Another milestone

We found out about a year ago that our friends Em and Zach were going to get married on “Cinco de Mayo” '07. They’d decided on Kansas for a location (where they's met at KU) and when we found out we were due in June, we let them know that we’d be there. Unless we couldn't. It just seemed very far off in the future back then.

So this weekend we had a wonderful time in Lawrence, KS. The wedding was beautiful and tons of fun and Susanne traveled with no problem at almost 35 weeks (the direct flight from DC to KS was about 2 hours). So anyway, when we arrived home last night I suddenly realized that this trip was the last big milestone before the baby will arrive. From here on out we'll be traveling for at least 3!

And since babies can arrive at week 37 and be considered full term, it is possible that in just a short two weeks we could be moms!!! We think it would be better for the baby to stay in a bit longer (well maybe I should speak for myself—I’m not the one gestating our little one!) But we guess it would be a good idea to get prepared just in case the baby makes an early appearance. We are not worried about being prepared to welcome the baby, more we are thinking about being prepared to transition our work over to others. I'm only going to be out for 3 weeks while Su will take off 6 months. She's been working a long time to get her team ready to carry on without her but is anyone really ever ready? I guess we both just realized that we should clean or desks up a bit and start getting things in better order.

We spent some time at thrift shops and bookstores this weekend while in KS and picked up a book that was highly recommended to us by our Birthworks instructor. It’s called “The Happiest Baby on the Block” by Dr. Harvey Karp.

It was really neat and the author believes that babies in their first three months really need what he calls a 4th trimester. It’s an easy to read book where he talks about the value of swaddling, jiggling and making shushing noises (among other things) to help calm a baby down. Apparently there is a calming reflex that can be activated with the right tricks. The idea is to replicate some womb experiences to help kids feel soothed. We really liked it and I fully intend to practice swaddling with an old cabbage patch doll of Su’s (umm…I wasn’t really into Cabbage Patch dolls myself as a kid). Apparently neither of our cats seem like they’d be into my experimenting, so I’ll just try it out on the doll ;-)

Alrighty then. Back to my “to do” list that has 20 tasks on it still. And I really think I’m ready to be off work for several weeks in the near future????? -Monica