Countdown...

This Sunday marks my 30th week of pregnancy. In my first pregnancy, this would have meant writing thank you notes for my baby shower gifts, washing everything I could get my hands on in Dreft, playing classical music through headphones stretched around my growing belly, packing my hospital bag, taking child-birthing and breast-feeding classes, installing the infant car seat in my car, and relaxing on the couch with my feet propped up on pillows while my husband ran to the 7-11 to get me root-beer and pints of Ben & Jerry's.

Oh, how things have changed in six short years! The remaining ten weeks of this pregnancy will be spent doing all of the things I should have been doing for the last seven months in addition to all the things I will be too busy to do right after the baby is born.

The biggest and most daunting of all of these projects is the completion of my basement so that I once again have a guest room (and bathroom) as well as significant more living space. And by living space, I mean space to throw all of the kids toys so I don't have to see (i.e. trip over) them on the main floor. So my husband has 10 weeks to turn the dusty, half-drywalled concrete-floored basement dripping with exposed wires into a functional living space, complete with walls, carpet, lights, and running water. Hmmm......

The addition of a fourth baby has also caused a little rearranging of room assignments. My girls are now sharing a room with bunk beds, which is going quite well considering their polar-opposite personalities. My son had to move into one of the girls' old rooms, so his room is bright pink except, of course, the large white patches of spackle adorning the walls. The baby's room is a temporary guest room, which until the basement is done, I can't even begin to decorate.

Not to mention, the fact that this baby is due right around the time that I need to be throwing my daughter a six-year-old birthday party and going shopping for back-to-school supplies.
So... this calls for some organization on my part. And thankfully after three pregnancies of zero nesting-instincts, I have so much motivation and crazy cleaning-sprees this time around I might actually get all of this done.

I just booked a paint-you-own pottery place for my daughter's birthday party, a full week before her birthday just in case this baby wants to make her debut a little early. I ordered invitations online that should be here any day. I have begun buying her gifts online and stashing them in my closet.

I have gone through all of her school uniform clothing and gotten rid of anything too small, stained or "accidentally" cut with her kid scissors. I have ordered replacement pieces as well as washed everything that will still work for next year. I have put everything in a large plastic bin along with her lunchbox and backpack. I am going to start buying the items on her school supply list now and putting those in the bin, to save myself a giant trip at the end of August when I'm nine months pregnant. I have bought my rolls of clear contact paper for her book covers now while they are abundant instead of waiting until August where they are so scarce, grown women are mowing each other down with their shopping carts just to get their hands on some.

So, I am not able to prop my feet up every night and read baby books and play Vivaldi to my baby in utero. So I don't have a nursery put together and I'm not even sure where in the garage the infant car seat is. So I don't have a bag packed for the hospital or even a name picked out. I have ten weeks! And in crazy pregnant-women warp zone time, that's an eternity! I'll get to it all! Two weeks ago, I stayed up until 2 a.m., organizing my closet. And last week, I taught myself to knit in a half hour watching youtube videos. I can do anything! Well, besides tying my shoes or walking up a flight of stairs without getting winded. Or shaving my bikini line without the help of several strategically-placed mirrors. Or sleeping through the night without peeing eight times. But other than that, I can do anything! There's nothing like a pregnant woman on a mission!

Kindle: friend or foe?

I have loved reading since before I can remember. Some of my greatest childhood memories consist of hours spent at the public library, the agonizing decision on which books would make it into my little tote bag. I would read in the car, in my bedroom, outside in a tree. I even turned my closet into a reading nook when I was eight. I took everything out of it, put in a desk lamp and lined it with a sleeping bag, and spent hours and hours reading in there. I was the kid who took a flashlight to bed and read under the covers, until my mom busted me and made me go to sleep.
My love of books has continued well into my adulthood. My favorite place in the world is a bookstore. There's something exhilarating about it. The best book you've ever read, the book that changes who you are or how you look at the world could be just waiting for you to stumble upon. I could sit for days in a bookstore, in one of those cushy armchairs with a coffee in hand and read until my hearts content.
So naturally, the invention of the wireless reading device (i.e. Kindle, nook, Reader) has never resonated with me. I mean, don't get me wrong, I get the concept. I get that having a little device I could keep in my purse with 1500 books at my disposal sounds like a good idea. It's convenient. And as a mom of almost 4 kids, I am all about convenience. But there is just something about it that makes me feel dirty. Like I'm cheating on books, real books, with paper pages that get musty with age or crinkled after a day at the beach. I can see how downloading a book in a matter of minutes is so much easier (and cheaper) than going to the bookstore. But that thought just makes me sad. I wonder how all of these great authors, that sat by candlelight with a pen in hand and jotted down what would turn into some of the greatest literary works, would feel about me downloading their masterpiece to my Kindle. Is that the way The Great Gatsby or Anna Karenina was meant to be read?
So, I am resisting technology. I am going to stand my ground. I believe that the electronic reading device is a fad, one that we will look back on in a few years and laugh about. I believe that books will come back into style. Everything truly great does, right?