38 Weeks

Last day of work...now what???

Flying with a Newborn

Part of being married to someone whose family lives across the country from you means some negotiation about Christmas holidays and where they are spent. We decided early on that we would try to alternate between spending the holidays with our families. It hasn't worked out exactly as planned:

2008 - Saskatchewan - Steve had just moved here a month earlier and wanted to get settled
2007 - Saskatchewan
2006 - Italy - Our magical honeymoon
2005 - Ontario - Highlight was an evening of Karaoke with the Thomson side and a NYE at the cottage
2003 & 2004 - Natasha in Sask, Steve in Ont

As you can see, it's Ontario's turn and so last night we took a deep breath and booked our flights. I booked Hairy's first flight under the name Master Tobedetermined which I hope doesn't come back to haunt me Customer Service wise.

37 Week Reality Check

Hmmm...some stuff I've learned. 37 weeks means the baby is full term and could arrive any day. I really can't complain about this pregnancy thing, just a bit of nausea and sore feet from time to time. For the last week or so it's been almost comical...I have to really work to get out of bed to hit the washroom 3 or 4 times a night. Stephen has had to move a lounger chair into the living room because it is too hard to get up off of the couch after lying down. My ribs are bruised from the kicking on the inside so much that I can't lie on one side.

I really would recommend only working until 35 or 36 weeks. I've gone in to work 20 of the last 22 days, many of those being evenings in addition to a full day...it's too much and doesn't leave much time to get stuff ready for a baby. It still doesn't feel real somehow.

Steve and I are going to be parents! My parental model is a single-parent family which makes me nervous...how does this work with two people working together? How will I deal with going from such a crazy work schedule to being home with an adorable (yes, I'm assuming) little creature all day? How will our precious cats react? I haven't changed a diaper since I was a teenager babysitting. Will we lose our zany lifestyle completely?

Pumpkin and Petroleum Jelly?

Last weekend we had a Halloween themed concert at work. One of my staffers came up with the idea of asking local celebrities to carve pumpkins and we would silent auction them off in the lobby.

The project involved some organization such as delivering pumpkins all over the city. My EA did some research and found out that putting petroleum jelly on the pumpkins would make them last longer, fresher. The other staffer told me that he when he dropped off the pumpkins it was awkward because the people answering the door didn't always know why he was delivering a pumpkin.

When they described to me their system in detail I started laughing so hard that I cried. So our Manager of Orchestra Operations was essentially driving to local celebrities homes (people like local Elvis impersonator Rory Allen's house) and ringing the doorbell with a huge pumpkin and a tube of lube in hand.

Too funny.........

Albertan Adventure

I'm sitting in the lobby of the "Service Plus" hotel in Calgary typing this as we wait for CAA. Of course we are having a small adventure.

Steve's Grade 1 teacher's van is filled to the brim with Ikea gadgets, we've had some very successful shopping times. My favourite moment in Ikea was going through the checkout 4 times to take advantage of the 20% we got back in gift cards through our new Pax wardrobe system. On one of those times, we took a frozen yogurt break and Stephen accidentally started grabbing a rather overweight ladies ice cream and she gave him the dirtiest look while he had the happiest "I have ice cream" look on his face. I laughed for about 20 minutes.

We finished the shopping spree at about 1pm yesterday and then hit the road with the van full of stuff to go for a short 3K prego-hike in Banff (it sucked to be there and not have the guts to do a real hike, but it was a beautiful day and enjoyable) and have a romantic dinner at my all-time favourite Banff establishment, Wild Bill's. This was our pseudo anniversary as we couldn't get away during the pre-Symphony Under the Sky week and we had a great 1/2 day of fun.

Anyway, on the drive back to Calgary we almost ran out of gas, but saw a station on the highway just in the nick of time. Stephen noticed that his one tire needed air, but air cost $1 at that particular gas station. He thought that paying $1 for air was a total rip-off so we blasted off down the #1 Highway, did a quick drive around downtown Calgary and determined that Calgary is a "real" city in our Boodlini estimation, and headed back to the Hotel.

This morning we were jumping into the van ready to head back to Regina and noticed a little issue. Our tire was completely flat. I'm sure it didn't help that we have quite a bit of weight in the back of the van and that we didn't pay the $1 for air.

And now we await our friends from CAA to fill our tire...and they just got here...thank goodness for my mother-in-law's annual Christmas present of a CAA membership. It has saved our Boodlini butt's on more than one occasion.

See you back in The Vag.

Exotic Balsamic Vinegar

Thursday nights are pre-natal class nights at the Y. Our instructor begins each class with a roll call, but tonight Stephen remarked at how "white" the names in our class sound. We giggled a bit at that and as I looked around realized that everyone in our class was white and how no one was named Hassan or Giuliano everyone was named Troy or Mike.

Later on, our instructor began talking about foods that might help to induce labour if you are overdue and mentioned balsamic vinegar. She had to stop and tell the class that it was that dark vinegar you get at Italian restaurants mixed with oil for your bread dipping pleasure. Meanwhile my 1/2 Italian husband sat in complete shock and I laughed until it was awkward.

"Traffic"

From our new house, I have two choices of routes to work each morning. All summer I've been taking Wascana Parkway up to College to avoid the Albert Street Bridge construction and the Starbucks enticement. Now that University is back on I've had to switch back over to the Albert option.

It's been 16 months in Sask and I'm already complaining about an additional 3 minutes on my ten minute "commute" each morning. Funny how quickly perspective can change after my old 45 minute streetcare ride/1 hour walk in Toronto...hmmm.