The Plug

Well, hello, dear readers.

Do you know what today is? It is Friday.

Not only is it Friday, it is Friday, August 11th 2006.

What, you say? You don't know what is important about this date?

Why, of course, everyone knows that the first civilian prisoners were transported to Alcatraz on this date back in 1934.

And, yes, in 1966 the Camaro was unveiled.

Yes, Alex Haley, author of Roots, was born in 1921. Jerry Falwell was born in 1933, Joe Rogan was born in 1967 and Hulk Hogan was born back in 1953.

Yes, yes. In 1806, Meriwether Lewis (of Lewis & Clark fame) was shot in the ass while elk hunting.

Sigh.

All that DID happen on August 11th. But, do you know what didn't happen today? Well, at least not yet.

NO BABY.

Sorry, folks. Baby is a no show. Why, oh why, do they give you a due date to begin with? It's pretty ridiculous. It's all just a big guess. It's actually a "birth month" that they give you. She can come anytime between something like 37 and 42 weeks. You tell yourself that you won't get all obssessed with the date, that it can happen at ANY time, but still you get sucked in. Oh well.

There are some things that I can tell you, though.

****WARNING: If you are squeamish when it comes to bodily functions, please skip the next paragraph. You have been warned.****

There are signs that labor is oncoming. Yesterday afternoon, I lost my mucus plug. It sounds a lot worse than it is, really. For those of you not in the know, throughout pregnancy a plug blocks the opening of the cervix so that bacteria cannot enter. As my cervix thins and dilates to allow baby to come out, the plug is expelled. Expelling the plug can mean that labor is anywhere from a few hours, to a few days to a week or more away. Since it was yesterday afternoon that this happened, I'm assuming that labor is still a ways off. But, hey, it's a start!

****Okay, the grossness is over. You can read again.****

Last night we went and picked up the changing table/dresser for the baby. It came assembled in the box. Huzbend managed to get it up into the nursery all by himself, with just a couple of pushes from me. Impressive. We opened the box and one of the doors had come off in shipment and scraped some of the drawers leaving big marks all over them. Can't we win JUST ONCE???? So, today I had to call the company and complain. They are going to send us replacement parts in about 1 to 2 weeks. I guess I should be happy that I have a place to put baby's clothes.

We also went out to dinner last night at a place called The Old Spaghetti Factory. The only pasta they serve is....waaaaaiiiiiiiiit foooooorrrr iiiiiiiiitttttt......spaghetti. They do serve different types of sauces and main dishes (like eggplant parm), but they ALL come with spaghetti. I'd have to say it was pretty good. You get a salad or soup, an entree, a beverage (I think), bread and a small dish of spumoni or vanilla ice cream for like $9 or $10. Not a bad deal.

Today, I got up exceedingly early to get the car seat checked out. Huzbend did a pretty good job of installing it. There were only slight modifications made to the angle of the seat. I also learned how to buckle baby in the correct way. It was easy practicing on the teddy bear that I had in there. We'll see how it is with a squirmy little bambino.

Oh yeah, and the moving people came today and took away ALL the boxes and paper. Even the boxes that we had added since they moved us in. Shhhhhhh, don't tell them. We are so devious. Now we just have to work on getting rid of all the extra furniture that we have stacked around our place. Just no room.

I really gotta get on the ball and pack that hospital bag. We made a list of stuff to bring. I have some of it on the couch ready to go, but I just can't get motivated to actually put it into a bag. It's like I don't have a sense of urgency or something. I don't know what my major malfunction is. Maybe when I get the first side-splitting contraction I'll decide that it might be a good time to get my act together.