Happy Birthday, Boo!

The Ladies' Man

Happy bday to my favorite husband. You make 32 look good!

Love, love, love you.

It's Pouring

Last Saturday I had myself a showering! My friends Anne, Chrissy, and Gaylene charmed and amazed.

It was, in every particular, a perfect morning. I got to see perfect friends, eat perfectly prepared food in a perfectly decorated house, and squeal over the perfectly cute factor in everything I opened. Very generous, and very sweet. Our baby is feeling the love, and so are me and Jeff.

That looks so good right now...do I have the energy to go to the store and get croissants? Eh, probably not.

For me?? Do you know how hard it is to open outfits as cute as the ones I got and not have the baby there to immediately put him in them and give him a squeeze?

I got to see some friends from my Huntington Singles Ward -- 3 of us are due the same week!

Thanks, Gaylene, Chrissy, and Anne -- you're the bomb diggety.

Hello and Goodbye

About the time I was getting Babycenter email updates that said things like,

"Hello, Meredith! This week, your baby is the size of a bing cherry!" or "Its eyes are sprouting on the sides of its head!" I thought something like 36.5 weeks sounded so deliciously advanced, so close to the day of reckoning/joy. Now that I'm here, nothing short of being in the hospital with an epidural dancing its way through my system seems close enough.

Even though I've done my share of complaining during the past 3 seasons, I have had some good times here in Pregnancy Land. There will be a few things I'll miss, and there are things I will welcome back with open arms.

What I've Been Missing:

- I miss laying on my tummy. Oh, so comfy.

- I miss my clothes. Last spring, Jeff surprised me with a pair of jeans, snazzier than any I'd ever beheld. We've now fondly named them The Extreme Fertility Jeans, because that's the effect they seem to have had. They sit, barely used in my closet, patiently waiting.

- I miss reeeally breaking a sweat and working out hard core. Oh my gosh, it's so fun. Not really, I'm just trying to think positively, because that's what I'm in for. Especially if those jeans are ever going to see the light of day again.

- I miss sushi. It's the unrequited craving.

- I look forward to reading a pile of books that would, in my current state, dehydrate my tear ducts and, ultimately, me.

- Oh, to just do something like KNEEL DOWN or BEND OVER and not have to strategize or weigh pros and cons beforehand. I was at lunch with my friend Lindsey a while back and some pennies fell out of her wallet. She's due the same week as me, and we both looked down at the coins, and then at each other, "It's not worth it."

What I Will Miss:

- Although it'll be more fun to hold a baby and marvel at his kicks from the outside, it's pretty cute to feel him do that on the inside. I'll also miss dragging Jeff's hand over for the soccer game in my tummy. His reaction is, as my sister Sarah would say, presh.

- The public is so nice to pregnant women! Smiles as I run my errands, every door held open, everyone asking with a lot more urgency or sincerity, "How are you feeling??", it's not too shabby.

- My EXCUSE.

And saying goodbye to pregnancy means saying hello to the prize, the Baby Mine, we can NOT wait to meet him. Especially after my shower last Saturday (post forthcoming), it all feels so real and thrilling, and I'm OUT of patience for him to become snuggleable. Baby love!

1 Year

Happy 1 Year to Us!

It's been my favorite year, and I love what we've got and what we are together.

I also love these pictures of us leaving the reception; it's just me and Jeff scampering off to start living life as our own little family.

It'll never stop being the best thing that's happened.

Clink!

Pregnancy Memory #1

One morning last summer I snuck into a little-used, windowless conference room. I had the phone number for my OBGYN of choice scribbled on a post-it note, and dialed it up. I kept peeking behind me at the door, scared my clandestine telephonic outreach would be discovered, and then,

"Doctor's office, can I help you?"

Oh, my cue!

"Yes, hi...I am calling because I..."

And I could not think! What words are used to communicate the fact that you need to see a doctor because a stick (or 5) is telling you you've got a poppy seed filled with human potential growing in your tummy?

"...I'm calling because I, uh....tested positive for...um...pregnancy?"

That works, right?

About Time

I have so many things to be grateful for. SO MANY THINGS.

+ the gospel and its infinite blessings, protection, and perfection + sweet, supportive husband + dear, large, funny family + charming friends + a home + jobs + beautiful weather + a healthy baby coming closer and closer to its moment of exit + the support and social network that is a fringe benefit of the LDS church + the internet to keep updated on the lives of those I love + good books that inspire me and make me insanely jealous + health + modern medicine that will (hopefully) prevent me feeling a ton of the pain I'd otherwise feel when squeeeeeezing out a baby + health insurance + music that tugs at my heart strings and/or makes me want to shake my money maker +

And that's just a start. Thanks for the indulgence.

Of Late

Besides being cranky, I have been up to....

- going on many walks and to the gym

- selling our old books on amazon.com

- reading The Help and watching Mad Men. My brain thinks it's the early 60s.

- cleaningcleaningcleaning

- cooking a little more than usual. I am not a big cooker. Elizabeth loves it like a Gwyneth. I am not there, maybe I never will be, but I am liking it more than I used to a couple of years ago, and know it's more or less one of my lots in life, so buck up, Merz. I had a drawer in our kitchen full of recipes I'd ripped out of magazines, emails I'd printed off from Elizabeth or Sarah or my Mom, and notecards I'd scribbled down at my mom's house. It's kind of a pain to dig through them, and if I make something that was simple enough for me to not screw up, but not too bland to have only come from cans and freezers, I want to hang on to it and have it accessible. That's a treasure.

So, I birthed another blog. www.merzyfood.blogspot.com It's not fancy or something I plan on taking anywhere -- just an easy way for me to organize and find tried and true menu items. Out of all the recipes crammed into that drawer in my kitchen, I've only posted 7. But I guess I'm sharing its existence because maybe you also have an ambiguous relationship with the art of cooking, and could benefit from a blog that currently only has recipes of a beginner to intermediate level of difficulty. I'm also a picky eater, so if I liked it, chances are reeeallly high most of the human race will like it too.

- I've been taking some pictures. I don't know what I'm doing with this either, but I got book from my awesome in-laws for Christmas (obviously Jeff was in kahoots with them about my present!), and with those tips I've snapped away. I think for my bday I'd like to sign up for an online class Elizabeth took (which is, incidentally, taught by a lady in my ward here in Ladera Land!), which Elizabeth said was totally awesome. Until then, here are some of my experimentals:

I took it, I swear!

The view from the hills behind our house. That's a chunk of the ocean!

Some of our lemons -- at this point, my photo subjects need to be close by otherwise I'm too lazy to get to them.

A flower by the driveway.

A sort of belly shot.

I listened to The Beatles today. Why don't I do that more often?

And I'm over being pregnant. OVER. IT. Let's do this already.

The End.

Night Blogger

It's become a bit of an unwanted habit lately where I wake up sometime during the hour of 4:00, and if I can't fall asleep again soon enough, I patter around, getting a midnight snack, perusing the internet, cleaning. On this particular patter I cruised some favorite blogs of baby stories and pictures past. Warms my heart.

I'm starting to feel like it's coming ever fasterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Lots of unknowns, and if you know me well, you know I can't tolerate unknowns. I worry about the whole delivery thing. I worry he'll have some currently undetectable health problem. I worry he'll be a colic baby -- I was, and I'm probably in for some payback. I am just excrutiatingly curious about everything from what does he look like? to how will my body take it? to what does that sort of exhaustion feel like?

Elizabeth made me a list of things to bring to the hospital and what I should stock up on back at home (besides the obvious). I haven't always loved being a middle child, but it does come in handy in times like these. I've been trying to balance the R&R with the exercise, and Jeff and I are trying to maximize these last weeks as a family of 2.

The last 33 weeks have been sloshed with many more tears falling at a much more frequent rate than I was used to. Tears for many reasons. There's the classic "That's.....So.......SAD!!!" but there are also tears of just spending too much time thinking of how sweet something is, how grateful I am for the people in my life, etc. etc. etc. Last night I was reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and try as I might to be brave I was sobbing all over me, the blankets, and the couch. Jeff gave me a darling hug, gently took the book away and said, "If you're crying on page 14, maybe we should not read this book for a while." And then he changed the subject to happier things. I haven't really cried over religious matters in years -- I think I got it all out of my system in the MTC. About a month ago I was making the tiniest comment in Relief Society about nothing much and I had to pause 3 times to (in the end, unsuccessfully) try to maintain composure.

Since I cry easily when I'm very tired, I don't think that's going away for a while. Maybe a couple of people reading this just said, "Or ever."

The pregnant brain factor seems to be kicking up a few knotches a week. Today I was leaving the post office holding my wallet and some garbage. I chucked my wallet into the public trash can.

Here's to 4 to 7 more weeks of this weird, funky, fortunate, uncomfortable, unpredictable stay in pregnancyland. And a Happy New Year!