starting 37 weeks

At the end of this week, I will be officially full-term, and ready to pop. I still have 3 prenatal classes left to attend, so I suppose it's just as well that my family history predispositions me to not go ahead of due date. Even so, I don't think I'll work past Oct 5, which means I've got 20 work days ahead of me. That still seems like a lot, but what I am enjoying tonight is the thought that I only have three more Sunday Nights (after this evening, of course) to do the dreading that I have done to varying degrees of severity over the past 4.3 years. That's right, I counted the number of weeks since June 23, 2003, when I started at Engine Works, and it comes to 4.3 years that I've been a full-time John Deere employee. Sunday nights were the hardest when I was in Minneapolis, pretending to be a quality engineer and far from "home," and I remember a few occasions of getting so anxious that I couldn't even settle down to sleep. Then I moved to Des Moines, and once I got settled into the job a bit, I was able to say without flinching that I enjoyed my job - which was an incredible move up from pretending to not hate my daily grind. It's weird to think that my overall satisfaction at my current job peaked sometime before the start of this year, because I always thought I would be happiest in a job when I felt most competent and confident. It turns out that although that's really very important, the competence of those around me is possibly equally important to me. I guess that's something I should remember as I try in the next 3 months to decide what to do career-wise.

This weekend was fun, despite the Cyclones' dismal performance on the football field. It was a beautiful day for tailgating, and I saw lots of fun people, and really had a nice time before the game started. At the game, though, I got overheated because I was in a row with too many people in it (it's so hard to look at one's ticket and know where to sit) and then moved into a row with too many fat people in it, plus I was in the vicinity of somebody who thought because he's outside he could fart any time he wanted. Besides being overheated and tired of smelling shit, on my way to my seat I also almost got brought down by an elderly lady who was trying to get to her seat. She tripped over someone who wouldn't let her into her row, fell backwards onto me and tumbled down a few steps. I felt really bad for her, but when someone behind me yelled to help her up, I got really mad, because it was all I could do to retain my own balance. Apparently, I don't look 9 months pregnant from behind, because nobody asked me if I was okay after being knocked off balance on a concrete stairway. That was probably the low point of the weekend, though, and once I got it out of my system I enjoyed the horrible game as much as the next Cyclone fan.

I also went to a "baby fair" Saturday morning at the hospital where I'll deliver, and I got to see their birthing rooms, recovery area, and nursery, plus they had a whole area set up for booths to pick up pamphlets and sign up for door prizes. The neatest thing was a talk I went to on teaching your baby to sign. The person doing the talk offers classes, but I might just get some small benefit if I can find a good book on it. One thing I hadn't thought about was learning to recognize how a babies make the signs, since their motor skills aren't quite up to exact mimicry. I didn't know that it's real ASL signs that are used, and I was also reassured that signing does not delay development of verbal skills, but actually advances it. I don't know that I'd end up doing much signing, but it sure would be nice to avoid the "eh, eh, eh," noises that kids make before words come, because I can see myself being annoyed by that.

So today I did nothing, except go to the prenatal class. I have started on a list of small stuff I need to do before the baby comes (wash crib sheets, stuff like that), because if I don't write them down I'll forget something. I know I'm kidding myself to think I'll actually get everything ready, or feel like I'm ready, but I sure am ready to not have a baby in my belly anymore. Ohhh, to take a deep breath!!