to a party for New Year's Eve, another one for New Year's Day and then... well, my baby shower is somewhere in there (I'll pretend not to know for the pictures) and then... baby. So we have a lot of exciting things coming up, culminating in probably one of the best things that can happen to two people. Needless to say, I think 2010 might be almost as good as 2009. Time will tell.

dream a little dream of me

I have been having very vivid dreams every night since becoming pregnant. Last night, I dreamed that Fenix Down (along with some other friends) were given the opportunity to go on a spaceship for an undetermined amount of time. I was concerned about going because, a) I didn't know if there would be a doctor onboard to deliver my baby and b) I wouldn't be able to have contact with my parents, nor would they be there when my baby was born. I was having a very rough time making the decision and, in the dream, I was talking to my parents about it in my grandfather's kitchen, at which point, my father told me he had to go back to El Caribe and take back the deposit he had put down for my wedding date because my family had no money. I can't figure out what this had to do with space, but I think everything that happens in my dreams is just making me more and more anxious. I wake up and have to talk about it with Dan right away, just to get it off my mind, no matter how stupid it is. Because I will lay in bed, fully awake, and still be nervous about making this space decision. I'm sure it's because I am anxious about other things (like the living creature that is currently residing in my uterus) but I really wish my mind would let me be nervous about the things it makes sense to be nervous about, and not the possibility of space travel.

Ten weeks to go, people. (That's two and half months, Nan.) This thing is actually happening.

we all just wanna be big rock stars...

Heading to Philly tonight for the Game X Expo tomorrow. Hopefully, just as we're arriving there, the Yankees will have secured the second World Series slot. Maybe I'll bring my Yankees hat, just to make everyone there hate me... but probably not. It's not like it's Boston.

After Friday, I won't be performing with the band, or even practicing, until after the baby is born. I'm kind of excited about the break. Having practice so often lately has been very tiring. But I have a feeling I am going to be really jealous of the girl they are getting to fill in for me. She's seventeen, and I'm sure very pretty and young and not pregnant and very excited about singing in a band. Whereas, I am almost thirty, knocked up and totally not appreciative of all the opportunities I have to sing. sigh... I guess I had my time. And I'm not really old. In fact, I didn't start feeling old until about 6 months ago, but it's hard to feel like a teenager when there's a baby growing inside you.

This is going to be good. I am going to have all my weeknights free to do other things and (mostly) relax and, once Abby's a few months old, I'll be back in the saddle. This is probably going to give me a new passion for the band, since I'll miss it so much. I hope.

help

What's the correct response to "You look pregnant today."?

baby love

It's been about a month and a half since my last posting. I am now very obviously pregnant. My belly looks fake to me, like something you strap onto your waist when you're playing a pregnant woman on TV. What isn't fake, however, (not that the belly is) is the movement inside it. Some days can go by quietly with just a flutter and others have this kid doing jumping jacks in my uterus. I don't know what could possibly get so exciting in there, but I guess when 14 hours of your day is sleeping and the rest is floating around staring at my uterine wall, you have to liven things up a bit. She actually scares me sometimes when I'm not expecting it and I feel, and sometimes see, a swift kick to the inside of me. It doesn't really feel like a kick, and it doesn't hurt... at least not yet. It just feels like the world's worst gas bubble. In the beginning, it was actually hard to differentiate the two. Now, it's pretty easy.

Also, she tends to like chilling on the right side of my stomach, which is why my belly button is now totally off-center, which freaks me out every time I look at it. I think the right side is where she sleeps or something. You can very clearly feel the difference between where she is and where it's only fat underneath. I'm sure that will only become more prominent over the next three and a half months.

That's all I have left. Three and a half months until Dan and I become parents for the rest of our lives. Although honestly, I feel like a parent already. We talk about Abby as if she is already here. It's going to be very odd to have to look into a face when we refer to her and not at my stretched out stomach, complete with popping belly button.

I really liked my deep belly button. I hope I get that back.