Oh thank God, I’ve had contractions for the last 2 hours. About every 8 and a half minutes or so. I’ve had them laying down, I’ve had them sitting up, I’ve had them while moving around. Seem to have passed the test of “if you change activity do they stop?” Going to go take a bath here in a bit – mostly just so I can shave what I can see (which face it, isn’t much) and get my hair washed and straightened. Think I’ll go lay (lie?) down with Scout and Tavish for a bit, then eat, then bathe. Oh yeah, need to call and cancel that 840 am appt – I don’t think I need to go over there for an appt and then come home and then go back later today.

And believe me, being 291 days pregnant, and having faced the idea of all kinds of needles and chemicals and surgery for over a week – with every contraction, my reaction is pretty much along the lines of “Thank you sir, may I have another?”

oh yeah, that’s what the trip to Target for pasta sauce and some milk and some peanut butter turned into.

Spinal Tap, Veronica Mars S2, Scrubs S2, Friends S8, two different cake mixes, muffin mix, 3 kinds of ice cream, three boxes of jalapeno poppers, more chocolate, mac n cheese, chips, Milanos …. we did get the stuff we went in for – but holy crap all the other stuff! Scout’s done with work too so we’re home for the duration.

The walking helped make things settle in, after the oven turns out some desserty goodness I think we may have to go walk through the neighborhood.

Ah. By 145pm I’d taken two naps. Not a bad day. I missed out on the 85 degree building at school. No bad there. Scout and I have excavated his toenails in the search for healthy nail bed under what grows on his big toes under the code name of “Toenail”, but “Toenail” is clearly a not so secret undercover agent of the apocolypse, endangering healthy toenails everywhere – namely the ones known as “Scout’s second toes”.

Have napped. Have established Alex is extremely laid back and “unhurried”. I have explained to him that it’s possible we will also be “unhurried” when he is 16 and wanting a car as well. Or whatever else I can pull the Jewish mother routine on as he grows up.

Seriously, I’m so pissed off about this that I’m convinced Alex will be born with horns.

I hate me, I hate Scout, I hate the baby, the cat has been smart enough to stay away from me so she’s safe from the hate, I hate the grandparents (all of them. Both of my parents have had “lovely” conversations with me today. Serves them right for trying to talk to the savage beast.)

I feel like a fucking circus midget (that’s for Carrie) in a cage at the zoo, what with all the grandparents calling all the GD time. Once a day one of them is on the horn or the email “just checking in”. I swear to God, if I ever lose my mind and decide and this is a good idea to get pregnant ever again, I’m not telling the grandparents until the baby decides to show the hell up. It’s like they are all afraid we’ll forget to call and tell them. Hate.

Otherwise, Kristen, I change my prior advice – call all the grandparents right now and tell them the docs set your due date back TWO weeks, not just one. I can not save myself, but you can still save yourself.

I’m also considering changing his name to Braxton Hicks instead of Alexander Jakob since that’s apparently his favorite thing in the universe.

Oh, and never fear, intermingled with all the hate is all the guilt that I’m a horrible fucking mother for feeling this way, causing irrepairable damage to my kid before he’s even born. Never fear.

“You will enter a situation in which you have no control.”

And here I am. I keep telling Alex that he can either make the choice to come out on his own, or someone will help him. And that I’d rather he come out on his own.

I’m so cranky. Scout’s even watching Will Ferrell bloopers on you tube and I can’t manage to find them funny either. It’s hot and sticky and icky.

I’m a pretty intervention free kind of pregnant woman.

Alex has till 840am on Tuesday before the gentlest of the medical type interventions begin.

So if you’d wanna say a prayer or whatever that this boy decides he wants out between now and then…. In the words of Bill Lumbergh – “That’d be greeeeeaaaat.”

On the flip side of the medical interventions are those we can try at home. Nipple stimulation, sex (semen apparently has prostaglandins in it that can ripen the cervix – although why no one thinks this is concerning the other 14 months of pregnancy I’m not sure) and orgasms specifically.

Well, at least I’ll know how to use that breast pump when I actually have a kid to feed.

Is it bad to look up naughtiness on google as soon as your husband leaves the house? How the hell do you explain that? Yes son, I got myself off but it was all for you? WTF mate?

I told Scout today in the sonogram room that we might have to sign up for some strategically engineered mercy sex. “Get it up, put it in, get it off…..” I told him I’d even play some very special Liz Phair in the background for him …. mood music if you will.

Ahhhhh romance, ahhh candor, ahhhh TMI : )

I think I’m nesting. But not in a clean the house kind of way, in an I never want to leave the house kind of way. I just want to stay home, read a book, stretch, relax, nap… I’m living the life of Tavish. I’m doing nothing, and it’s everything I thought it could be.

I didn’t know when I went to bed last night that today would be my last day of work. But when I got in the car this morning with Scout to go to work (late). I knew. When I walked into work. I knew. While I was reading the end of a book to my 5th hour class. I knew. While I was reading that book something shifted in me, and my mind wasn’t really there. Melissa looked at me after that and said my eyes had turned inward, that things were changing.

It was like a sacrament – an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.

I was patted and loved on by several moms today. And one man who greeted me on my way in to work, a man who is so gentle you know his mama raised him right.

I finished testing a girl during 7th hour, my voice was even different while I read the script to her, softer or something.

I passed along good news to three different parent/students today that they had passed tests and wouldn’t have to deal with them again – they were finished.

I finished a book, a test, I let people know they had finished tasks, and I finished my pre Alex work life. All while being patted gently by other mothers.

Huh. Today was a blessing. What a gift. Huh.

I’m glad I sat down to write this – I’m glad I didn’t miss out on the gift of today.