soccer and sunday

j has started soccer with the club in town--the “KinderKickers” program. I think he’s doing ok, but I’m only hearing this from P. Most activities done with j are better with one parent, and P is on soccer-duty. I hope that j will get into the soccer groove enough that he doesn’t notice my coming, hanging out, and hopefully meeting some more parents. I just think it will take a little while. He got a little annoyed at Saturday’s practice when another kid was trying to kick the ball away from him. I mean, the nerve! :)

Today was a nice Sunday. We spent the morning at home just hanging out, which I don’t think we’ve done as a family for about a month. We basically finished the organization of the baby room, so we’re ready if he/she makes an early appearance. I would prefer this, of course, because if I go to 41 weeks I will have to have a scheduled C-section, so we’re going to start some "natural" induction techniques starting at around 37 weeks (considered full-term).

This afternoon we headed to a birthday party in the village--a friend of j’s from gymnastics class who was turning 5. We all had a great time. The party was in the parking lot of a local restaurant owned by the birthday boy’s grandparents, which we liked more than the other ones we’ve been to--at Chuck E. Cheese, McD’s, or some of the other party-places around here. There was a bouncy house outside, but it felt more casual. (At one party j went to this year at a party-place, we were all unceremoniously ushered out as soon as the one-and-a-half hour mark hit.) Today, Buzz Lightyear made an appearance (ok, a guy dressed up as Buzz Lightyear). We tried to get j to go over to him so I could get a picture, but j told us “He’s not *really* Buzz Lightyear.” Which was true: Tim Allen did not actually attend this party. But the kids all seemed to have a good time and P and I did as well.

Then we drove to the city, where I had chorus rehearsal (this baby inside likes to move when it hears singing, which is fun) and P and j visited a friend of P’s for the rest of the afternoon. Good times.

j still seems to be doing well at school; we went to his Back-to-School night this week. Reading is a strength for him, and having a strength is a good thing when other issues pop up (like chewing on every crayon, pencil, and eraser in your desk, for example). I’m just happy that he seems to be happy there for the most part.

fall changes

Lots of changes going on around here. The summer was swamped with home-improvement projects, including getting j's room done and the baby room completed. We still have a bit more to do, but I'm feeling much better since we were able to throw out and give away a lot of clutter.

j began kindergarten last week; I can't quite believe it. He seems to be doing well and enjoying it, though the first day he had a meltdown getting *off* the bus, when he demanded that he stay on the bus and in school forever.

It's hard to tell, but we think he's been doing fine in the class. Apparently there's a system displayed in his classroom where each student has either a green, yellow, or red card to indicate the quality of his/her behavior. j informed me that "Green means you're good, yellow means you're kinda good, and red means they call the police." I assured him that his teacher probably wouldn't call the police, which he initially refuted, but the next day he told me that no, "they" would just call mama and daddy if he got a red card. He claims, however, to have been "green all week," which means today at school he gets a prize.

I'm still pregnant. 33-34 weeks, though I haven't been keeping track of everything as assiduously as I did last time. As I did with my pregnancy with j, I've developed gestational diabetes, though I do think that rowing so much--until 6 months pregnant--kept it at bay for a while. I was negative for GD at 20 weeks, but borderline at 28 weeks. So now I get to once again track my food, pee in a cup every morning, and check my blood sugar four times a day. It seems harder to control this time so I'm trying to monitor it closely. The midwives I'm with have been pretty good about working with me on it. I'll have another ultrasound next week to check on the baby. Since I haven't had one in three months, it's not a bad idea, though I'm trying to keep the interventions to a minimum so I don't get labeled as a high-risk pregnancy.

I'm not teaching this semester until the baby arrives, which gives me time to monitor all this crap (fun!), but also time to do some writing. I'm working on trying to finally get some things published, so we'll see how that goes.