Are the neighbours using a palm sander?

On Saturday night, a few friends with children lamented their need to repeatedly ensure that their newborns were breathing. I'm sure that I'll do the same thing up to a point. That point being the day on which BabyBear takes up snoring like her mother.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I breathe deeply when asleep. Now that I'm pregnant, burdened with a lingering sniffle, and surrounded by strategically placed pillows, I flat out snore. Add it to the list of things beyond my control.

One night last week, I decided to practice my hypnobirthing exercises after dinner. PapaBear remained downstairs and was startled to hear the sound of a palm sander coming from our neighbours' home. "Why would Chris and Carolyn sand in the evening when they know the semi-porous nature of our semi-detached homes' shared wall?", he wondered.

Turns out that power tools were not the culprit. Instead, my relaxation track had put me to sleep and I was generating enough vibration to earn "Black & Decker" for a nickname. PapaBear was so concerned that he woke me up to protect our 80-year old plaster walls.

So when BabyBear spends her first night at home, I'm sure that I'll place my hand on her rising chest and look for fog on a mirror hovering above her face. Once she starts sawing away, however, the whole neighbourhood will know that she's sleeping just fine.

Knocked out by nesting

Maybe it was all the Sarah's House episodes I watched while laid up last weekend, but I ended the week with a fierce need to nest. PapaBear and I had just one major social commitment on Saturday night and that left plenty of time to hit a few household projects out of the park:

1. Final coat of paint on the door to the baby's room, a project that we began in warm weather
2. Third round of Christmas baking, including another hundred peanut butter balls, a rather labour-intensive Paton family classic
3. Gingerbread houses for the neighbour's boys
4. Two double batches of soup and a mac and cheese casserole
5. Christmas cards (with apologies for my being so late...hopefully yours will reach you before December 25th)

Unfortunately, all that time on my feet left me completely flattened. I took 2 naps on Saturday and an extra long one today. While PapaBear was out clearing snow, I was chilling, horizontal and warm under our duvet.

Fingers crossed that a snow day tomorrow lets me continue the fun.

If you thought I was whining in other posts...

...Prepare yourself for brand new levels of whimpering.

I'm sick. I have been for several days. My first fever in years meant that Saturday through Monday were spent horizontal. It is not the "most wonderful time of the year" in my house.

Being sick is crummy for anyone, but it's an unreasonable condition for the pregnant woman. In defense of my adorable little one and her developing brain stem, I am not taking cold medicine. This wouldn't be so bad, if I weren't the worst patient on the planet. Newborn babes have better coping skills than I do when I'm not in control of my time and energy.

I know only one thing for sure: there is no way to gracefully blow one's nose in public. My eyes are watering and my head is full, so I have no choice but to be one of those women who stuffs kleenex in her sweater cuff.

And worse - I occasionally have no choice but to use said kleenex in front of others. (I can just hear my mother gasping, "Such is not appropriate wasp behaviour!")

Oh well, add public nose blowing to the list of ways my social graces have slipped in the past 5 months.

Gold metallic crib shoes?

Via email, my sister wrote recently:

"You can scratch gold metallic crib shoes off your list of things the little princess needs. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO cute."

This, after calling me this week and gushing over the pink bathing suit (complete with ruffled skirt) and purple tankini that she had found. Friends may recall that my mother started delivering monogramed onesies when I was just 6 weeks pregnant.

Am I the only one who doesn't know what crib shoes might be? I can honestly say that they were not on my baby shopping list. Should I be getting a pair in every colour?

One thing is certain, my family is out of control excited about BabyBear (AKA "The Princess") and her pending arrival. Not that I can judge, however, given that I debuted my child's very own website this morning.

What's in a name?

Over Thanksgiving weekend, PapaBear and I had a long drive to and from our family social commitments. We took the opportunity to start brainstorming names for BabyBear and created a short list for each gender.

I'm sure every couple struggles with finding a mutually agreeable name. In our case, there was a lot of PapaBear throwing out suggestions and me vetoing outright. Eventually, we came to a set of ground rules:

1. No names likely to be associated with strippers or weird Hollywood offspring (e.g., Bambi or Moonbeam)
2. No names commonly held by animals (e.g., Sophie, the name of Colonel Potter's horse on MASH)
3. No names shared by prominent Republicans or celebutants (e.g., George, Dick, Barbara and Jenna are all out)
4. Mind the North Toronto trendiness factor. There are already plenty of kids named Connor, Charlotte, Preston, and Victoria.
5. The name must be one you would call a future CEO. Cute names are fine for a while, but I will not limit my child's professional prospects with "Scooter" or "Chance".

Because I was sure of BabyBear's gender, I started calling the babe by name in the weeks prior to our ultrasound. But I'm willing to step back and consider other options (although PapaBear wasn't completely wrong today when he said, "We all know that you are going to be the one to name this baby") .

We'll go with Paton as a middle name and finish with Greavette, leaving us just one slot to fill. Please feel free to lob over your suggestions for either flavour. If you need inspiration, check out The Baby Name Wizard, a handy tool of the "if you like Jack, you'll like these names" variety.

So this is how pregnant women exercise

Up to this point in my pregnancy, I've been burning calories by walking, doing yoga, and growing BabyBear. In my first trimester, this plan worked marvelously. The pounds have started to pile on of late, however, so I started wondering if yoga would cut it.

Looking for an alternative, I recently attended an aquafit class at the local community centre. What I hadn't anticipated was stepping into the Twilight Zone of fitness classes. Allow me to offer a summary:

• The instructor - A gentleman in his 70s, sporting a white headband and purple unitard. Head to toe spandex, leaving nothing to the imagination (especially when he emerged from the water halfway through the class and pranced about in the wet, clingy fabric). I couldn't contain myself when he led us through a series of pelvic tilts, hip sways, and even kegel exercises meant to help bladder control.
• The music - A Bette Midler dance mix, played on a pink 1980s cassette tape player, identical to the one I received from my parents for Christmas 1986
• The class participants - Seven elderly ladies, sporting Ester Williams-inspired bathing caps and skirted bathing suits, and 2 moms-to-be, doing our best not to laugh out loud at the spectacle
• The workout - What one would expect from an aquafit class. Lots of hopping around underwater, knee lifts, toe touches. The ladies kept warning me to pace myself, but I held my own.

How far I have fallen. Over the years, I have run 10 marathons and I ran 8 miles "for fun" just days prior to BabyBear's arrival. Now I'm doing aquafit with elderly women awaiting knee replacements.

I'm not sure what is more laughable: the class, the sight of myself in a maternity bathing suit, or the high probability that I'll return for another round on Wednesday night.

The verdict is in

For those following the play-by-play action in the BabyBear game, you may be wondering what today's ultrasound revealed. Because my MIL doesn't want to know what the flavour is, I'm not going to come right out and say it. So Donna, hide your eyes and don't scroll down...
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Keep scrolling - spoiler alert
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It's a girl!

I'll post a scan of the ultrasound as soon as we figure out our new computer's link to wireless peripherals.