We’ll be welcoming a Junior into our lives. Poor little sprite, 9 months of warm sloshy comfort, and then popped out into a whole big open world.

Well, I think comfort is relative concept now. He really doesn’t have much space in there anymore. I’ve been wondering if he’ll be born with impressions of seams across his face from maternity clothes that are straining to hold me in these days.

The last few weeks have been a flurry of activity, getting everything washed and ready. Well, except for the two days I ended up in hospital for tests and observation – high blood pressure – but nothing untoward was found and I was sent home again and told to take it easy. Which I did. Kinda. As much as the nesting would allow.

Friday I went for a haircut and a pampering session of facial, manicure, pedicure and wax. Yesterday I stocked the fridge with quick meals to add to the bulk cooking Hunny did last weekend. And tonight Hunny and I are going on our last date night as a two-person family. We’re as prepared as we can be now, wish us luck and maybe next time I post I’ll have a sleeping baby in my arms. Or maybe a screaming one. It remains to be seen

It is finished

Finish lectures – check
Finish work project – check
Write exam – check
Finish ante-natal classes – check
Submit final assignment – check

Have baby – getting there

If you’ve been wondering where I have been the last few weeks, there has been snow in Joburg in autumn. Not widespread snow I might had, just enough to keep me weighed down and working. But that’s all done now, yippee! I handed in my final assignment at 10:00 today and ended what has been one of my most busy times ever. I’m going to go home and celebrate with a non-alcoholic beer.

I’m not usually a beer drinker, but I’ve been craving a drink the last couple weeks, and this is the only think I could find that tastes like alcohol without being alcohol. I feel rebellious drinking it, so it serves its purpose.

Three weeks to the day till Junior makes his entrance, and that’ll be my next task: get room, wardrobe and self ready for that. I don’t even know what goes in the bag, never mind having it packed! I’ve been worried for the last couple of weeks that he might make an early arrival, and then my lecturers would need to score me the draft version of my final assignment that I submitted 2 weeks ago. And well, ‘draft’ was a generous way to describe what I submitted. I would certainly have failed had a lecturer marked that! But Junior behaved himself and stayed put, so all’s well that ends well

I lost my last vestige of femininity a few weeks back when my ankles disappeared. I always had skinny ankles and I was very sad to see them go. I’ve never felt as unattractive as the morning I woke up and they were gone. It’s a funny thing to think, but yeah. The lost ankles were what finally made me feel too large to still be pretty.

No more weird encounters with strangers wielding pee sticks in supermarkets, but I did have a fellow classmate tell me that you don’t bond as well with the baby if you have a C-section. She’s had both, and she didn’t bond as well with the C-section baby. Of course it couldn’t have been that she didn’t bond as well with her second child as she did with her first, or she that she didn’t bond as well with her daughter as she did with her son. It had to be because one was a C-section…

But before I give you all my news at once, I’m going to preserve some topics for another day and leave you with this little list of things I’m looking forward to about not being pregnant anymore

• Getting my ankles back
• Not being in a permanent state of overheating
• Being able to wear my rings again
• A chilled glass of red
• Getting back on my horse (eventually)
• Having two functioning nostrils at least most of the time
• No more nosebleeds
• Not feeling like I need to pee every time I walk up stairs
• Walking up stairs without loosing my breath
• Being able to pick things up of the floor without looking (and feeling) like an idiot
• Pants that don’t slide down off the bump all the time – the bump is bigger than the hips now
• Actually meeting the little guy I’ve been bonding with for the last 8 months

(I’ll do the ‘things I’ll miss about being pregnant’ list next time)

How do you eat an elephant?

- One bite at a time.

An update on the Greenie’s story. On Monday Hunny fetched a new set of (second hand) carburetors. Tuesday we took the bike back to Danie at Randburg motorcycles. Wednesday we waited. Thursday mid-morning Randburg motorcycles phoned us up to say the bike is ready for collection. We dropped everything and went to fetch! Amazing! I think I have a crush on Danie …

Hunny rode the bike home, and says it’s better then when we bought it.  I’m a lot closer to excited now Just the new exhaust left to fit and we are done.

Only thing now is that I’m on course all weekend … *sob*

From 9AM to 4PM each day this weekend I’m going on a sports massage course. I have a secret desire to be a physiotherapist; for the moment this is as close as I can get to that. I’m very excited!

The course has an interesting set of requirements, amoung them:
Short fingernails
Shorts that are loose enough to be pulled up (we’ll be practicing techniques on eachother)
A bikini top or tank top that can be easily removed (for same reason as above)

Hunny’s quite excited about this too, he has volunteered to be my number one guinea pig. I’m not so sure about that. The guy is pretty huge, it’s like massaging two people…

One thing I’m worried about: my hands and wrists are going to get incredibly tired. My usual day job that has them typing is no preparation for deep tissue massage.