Who knows when it'll happen again, but joe and i were able to have one last trip to the beach together before the baby arrives.  My step-mother's father owns a beautiful beach house just south of Lincoln City so we were able to stay two nights for a pretty decent price.  Despite joe's fear that my water would break suddenly while we were gone, we made it safely there and back without incident.  I do not recommnend an almost three hour drive to other pregnant women though.  Soooo uncomfortable.  Once we got there of course, it was great.  We had lots of fun just doing nothing.  stared at the ocean, watched a couple movies, snapped tons of pictures, walked on the beach, even took a two hour nap in the afternoon!  It was extremely difficult to talk myself into going back to work today.  The good news is that i only have two and a half weeks left of work.  The crazy thing is i only have four weeks until this baby comes out!  maybe more, maybe less.

Gotta head back to work, i'll write more later.

I told joe on the way home Friday night that it's comforting to get the feeling that you're a little bit ahead of the class.  We had our first out of four childbirth prep. classes a few nights ago, and although there was some new stuff, we had pretty much heard most of it already.  We watched a video that showed a few women giving birth, and when it was over, after a few moments the shock of it was apparently too much for some of the women in the room.  One especially..... this girl across the room from us actually started CRYING!!  She looked terrified.  I looked at joe and he half smiled and winked at me.  i think we both were close to laughing out loud.  My response to the video- "I can do that" is what i said to joe.  i hope my confidence level doesn't take a nose-dive the day i need it most.  I'm looking forward to our next class.

Because we didn't plan very well that day, we hadn't eaten much beforehand, and i was STARVING when the class was over.  So we went to Elmer's to eat.  We ate a LOT of food fast.  It was good but the service was lacking for sure.  The middle-aged woman who was our waitress waited until she gave us our check to give us what i guess you could call a half smile.  A 15% tip for our meal would have come out to be about three dollars, but i had a fun idea.  I told joe that i wanted to give her ten dollars.  I had a ten dollar bill in my purse which i don't normally have so i figured why not.  There was a comment card that came with the check.  On it i wrote, "i hope you have a better day tomorrow:-)" and placed the ten dollars underneath.  I figured she would take it one of two ways.  Either she really was having a bad day and would appreciate the encouragement, as we were probably close to her last customers of the day. OR she wasn't having a bad day at all and might actually take a second to wonder, "do i really come across that grouchy?"  Anyway, that was my fun experiment even though i'll never know how it turned out.

The day before that was my work baby shower, it was great.  I got a lot of great gifts, and the decorations and food were very nice.  It was fun for me and joe to take all the items out of their packaging and put in various places in joey's room.  The big gift we got was our car seat!  We've gotten so far as to safely securing a teddy bear (also a gift) inside the seat, but have yet to master the car installation.  Joe has two things on his priority list.  Car seat & packing the hospital bag.  He said tonight that he feels a sense of urgency to get those things done.

I washed joey's clothes yesterday!  Now it really feels like they belong to him, they're not just storebought items anymore.  We have to decide what he's going to wear when we bring him home from the hospital.

I know there's more that i'm forgetting to write but i'm wiped out and need to get to bed.

Thanks everyone for signing my guestbook.  Please keep it up, i love to know that you're checking in on us.   I'll be talkin' at ya again real soon.

Waking up a million times to go to the bathroom was one thing. tolerable. but this kid now has such strong bursts of activity throughout the night that i just have to lay awake until he decides he's done partying. then i fall back asleep. then i wake up an hour later to pee again.  Boy will it be nice when i'm done with work and i can take a nap during the day to catch up.  I know, people say this is practice for after the baby's born.  But i'm pretty sure that i won't mind the lack of sleep near as much when i get to spend the day with our beautiful son rather than be half asleep trying to make it through an 8 to 5 job that i'm not in love with. 

Tomorrow's my first ever baby shower!!  I'm so excited but kinda nervous too, don't know why.  This'll be my work one, my family and friends baby shower will be in a couple weeks.  I think i'll just feel uncomfortable getting that many gifts from people and being the center of attention for so long.  not my favorite thing to do.  But, you know, i've got to do what needs to be done for the baby's sake ;O