Sausage

I have sausage feet. Well, foot. And hands. I thought I had escaped symptom #43 when my Thanksgiving travel bloating went away after a few days. I think I have maybe two pairs of shoes that I can still stuff these swollen dogs into. Even my running shoes are feeling snug these days. Just add it to the list. I think I have had almost every possible symptom of pregnancy. There are a lot of them.

However, I am totally feeling a second (third? fourth?) wind going into these last few weeks. As physically uncomfortable as it is making me, I want Cletus to stay in there a while longer. I can finally count down the weeks till my due date one one hand. It has been exactly eight months since my last period. I can handle a bit more waiting. And since I was told at our last check-up that Cletus is average-sized, I am not afraid that waiting will yield a monster baby. (Darien maintains that it would be cool if we had a 10-pounder, but I am not convinced that is a goal worth striving for.)

Alas, the tree is now bare and all the decorations have been put away until next year. Christmas is really for children, don’t you think? Normally, I would mourn the end of the holidays knowing that we have several months of bleak, dark winter ahead, but this year we have so much to look forward to. We’ll have our little one in a few short weeks. My brother-in-law and his wife are expecting in June. My closest cousin will be wed in October. It will be a year of newness and adventure.

Cletus continues to make his presence known. He seems to be settled in on my left side. I think because my torso is so short, he doesn’t have enough room to put his feet up under my ribs. Instead, his little feet kick out to my right side. Sometimes it feels so far towards my back I wonder where my internal organs have gone. Shouldn’t there be a kidney or something there? Occasionally, I feel little fists down near my right hip, usually when I’m sitting or leaning over. Most noticeable is his cute baby butt, which sits right at the top of my uterus. That’s usually how we find him.

After I put away the Christmas things yesterday, I indulged my nesting instinct and began to clean and organize the rest of the apartment. I packed up the broken crib (I expect the new one to arrive Monday). I cleared out one side of the cabinets by our bed and made that the baby section. I made a book section, which also houses our birth supplies for now, a diapering station with room (hopefully) for the full complement of clean diapers, then separated the rest of our stuff into three drawers: sling, bath, and bedtime; clothes; and toys. Over the past few days, in addition to making Bacon, I also finished making our cloth wipes, so those are tucked into the diapering shelf, too. Half of them were washed last week, and the second half will be cleaned this weekend. I just need to write our name on them so we can drop them in with our diapers and have a good chance of getting them returned to us by the diaper service.

I dusted, vacuumed, steam cleaned the floors, organized the desk, filed papers, sorted through the dog supplies, tidied up our closets, organized our tools, and neatened up my knitting supplies. I even tightened the screws on our self-assembled furniture. I may have overdone it, as I’m definitely feeling a little sore today, but now I feel like I would be OK with a baby being in this apartment. We have done a lot of reading. Been to hours of childbirth classes (The first of our class had their baby on the 28th!). Kept monthly prenatal appointments. Tried to be diligent about our diet. I’ve taken my vitamins and probiotics. I’ve exercised. We planned this pregnancy. We researched birth. This is a highly anticipated, already loved baby. I think we’re as ready as you can ever be to become parents for the first time.

Now, I think I can allow work to occupy my time and brain space while Cletus decides when he’s ready to meet us. Tax season is coming up, you know, and who wants to deal with taxes when there’s a newborn to attend to? I know what I’ll be doing over the next few weeks.

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