General update

I am enjoying some time not at work for the past week or two, though I haven't found it to be full of free time as my coworkers implied I would. It took several shopping trips, but I've now got everything I need for going to the delivery room. The shopping involved a bit of grit and lots of breaks because the hip pain was getting pretty ugly. I stopped by the back pain clinic because when I didn't wear my elastic belly support my hips hurt, but then when I did wear it, the passenger kept kicking at it because it was tight and hurt. The new bigger size has been quite nice and the little dear no longer protests nearly as much. So I usually do one errand outside the house each day.

Sleep continues to be elusive as I struggle with pillows and numerous blankets. My hip pain is worse than the bathroom breaks, so I spend the night flipping more than a pile of flapjacks. We've made up the spare bed in case one of us can't take the other's thrashing at any point, but it has gone unused so far. I could always resort to playing this video repeatedly, but it hasn't gotten that bad yet.

Maria and Lauren organized a lovely shower for me two weekends ago, which Mom was able to join live via satellite (Skype). We had lots of fun games, one of which Mom even won (she guessed I had a 40" waist and I was 41" at the time, see measuring to right). I've decided to let the diaper cake decorate our living room for a bit (we can work our way through each layer after the baby arrives).

This past weekend, we had a big potluck to celebrate the end of midterms and Canadian Thanksgiving. Canned pumpkin is unheard of here, so we had to wait until pumpkins for carving made it to the market. After carving a couple of jack-o-lanterns, I had scrapings and pieces equivalent to three cans, plus some tasty seeds. So I made some pumpkin cookies from scratch, Brent and Celeste made some tasty pies. Everything was very tasty and we even watched some recorded American football to complete the T-day experience.