Court, Class, and Chillin'

This past weekend was even crazier weekend than the one before, so allow me to speak of it in three separate parts so as not to overwhelm you with the random nature of our activities...

Court

Tim and friend/consigliari/Moot Court partner Matt Panach advanced to the final round of the Moot Court Competition, so I left work early on Friday and Timothy's family (minus Auntie Leah, who was suffering through a Disney World vacation and was sorely missed) came up from Eldo to attend. The competition was decided by three very important and "real-life" judges - I would totally botch official titles if I tried to give them, but I think one was a Chief Justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court and the other two were maybe circuit court something or anothers... Don't quote me on that. [There was an Arkansas Court of Appeals judge, a Missouri Court of Appeals judge, and an Arkansas Circuit Court judge - Tim] Point being, they were pretty important folks when it comes to the Arkansas judicial system and they did not hesitate to exercise their powers of authority when questioning the guys about their cases. Nonetheless, the guys maintained their cool and showed those judges whose house they were in.

Ultimately, Team Timothy smoked the opposition, not only winning the competition as a whole, but also taking home the award for Best Brief and Timothy with the Best Oralist honor for the both rounds (for those of you keeping talley, that's 3 awards for best oralist.) Oh, and $500 each, which will be spent on new golf clubs. Which I'm fine with. Really.

After a celebratory supper at Logan's, Tim's family made their way back to Eldo - but not without contributing lots of cute things to Alex's expanding wardrobe.

Class

At last, the long awaited and anticipated Childbirth Preparation Marathon!! We spent the entire day on Saturday getting the "accelerated" version of the typical 6 session class. We, along with 4 other couples, learned many fascinating things, including the many ins and outs (literally) of the female body. I think Tim learned some things that they don't even teach in health class. In fact, I even discovered some things that, in 27 years of being female, I never knew (or wanted to).

We spent a good portion of the time trying various relaxation techniques and practicing lamaze inspired breathing methods, which, as it turns out, were more entertaining for Timothy and I than I think they were meant to be. All the other couples took this portion of the class very seriously. But for Timothy and I, simultaneously trying to balance on large rubbery exercise balls while synchronizing "hee-hee-hee-hoos" and massaging each other's hands incited those uncontrollable giggle fits that one often experiences during church, funerals, or other situations where giggle fits are completely inappropriate.

We also watched those infamous "birthing videos" - you know the ones I'm talkin' about. Not the pleasant ones that take care to avoid the icky bits and focus on the mother's face and only pan down far enough to see the clean and freshly swaddled newborn baby as the doctor places it on the mother's gowned chest for the first time. No sir, we're talking videos where the mothers are completely buck naked and the cameraman is all up in her business - clearly in the way of the OB that is trying to deliver the baby - taking care to capture every intimate moment including all of the icky bits.

Somehow, despite the unsettling nature of these activities, we left feeling completely settled and ready to get this show on the road. Although you can never be truly prepared for something as unpredictable as childbirth, I guess just having some visuals to reference makes it all a little easier to grasp.

Chillin'

After our long day at class, we were ready for some rest and relaxation that didn't involve big rubber balls or imaginary contractions. Saturday night was a big one in the world of NCAA Basketball, so we gathered with our peeps (the Primms and Reeves) at Buffalo Wild Wings to chow and watch some tournament games. Said "peeps" are all fairly new parents, so being the good friends that we are, we made sure to refresh their memories with all the gory details of our childbirth class in case they had forgotten (or repressed) what it was like. We ate a ton, then headed to the Reeves' for the afterparty. Many wild and raucous hours later, we headed home to crash, with visions of ... still dancing in our heads.

Fra-jee-lay

You may be wondering what's in the box. No, it is not a fishnet stocking clad lamp with fringed shade for the front window. Good guess though. Alex's crib arrived today! Vicki ordered our crib online and Timothy went and picked it up while I was at work. After adding some items to our registry at Walmart, we spent a good chunk of the evening assembling the darn thing. Somehow we managed to put it together without screaming or throwing unassembled crib parts at one another.

One of the biggest differences between how Timothy and I would approach a project such as this is that he's what you might call an "instructions reader" while I rely more on common sense and tend to subscribe to the "winging it" method. Here you can see how Timothy has carefully laid out each wood screw, machine bolt, and barrel nut and organized them into their respective piles before proceeding with the assembly.


I cannot complain, however, because it was done correctly in the end. The mattress and bedding are both en route, so if nothing else, Alex will soon have somewhere to sleep.

Baby Beat

This week marks the beginning of the third trimester! I am starting my 27th week and had another doctor's appointment this afternoon. Pretty routine stuff, although this was the first time since our initial visit in November that we did not get to have an ultrasound. Apparently another doctor was monopolizing Mari's ultrasound room, to the obvious disdain of Mari and the other nurses.

Although we were a little disappointed about that, we did get to hear the baby's heartbeat for the very first time! All this time we had been able to see the heart beating, but our friends all insisted that hearing it was pretty cool too. And they were right! Mari was able to find it right away, but apparently Alex was moving around so quickly that she had a hard time keeping up with him. She was able to determine, however, that his heart rate was increasing as he moved - a good sign that he's not under any stress.

His mother, however, is a different story. While my blood pressure is fine, the scale indicated that I have gained 6 pounds since my last visit, which comes to a grand total of 23 pounds!! I left the clinic feeling fat and depressed.

So we went to Olive Garden to make me feel better. Lest ye judge, let me defend myself and explain that I picked one of their "low fat" options, ate only half, and limited myself to a single breadstick. I left Olive Garden still feeling fat but determined to focus on exercising more and eating better so as not to become any more so.

The third trimester means doctor visits every two weeks instead of four. I have another appointment in on April 11, where I'll take the test to determine whether I have gestational diabetes. I'll finally have to slurp down that infamous orange syrupy stuff that all the girls warn about, so I'm not totally looking forward to that. But we should get another ultrasound, which I totally am looking forward to, so I guess it's a wash.

Good Samaritans

We had quite a productive weekend! We dogsat Bella (Seth and Joy's shih-tzu) on Friday and Saturday, which was lots of fun. We even took the dogs to the park to enjoy the beautiful weather. They weren't as excited about it as we were, but they were both troopers and made it around the park one whole time before we headed home so that they could recover.

Our community group had planned to prepare and serve breakfast on Sunday at the Samaritan Community Center - a program where volunteers provide breakfast for impoverished families before an informal church service - so I spent much of Saturday afternoon making cranberry orange muffins and egg casseroles. The Primms were on their way back from Branson and invited us to a slumber party at their house so that we wouldn't have to drive so far in the morning. We jumped at the opportunity to spend time with our dear friends (and to sleep in a little, to boot). As usual, it was tons of fun to hang out with them. Way to be awesome, guys!

We got up early Sunday morning and headed to the SCC, with muffins, casseroles, and Oliver in tow. We met up with the rest of our group and invaded the kitchen. The girls heated up the food and made things look pretty (like themselves, for example). The boys brewed coffee and made things look pretty (like the muffin trays, for example).

We ended up serving more than 80 people - it was such an amazing experience and we were so happy to be able to spend that time in service and fellowship.

We had good intentions to continue our Community Group lesson at Ryan's Grill (for those unfamiliar with Ryan's, imagine if Ponderosa Steakhouse and Old Country Buffet had an illegitimate love child). However, the hostess "lost" our reservations for the private dining room, so instead, we ended up rubbing elbows with octogenarians and suffing ourselves with heart attack-inducing mac and cheese and tasty sausages made of indescribable pig parts. We had great conversation and gut-busting laughs - many at poor Oliver's expense. Suffice it to say that the list of embarrassing stories to tell Oliver's girlfriends when he's sixteen has grown by one.


After lunch, we headed to the hospital to visit Derrick and Emily, who had just given birth to baby girl Quinn the night before. Our entire Community Group invaded their room to congratulate the newly expanded family and to ooh and aah over the beautiful new baby. This was my first post-partum experience since being pregnant, so I definitely was viewing things from a different perspective than during previous visits. Seeing Emily in bed with hubby Derrick by her side and little Quinn being passed from hand to hand gave me a sudden glimpse into the future. Yikes, we will be here soon!

The Return of Alien Baby

So I'm a little freaked out, because not only can I feel Alex moving around - I can literally see him doing it. I was lying on my back watching TV, which, depending on the degree of inclination, can be quite challenging as my evergrowing gut often impedes my view. I was alternating between What Not to Wear reruns and the Food Network when I noticed a slight movement in my peripheral vision, accompanied by the familiar sensation of being kicked from the inside. I starting watching my bump closely, and every few seconds, a particular area of my abdomen would jut out as a result of being struck. Yikes! Immediately, scenes from Alien came to mind, where Kane notices odd movements in his belly and begins thrashing about until a nasty little creature bursts through his stomach and runs around the room.

Okay, so maybe I'm being overdramatic. It is weird though.

Whatta Weekend

We had an eventful weekend past that included cleaning out Alex's room, rearranging the computer room, organizing the garage, and spending some good quality time with our bestest of friends.

Yeeaahhhh, turns out emptying Alex's room was not quite as fun as I had anticipated. This room was previously being used as a makeshift guest room, consisting of a twin size trundle bed and a large bookshelf. Our mission was to completely remove any trace of non-Alex related paraphernalia from this room. Sounds easy enough. However, when combined with Phase II of this project (aka rearranging the computer room), this simple task soon became one of enormous complexity.

Although generally referred to as the "computer room", a more accurate moniker for the space would be the "computer/sewing/drafting/filing/piles of law paper waiting to be filed/piles of books waiting to be shelved/magazine scattered/art supply housing/sometimes guest quarters/place where things without a room end up" room. Needless to say, attempting to sort out myriad assorted piles of random junk while simultaneously incorporating the contents of Alex's room was no piece of cake. But somehow, between arguments, breaks, and naps, Timothy and I managed to empty Alex's room and reduce the clutter in the "computer room" to a manageable level.

By that point, I politely excused myself from the garage organizing portion of the project and went upstairs to do some laundry. Thankfully, Timothy took the garage head on and our combined efforts resulted in a clean baby room and a semi-clean computer room and garage.

As you can see, Alex's room is now prepared for all of the fun baby things that he/we will need. He has acquired a single bookshelf from the computer room that will accommodate his baby monitor, a plethora of books, and a limited amount of baby-related cha-cha (as much as I can bear, which is very little...)


Look at all the room for clothes! Alex and I might be fighting for closet space before long...

After all this hard work on Saturday, we were very excited to spend some quality time with our friends. After church Sunday morning, we and the Reeves and the Primms headed up to the Shoppes at Pinnacle Hills (aka fancy outdoor mall in Rogers) and had a yummy lunch at Fish City.

It was a beautiful day, so after lunch we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and ended up doing some shopping. Although sleepy after an exciting morning, Oliver was a good sport and let us dress him up and take pictures. Here he is looking p*mp in a seersucker hat.

The big boys took the little boys to the Razorback Shop while the girls ran to look at shoes, and when we got back we found them demonstrating their Hog spirit.


Eventually, most of the gang pooped out but I managed to rope Joy into shopping with me for a bit longer. It was so much fun and very fruitful to boot, as I added several fun dresses to my itty bitty teeny tiny maternity wardrobe...

A Day in the Life: March 14-15, 2007

Wednesday, March 14

Thursday, March 15
March Madness at Buffalo Wild Wings with Nick and Brandy!!