HEEBIE JEEBIES

Last Friday was a day pretty much like any other day.

At 5:30am, my alarm went off for work. I snoozed for 20 minutes and then mustered the energy to haul my big baby belly out of bed to get moving for the day. I got dressed, poured a cup of OJ to go (AGH how I miss my coffee!!), grabbed a granola bar, and headed into work. Work was work. Nothing crazy. I left at 3 – my boss has gotten worried that I’ll either go into labor at the office or in rush hour traffic, so she sends me home early. Love it. Everything about that day was pretty much the norm until a few hours after I got home.

I got home from work, picked up around the house, Kevin and I went for a walk before dinner, and then I got on the computer to catch up on blog reading and Perez while Kevin got ready to go to the Rockets game. Kevin came into our study to kiss me bye and to ask me, for probably the 5th or 6th time since I’d been home, if I was SURE that baby wasn’t coming that night. And my answer was the same answer I’d given him the other 5 or 6 times - “Baby’s not coming. He’s staying in there forever. I’ve given up. Go to the game. Have fun. Just be sure to check your phone every now and then, in case baby decides to surprise us.” Sidenote: Everyone was on edge baby-wise that night. If there was ever a night for me to go into labor, that was the worst night for it to happen. So, of course, everyone just knew it would be that night. My parents and my hubby would be at the Rockets game. My bff and her family would be at the Astros game, just down the street from the Rockets game. 99% of my support system were going to be nearly an hour away from 38-week-pregnant Chandra. So all assumptions were that I would go into labor and send everyone into a tizzy trying to get back up to the north side of town.

But I digress… *Bet you thought I was about to start my labor and delivery story. Sorry. No such luck – baby’s still holding tight in my belly.

So Kevin kisses the top of my head. I tell him to have fun and kind of brush him off, very much in my Perez Hilton reading “zone”. He walks out the front door and before he can even get around the corner to our driveway, I hear him yell. It catches my attention for just a second – Kevin’s not usually one to let out random hollers. Still in my Perez “zone”, I just roll it off as either excitement about the Rockets playoff game or relief of temporarily escaping a house filled with pregnancy hormones. Regardless, he deserved a night free of pregnant Chandra so I let his yell of excitement go.

Until he walked through our garage door a minute later, breathless and white as a ghost. My heart sank – “What’s wrong?” He opened the study blinds that look out into our front yard – the window is right behind a flower bed outside our front door – and pointed down in the flower bed. And there lay a big, fat, brown and black snake. I’m talking BIG. A good 4 feet long, and easily as thick as my arm. I screamed. Are you KIDDING?! I started yelling at Kevin, asking him what we were supposed to do. There is this huge f-ing snake right outside our front door – what in God’s name were we going to do? He starts yelling at me to get my pistol. I don’t have it! My dad borrowed it the weekend before to teach my sister how to shoot. Okay… do we have a garden hoe? Nope. Okay, no problem. My hubby decides to get his machete – yes, MACHETE – to kill the snake. Why do we own a machete? Because in my husband’s opinion, it’s much more fun to clear overgrowth and trim trees with a machete. Whatever. So he starts off to find his machete. And all I can think of is this snake biting off his arm while he’s trying to kill it. No thanks, I’d like my husband and father of my child to have all of his limbs intact if at all possible. So I scream at him “NO MACHETE! NO MACHETE!” *Apparently, the formation of proper sentences was beyond my comprehension at this point. So he comes back at me with “Well, then what do YOU want to do?”. I’m already on it – googling animal control services in the Houston area. Apparently, getting a hold of ANYONE at 6:30 on a Friday evening is impossible. But really, shouldn’t animal control be a 24-hour kind of deal? What if you wake up in the middle of the night to a kangaroo breaking into your home? It’s happened. Not to me – to someone in Australia. But it’s a true story. Stop rolling your eyes.

So no gun, no hoe, no machete, and no animal control. We resigned to staring at the behemoth through the window and front door, pacing between the two as if that would make some kind of difference. And then, all of a sudden, the snake was on the move. I screamed again, like the pansy little girl that I am. It slithered out of the flower bed, across our front yard, and into the wooded lot next to our house (presumably where it came from in the first place).

There was nothing left to do, really. Just hope and pray that it wouldn’t come back. Kevin left for the game, and I set up post in the middle of my living room so that I could see him coming from any angle. Because I knew that this snake had it out for me. It was his mission in life to get me. Or at least that’s how I felt. I went through the house, putting toilet seat lids down and blocking all sink and drainage openings into the house. Paranoid, much? Yes. But tell me you wouldn’t have done differently if you were home alone with a snake right outside.

It’s been a week since the big debacle. And we haven’t seen that snake since. Kevin killed a smaller one a few days after the big incident, but not the giant. We look for him every time we’re outside. I scan the yard for “dark patches” before I let Baxter out to play. Before we walk out the front door, we both check the flowerbed through the window. I’ve had nightmares of him slithering up into bed with us. *Granted, my pregnancy dreams have been insanely vivid and “out there”. Just thinking about it makes every hair of mine stand on end.

And thus I have an addition to one of my many life lists –

Things I am deathly afraid of:

-Tornadoes

-Ghosts

-Flying roaches

-SNAKES

37 Weeks

I am almost through my 37th week of pregnancy, and there are no words that can even come close to capturing the way I feel right now. The best thing I can come up with is a sound... a long, exasperated exhale.

WOOSAH.

At this point, I am fully aware that my body is no longer under my control (not that I've had much control over the last few months, but now it's completely 100% gone). I feel like a walking wrecking ball. Not even a walking wrecking ball - more like a waddling wrecking ball. My feet have swollen past the point of repair - no amount of soaking, lifting, or massaging helps anymore (and TRUST ME hubby and I have tried). You know when you gain a few pounds and get that unattractive little muffin top over the waist of your jeans? Yeah, I have that with my FEET. When I get home from work and take my shoes off, I have two muffin-topped behemoths that used to be my cute little feet. Yesterday I was staring at them in amazement, realizing that they looked like they belonged on someone who weighed about 500 pounds. It's past the point of uncomfortable. It's painful.

You think I'm exaggerating.

I'm totally not.

Moms warned me about the dreaded last month of pregnancy. And I just smiled, nodded, and thought to myself "I can totally handle it". I'm eating my words. Consider this my waving a white flag to the ninth month.

I really, honestly try not to complain. But sometimes you just gotta vent. I know it's temporary. And I know with all of my heart that when it's all said and done, it is going to be so worth the misery. Ask me in a month, when Luke is here, and I'll probably tell you that it really wasn't that bad. I've heard about mom-memory. Once the baby arrives safe and healthy, the bad memories of pregnancy and labor/delivery begin to fade away. I can't wait for that.

WOOSAH.

There is a silver lining, though. I went in for my now-weekly OB visit on Monday, where I was "checked" for the first time. I'll spare the graphic details, but I am SO EXTREMELY HAPPY to report that I've started to dilate. Not much. But to a pregnant woman, any dilation is good. It means the end of the tunnel is close. The end of pregnancy is within reach. The baby will be here soon. Unfortunately, there's no way of knowing yet how soon. We'll have a better idea after my visit next Monday, when we see if I've dilated further. Right now we're just sitting on a bunch of maybe's.

Dr. Wonderful said her guess was that I wouldn't make it to my due date. She even said he could possibly be here by the end of my 38th week. Which she then followed up with "Or you could be one of those who goes past her due date." Uhh, no thanks. I choose Plan A - let's get this show on the road. Pass me some Pitocin and a jar of jalapenos and we can take care of everything this weekend, if you're free!

Hiccups, Exhaustion, and a Preggo Funny

My doctor appointment Monday went perfectly. Too perfectly. I was thinking to myself this morning “I have been so lucky that nothing has gone wrong.” My blood pressure has remained consistent, my peepee has remained protein-free, and I’ve managed to only gain about 5 lbs in 6 weeks. Knock on wood, I know. I’m still waiting for the fallout. And let me just say that the weight management has NOT been easy. There in the middle of my pregnancy, I took full advantage of the “I’m pregnant and therefore have every right to act like a Hoover” mentality. And my weight gain definitely reflected my “MUST. EAT. EVERYTHING” attitude. So now in the home stretch, I am trying to make up for it and be more careful.

Back to my appointment… see how I get sidetracked so easily?

My mom went with me – when hubby’s out of town on a job, my mom always jumps at the chance to go. The appointments aren’t extremely exciting. They check my weight and vitals, ask routine “how are you feeling?...how’s baby’s movement?...do you have any questions?” pregnancy questions, and use a Doppler machine to listen to the baby’s heart. At this appointment, baby Luke had the hiccups. He gets them often now, and I sometimes don’t even notice them because they just feel normal to me. I didn’t even think about them popping up on the Doppler as we listened to his heart. But sure enough, mixed in with the horse-galloping-sound of my little man’s heart, there they were. We could HEAR his hiccups, perfectly aligning with each twitch in my belly. The three of us – me, mama, and my doctor – all sat there smiling as we listened. For the first time since I first heard his heartbeat back around 10 weeks pregnant, I thought I was going to cry right there on the exam table. It sounds silly, right? They’re just hiccups – it’s not like little Luke is in there carrying on a conversation with himself. They were hiccups. But they were MY BABY’S hiccups. It was a sound that I could link to something that I feel every day. Something that until that moment had become routine, normal, and nearly forgettable. So today when he got the hiccupsas I sat at my desk working, my eyes welled up with tears. And I thought to myself “Dang… I’m going to be one of THOSE moms… I’m going to cry at everything, aren’t I?” And you know what? I probably will. And I’ll do it proudly. When I put his little tiny feet in my hands, I’ll probably cry thinking “These are the feet that jammed themselves into my lungs and stretched against the bottom of my ribcage.” Only instead of cursing those little feet like I often do lately, when I am actually HOLDING those feet in my hands, I’ll probably be crying remembering how sweet it felt. But not today. Today I lean more towards the cursing of the feet that are currently pushed halfway into my lungs.

Along with feet-in-ribs and an overall sense of “GOD I’m getting huge” discomfort, I’ve also returned to the first-trimester symptom of being tired. All the time. And I can’t use lack of sleep as an excuse. I’m in bed at 8 (laugh away, but it’s wonderful) so I can be up for work at 5:30am – typically giving me about 8 hours once I actually fall asleep *and accounting for the 2-3 bathroom trips each night, which I can proudly say I manage to do with only half-way opening one eye to check for critters in the toilet (call me crazy, but I get great comfort in knowing that some sewer snake isn’t waiting for me to blindly sit down). So my exhaustion definitely isn’t due to lack of sleep. People say “Oh honey, it’s just Mother Nature preparing you for once the baby gets here”. Well, the baby isn’t here. And I’m trying to stock up on my energy reserves now because – yes, I know – I will need the extra energy once the baby gets here. So this pre-baby exhaustion can suck it. *I know, I know. Telling the exhaustion to “suck it” does absolutely nothing to help. But it sure feels good to say.

And with hiccups and exhaustion, I will close with a little story. This past Sunday, the weather was GORGEOUS. It was just one of those days. Low 70s, a good breeze, and blue skies. I was home alone and, thanks to my neuro-nesting, my Sunday ritual of house cleaning and laundry was already done. So I decided to go lay outside in my hammock with a few magazines. My hammock has become one of my absolute favorite places – it’s one of the few places I can actually get comfortable anymore. So there I lay in my hammock, enjoying the weather, reading my magazines until the sun shifted just enough to make me have to change positions to get it out of my face. If you’ve ever laid in a hammock, you know moving around can be tricky. So imagine that PLUS an extra 30 or so pounds PLUS a boulder-shaped belly. Back to my story… I start to shift. Just a little – a few inches would get the sun out of my face. I move ever so slightly, and… SUCCESS. The sun is out of my face. But my magazine is out of reach. I sit up just barely to reach for it, and as slowly as I leaned up to get it, the hammock slowly turned over. I didn’t even realize it was happening until I was on the ground with my dog in my face like “holy crap – what just happened?” I seriously had no idea that I was tipping over. I was so intent on moving slowly to get my magazine so that I WOULDN’T tip over, that I didn’t see everything slowly turning upside down. All I could do was sit on the ground and laugh. And if any of my neighbors happened to catch sight of the slow-mo-flipping-preggo, I’d imagine they got a good laugh too.

Catching Up… Hard to do with Pregnancy Brain

I was just cursing my best friend for not updating her blog for nearly 4 weeks when I realized that I am such a hypocrite. Over the past few weeks, I have been so inundated with all things “baby” that the blog has fallen to the bottom of my list (along with laundry, shaving my legs, and the oh-so-fun task of writing Thank-You cards). So here I sit with the challenge of making my brain focus on one thing for more than 3 minutes.

Before I got pregnant, I gawked at the notion of pregnancy brain. It was a farce to me – a lame excuse women used to get away with being absent-minded. Pre-pregnancy, I was a perfectionist. Everything fell into a schedule, and everything happened according to a plan. Being absent-minded was not an option. Absent-minded people were just unorganized – they didn’t take the time to focus and really get things done they way they ought to. Then BAM! Sperm meets egg, 6-8 months go by, and I can no longer remember what I set out to do five minutes ago. Are you kidding me?! I try so hard to be that organized, planned-out perfectionista that I once was but I think I’ve lost her for the time being. I do try, though. My desk is covered in post-its because if I don’t tag the status of every. single. paper on my desk, I WILL forget why it’s sitting there. My house is cluttered with to-do lists, sometimes 2 or 3 of the exact same list because I will start making a list, walk away, and forget all about it just to start the exact same list 15 minutes later. Once again I ask… are you kidding me?! It’s like my brain just decides that it’s done for that moment and walks away with absolutely no notice to me. I can be mid-sentence and completely forget what in the world I was talking about or where I was trying to go with a story. I will get up to do something (which in and of itself is becoming quite a task) only to forget what I needed to do once I’m up. I’ve even gotten in my car, gotten out of my neighborhood, and completely forgot where I was going. All I can do is hope that I regain some sense of cohesion once the baby is born because I don’t think I could put up with myself like this forever, much less expect those around me to put up with this too!

Along with my pregnancy brain, I am in full-blown nesting mode. I didn’t really know this was a real state of mind until I caught myself going up to the nursery just to re-fold baby blankets that I had put away earlier. Only I think my nesting has become more of a neurosis. If we get anything to add to the nursery, it HAS to be put away immediately. And while I’m putting that away, I HAVE to check on everything that I’d previously put away and re-touch and move around if it needs it. OCD much? Yeah, probably. I contribute it to my perfectionista trying to come through and control the situation – for whatever reason, the nursery is the only place I can really focus. And I’m not sure if it’s typical “nesting”, but cleaning the rest of my house seems to fall under my nesting/neurosis umbrella. I will literally follow my husband around and pick up after him. That sweet gesture you’re making by cooking a homemade dinner? Slightly less romantic and thoughtful because I’m following you through the kitchen with a dishrag, wiping the counter each time you set something down or pick something up. Taking my dishes to the sink after dinner so that I don’t have to get up to do it? That is so sweet. You really shouldn’t have. REALLY – you shouldn’t have because I’m getting up behind you to make sure the dishes are going into the dishwasher instead of sitting in the sink. Hard day at work? Sit back and take off your shoes and socks – put your feet up. Only disregard my grumbling as I get up to immediately take those shoes and socks to the closet so they’re out of the way. It’s not like my hubby is a messy guy – I know those things will get picked up eventually. I just have this overwhelming urge to do it NOW. Agh – I said it before and I’ll say it again… if that man is still by my side when all of this is over, I am an extremely lucky woman. Some days, I honestly don’t know how he can look at me with a straight face and tell me he loves me.

For now, I’ll leave you with this one realization that I’ve been mulling over for the past few days. The nursery is ready. The baby showers are over. The clothes are hung in the closet, and the diapers are stacked on the changing table. There is only one thing left to do. HAVE THE BABY. Yipes.

*Although when I really get worked up about that one thing left to do, I just think about this face and realize that I’d give anything for delivery day to be tomorrow so I can see him in person.

Top Ten

It’s Friday and my brain is too far gone from the hectic week to put together a post, so I made some lists. Call me Mrs. David Letterman – they’re my Top Tens of Pregnancy (of course – what else?), although not listed in any specific order.

Things that I miss:

• My favorite pair of jeans. I tear up a little if I look at them too long, sadly hanging in my closet crying “Wear me! Pick me!”
• The ability to stay up past 10pm without feeling like a total zombie.
• Margaritas.
• Sleeping through the night without waking up 2-3 times for potty trips. We’ve gone through more toilet paper in my pregnancy than should be allowed by law.
• Wearing my wedding and engagement rings. I bought a stand-in to wear through the rest of my pregnancy, but it’s just not the same.
• Wearing heels. Like my jeans, I tear up a little when I look at them sitting in my closet, literally collecting dust. Although, I must admit I’ll probably keep a few pairs of flats around post-baby. I’ve become a big fan.
• My Victoria’s Secret pj’s. I actually boxed up my pre-pregnancy pj’s so I wouldn’t be able to see them. Or attempt to wear them and inevitably stretch them out. I know hubby is waiting for the day that I pull that box down from the top of my closet. Let’s just say looking cute at night hasn’t exactly been as big a priority to me as it was before I got pregnant.
• Being able to “get up and go” in a moment’s notice. It takes a little time and a lot of effort for me to go from point A to point B. Especially in a hurry.
• Beers with my buddies.
• Being able to bend over, twist, and put on pants and undies without hobbling around like a complete idiot.

Things that I love:

• Feeling my baby move. Best. Feeling. EVER. I love that I feel like I know him so well already.
• Reading What To Expect When You’re Expecting each week to track baby’s growth and progress.
• The compassion I get from other women – who knew they could be so nice? From simple acknowledging smiles in the grocery store to full blown conversations in the elevators, pregnancy seems to provide an instant bond between women.
• Hearing/reading other people’s baby stories and knowing that I’m not alone.
• My hubby’s face when he feels the baby move.
• My Snoogle body pillow – it’s a lifesaver. I highly recommend it for all preggos.
• Knowing that this is the one time in life I’m allowed to stuff my face and get round without judgment from others (although some people still feel the need to judge…morons).
• My new boobs.
• Decorating the nursery and hanging up teeny clothes.
• Maternity jeans – I’ll miss the elastic waistbands dearly once this is all over.
• Foot and back rubs from hubby.

Things I’m not so crazy about:

• The swelling – sometimes my ankles and the spaces between my toes disappear completely. I feel like I need to put up “LOST - REWARD” signs for them
• The heartburn that now bothers me all day and wakes me up at night. At least Tums has come a long way on their flavors.
• The fact that I cannot stand up or roll over in bed without extreme effort – complete with grunts and heavy breathing on my end and a few smirks and snickers from hubby’s end.
• The extra layer of cellulite that has taken up residence on my thighs and hiney. As if I weren’t cursed enough before baby. Mother Nature has such a wicked sense of humor.
• My ever-expanding booty. Like the cellulite, as if my booty weren’t big enough before, I feel like one single pair of my pregnancy undies could double as a swimming pool cover.
• The stretchmarks that continue to spread across my mid section. Cheryl’s neighbor (who’s also a mom and stretchmark victim) had a great analogy. It looks like Freddy Krueger attacked my belly.
• The hormone swings. I can go from your best friend to your worst nightmare in the blink of an eye. For absolutely no reason, other than the fact that you are standing there. Breathing.
• The fact that I can no longer climb into bed without a little help from hubby. I feel like a 5-year-old.
• The hot flashes. Although they aren’t as bad as the horror stories I’ve heard from some women. I get them occasionally at night where I’ll wake up in a pool of sweat, and sometimes during the day just sitting at my desk. I'm the crazy lady pounding bottles of water while fanning myself with a manila folder.
• The constant worry of hypertension and preeclampsia, now that I’m in the home stretch.

The good thing is, my list of things that I’m not so crazy about are things that should go away immediately or soon after I have the baby (however, the cellulite and XL booty will take some extra effort on my part). They’re just temporary nuisances that I have to deal with in order to get the big reward in May. As much as I complain, I still love it. Most days ;)

Tremors

This week I am in my 28th week of pregnancy. GAH how time has flown. My body is making the transition from the second to third trimester, so I guess you could say I’m entering the home stretch. I see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I’m ecstatic and TERRIFIED at the same time. Good God, I’m going to have a BABY. Fine time to freak out, right? But I’m not really freaked out, per say. Just anxious.

The last few weeks have been fun. Well, fun for me. Non-preggos would surely look at me in shock when they see that my idea of FUN is reclining on the couch or in my hammock in a big tshirt and fat pants with my hands plastered to my belly. Giggling. Before I got pregnant I’d look at anyone doing that with a raised eyebrow, contemplating calling the loony bin to make that crazy lady a reservation. But now I get it – I understand the fuss and obsession with hands-on-belly. Because Luke has been on the move! I can feel him spinning around, flipping upside down, stretching, and occasionally getting the hiccups. It never gets old. Even better, he’s strong enough now that you can actually see my belly move in response to his movements. Usually it’s just little flicks – in response to the more frequent kicks and jabs. It looks like my stomach twitches – just quick enough to make you second guess whether or not you actually saw my belly move. HOWEVER – there is absolutely no doubt when he is flipping over. Have you ever seen the movie Tremors? Remember the way the ground mounded up as the worm-creature moved under the surface? THAT’S about as accurately as I can describe what my belly looks like when he’s flipping. Some days it’s so bizarre that I feel like I should take my belly-show on the road and join the circus. Seriously – can your stomach do that?

Aside from my sci-fi belly movements, I think I may be getting into the nesting phase. I’ve always been an overly organized person. I feel like my house is a wreck if there is mail scattered across my kitchen counter or more than a dish or 2 in my sink. Right now our office has a few random boxes and other odds and ends sitting in a corner because we haven’t figured out where to put it all in the new house. And it literally pains me to walk by that room. It drives me nuts. But lately, my obsession with all things organized has gone into overdrive. Kevin was gone on a job this past weekend, and I saw that as the perfect opportunity to get our house in top shape. I hung pictures. I dusted. I moved stuff that we’d bought for the nursery into the nursery (instead of the random places that we’d just set the bags down whenever we got home with it). I put a lot of random “homeless” items into a hidden closet so that it was at least out of my sight (which totally reminded me of Monica in an episode of Friends). I ordered the nursery furniture that Kevin and I had picked out, which ultimately led to me sitting in the middle of the nursery floor imagining different ways to situate the furniture once it got there. For whatever reason, that led to me hanging up baby clothes that Kevin’s mom bought and mailed to us. Hanging up the new clothes led to me rearranging the way everything else we’d already bought for him was hanging. I sorted the clothes out by age/size. And then mixed it all back up because I felt like my OCD was getting the best of me. And then fought the urge not to sort it all back out. If you walked in the nursery right now, it’d look like an empty room. Just some tiny outfits hanging in the closet, a pile of shopping bags lined up against the wall, a bedding set still in its packaging, and a gallon of paint waiting to be opened. After this weekend, hopefully the walls will be painted and the furniture will be delivered. Then I can shift my obsession to the details and begin wrapping my brain around the craziness that is creating a baby registry.

Swollen Feet with Mickey and Friends

I’ve gotten lazy about updating the blog. Not really so much lazy – just sidetracked. My first excuse is that work kicked into high gear. I’ve been non-stop from 7-4 every day. Most days I felt like I hadn’t taken a single breath until I made myself get up from my desk for lunch. And by the time I get home, the last thing I want to do is sit at a computer for a single moment even to write a quick post. Aside from work, I was helping my family plan for something big. Something HUGE. We were taking a week-long trip to Disney World. A total of 7 people – my parents, Kevin and I, my sister, her hubby, and baby Bradly – were packing our bags, boarding a plane, and heading to the most magical place on Earth. Because, really, who doesn’t turn into a big 5 year old the moment you walk through the gates at Disney?

Let me just say that I love Disney. I’m usually not a big fan of any place where hundreds of people – much less hundreds of KIDS - are running around. I can barely do Wal-Mart without cursing, and the mall is my worst nightmare. But somehow Disney is different. People are happy. There’s a giant castle with a parade and fireworks every single day. And characters from my favorite childhood movies are walking around giving out hugs and taking pictures. Okay, okay, I know. The characters aren’t real, you say. But I challenge you to keep your cool when you are standing face to face with the uber-gorgeous Minnie Mouse.

We had a great time. Each day was spent at a different park. We ate. We shopped. My mom, Bradly, and I people-watched while my sister and the guys rode all of the thrill rides. FYI while Disney is kid focused, there are a few rides that are geared more towards the adults. However, that usually translated as not preggo-friendly and definitely not 13-month-old friendly. So we had to sit out for some things. Unfortunately for me, I LOVE the thrill rides at Disney. My absolute favorite ride in all of Disney is the Aerosmith Roller Coaster. And I couldn’t ride it this time. So I sat outside and pouted like any grown 25 year old pregnant woman would do. As I mentioned before, there are Disney characters wandering the parks to meet and greet. Usually, they were surrounded by kids. But that didn’t stop Kevin and me from jumping right in line with the rest of them to take pictures. We met Mickey and Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Pluto, Chip and Dale, Stitch (one of my favorites!!), Pooh, Eeyore, Tigger, and Buzz Lightyear (who even gave a salute to baby Luke as we walked up). Strangely, we noticed that there weren’t nearly as many characters walking around this year as there had been in previous years that we’ve gone. Was it because we weren’t there during the peak season? Makes sense, right? But no that wasn’t it. We learned that even Disney was being affected by the crappy economy. Some of Disney’s characters were given their “take a hike” notice due to hard times. How sad is that?! Somewhere poor Snow White and her Dwarves are flipping burgers. How’d you like to see THAT next time you drive through Whataburger?

One solid week of 6 adults and 1 baby trying to agree on exactly what to do and when to do it got a little trying at times. Being the happiest place on Earth, we all tried our best to grit our teeth and bear it when it got tense. Especially when the baby got fussy or preggo got swollen and/or hormonal (i.e. – moody. Remember my lost filter?). Usually, we all went our separate ways after dinner and we had one day that was rainy which all of the “couples” used to do whatever else they wanted. Kevin and I opted for Downtown Disney to do some shopping and get some alone time in. And for our last night at Disney, Kevin and I had a date night. We had dinner at a restaurant in the Magic Kingdom, did some last minute shopping, and then watched the fireworks while huddled up and drinking hot chocolate.*side note: I failed to mention that the one week we spent at Disney was apparently the coldest week of the year for Orlando – they had record lows, and it froze 3 nights while we were there. I’d rather it be in the low 50s all week than be in the 90s with 100% humidity, though, I suppose!

We had a great time – I can’t wait to take Luke back when he’s old enough to enjoy it (and when he’s big enough to ride everything – mama’s not sitting out on rides again!). I was worried that I wouldn’t enjoy it as much because I was pregnant. But honestly, being pregnant gave me a much different perspective. While waiting for the others to get off the big-boy rides, I went in shops that I otherwise wouldn’t have gone in. I did more people watching and paid more attention to parents interacting with their kids (begin collective eye-roll now). Things that I never would have paid attention to before. And I even got a free souvenir that serves as a constant reminder of my family’s trek all over Disney – the most swollen feet that I’ve EVER had. My feet look like two freshly baked loaves of bread, and my toes look like Vienna Sausages. I’m still trying to figure out how to get the swelling down to at least what it was pre-Disney. …Any suggestions?...