Never Thought I'd See This!

Well, at least not while the baby was inside me!
FULL TERM!!!!!

I go to the doctor tomorrow for my last check up before my hospital admission on Monday. I'll let you know what happens, since I have nothing else exciting to report!

It's Beginning to Look A lot Like Christmas

Tonight we put up our tree. I know for most Americans it is too early because it's before Thanksgiving. Well, we don't even have off for Thanksgiving here, and we had a three day weekend for Japanese Labor Day (I think), so we felt it was the perfect time to do it. Especially with a baby due WITHIN THE NEXT TWO WEEKS!

Maximo had a lot of fun going through the Christmas trunk and pulling out all the holiday paraphernalia and ornaments. He was actually helpful *that sounds horrible, but usually when "Max do it", we add on an extra hour to most activities* giving parts of the tree to Daddy and putting on ornaments. He did a great job putting on ornaments, although the bottom part of the tree is definitely a bit heavy on ornaments.


We listened to Christmas music.

We ate made/ate nachos (a new Lemley tree decorating tradition).We donned our new Santa pajamas.The only problem is that we think Max thinks Santa is coming tonight... Don't worry, Son, only 33 days to go!

Week 35

Let's just say there's not a whole lot for me to post about since I don't really leave the house, and I'm sure you're not interested about what I made for dinner last night or the laundry I've done, or how there's a fly in the house that's driving me crazy. But an update is due.

I did leave the house a couple of times in the past two weeks. One was for the Shi-chi Go San ceremony that didn't quite happen (for us). Max refused to put on his gorgeous kimono and he and Mom ended up in tears, both taking an early nap at 10:00 am. That afternoon, after sleeping off the morning catastrophe, we ventured out into the beautiful fall afternoon onto the Green Belt behind our house and got a couple of nice pictures, not like the family ones at the shrine I was envisioning for our Christmas cards, but they're cute nonetheless.
Yesterday, I had my check-up/second blood draw. Lola is active and running out of room! Her measurements put her a couple weeks ahead size-wise (with a huge femur and belly) and her guesstimate weight this week is 6 lbs! I've read online that that can be off by a pound or two (either way). I think she has bruised my ribs internally; her cute little flutters and kicks are full on karate chops which have me in pain and make me a little nervous (like I'm going to pee my pants) when they end up on my bladder. My second blood draw (of 3) was yesterday, and felt much better than the first one, so I actually ventured to the 100 Yen store (in the same building) for wrapping paper and stocking stuffers - talk about a big day out!

Not much else... Just anxiously waiting for the 7th. We hope for logistical reasons that I can make it to that date, but really, we've made it SOOOOO far and she's practically full term, so we can't complain at all!

Practicing...

We've been talking a lot about Lola lately. This summer, Nana gave Maximo many "big brother" books and they are regularly making it into the nightly mix. He knows where baby Lola is and is using words like "little sister" and "baby", but really, he has no clue.

He was intrigued when John installed the baby hammock, and wanted to climb into it. Then he pulled some of the teeny diapers out of the diaper changer, so I figured, let's practice on his stuffed animal monkey. We talked about him helping change Lola's diaper and holding her (only when Mommy or Daddy is around!). He seemed to enjoy giving his monkey the attention at least for about 3 minutes - enough to put a diaper on him, swaddle him, rock him a bit, and then tuck him into bed and read to him.

We're really interested to see what Maximo is going to think of all this. I'm sure we'll have plenty of stories to tell.

Yummy 'sabi

Just a normal dinner at Los Lemleys.

Maximo licking the package of wasabi that comes with take-out sushi. And kind of liking it.

Most nights at dinner, John and Max have a "silly face-off". This is when we exercise our face muscles and see what we can do - raise our eyebrows, flare our nose, roll our tongue... you know important things that he'll probably be doing behind my back before I know it!

Side note: The band-aids are more of a fashion statement than a necessity. Anytime he bumps himself he wants a bandaid. We're slowly trying to wean him from this sick addiction that make us look like we abuse our son or that he should constantly be in full armor, or at least a helmet.

Big Girl

The latest guesstimate from the ultrasound:

(A screenshot of my iPhone as I use my handy-dandy metric converter)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

My visit today went well. We're now at 33 weeks and she's measuring a bit big (on Japanese charts) which is fine by me!

The doctor didn't scold me for my weight gain... 3 lbs in two weeks. (I just think she forgot as she was getting my paperwork ready as I was leaving.)

Incompetent Cervix is proving competent when you stitch her closed.

Blood banking starts next week for the three weeks up until my scheduled c-section.

Are we going to make it?

Oh, I really do hope so!

Location:Rokko Island Hospital

The Only Evidence

We live in a two bedroom apartment, so we've been trying to figure out how this baby's going to fit. Sleep schedules are important to us - imperative to me, because I'm a train wreck without sleep. So after many discussions and different scenarios, we've decided to keep Lola in our room at least for the first six months and then maybe bunk the kids together.

Since our two bedroom apartment happens to be in Japan, we don't have huge rooms. It's more common for Japanese families to all sleep together. Normally they use their tatami rooms for this and pull out futons, but I think younger families actually use beds and bedrooms (I don't know what else you'd use the "bedrooms" for). We currently use our tatami room as our dining room and have no heating/air in that room, so that doesn't really work for us anyways.

Since it's nearly impossible to fit the crib in our room with our bed, we're going to try using a baby hammock. Friends of ours from school gave one to us, so we're going to give it a whirl. Hopefully it'll work out. Let's see if we manage sharing a room with Miss Lola for six months (I'm sure John will find his way to the couch, which is where he'll need to be to get a decent night's sleep since he's got to get up for work). And then after that... who knows. Maybe the boys will bunk and the girls will bunk... or maybe, just maybe, the stars will align, and the kids will easily share a room. I used to love jumping off the top bunk on to sharing a room with my sister.
So for now, besides me being a current fixture on the couch, this is the only evidence there's a baby joining the family: