In the Life of Smikel: Another Week in August

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Two weeks ago
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Week 29

Elaine is staying quite active (probably thanks to the 3doz. chocolate chip cookies Mike made). I am definitely noticing she is reacting more to outside stimulus. One evening, I was really uncomfortable; I felt motion sick or something. I gently pushed on my stomach to see where she was, and I encountered a large hard spot, which I haven't really felt before, and I thought must be some part of her anatomy sticking out. As I felt around trying to figure out if it was her head, an arm or a leg, it moved away--and suddenly I felt so much better. I felt around more to see if I could find a foot or her head again or something, and she kept pushing back. It was pretty cool! I imagined that she was protesting being poked.

I still feel great. I am perhaps noticing slightly more fatigue and very minor discomfort occasionally. I still have a major sweet tooth, unfortunately. But I continue to eat lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. We've been into pineapples recently--which are sweet enough for to satiate my cravings for sure.

Look what I can still do!

Thursday was our second labor/birthing class. We went over stage 1 of labor (when the woman is having contractions, but they're not bad enough to freak out and start cursing yet) and ways to get through contractions. We practiced some of the methods (yay massages!) and positions (awkwardly kneeling and bent over my chair and the strange "hip squeeze"). It was very helpful and informative. It made me realize how long one minute truly is when we practiced breathing and massaging through an imaginary contraction.

Tutoring ended Friday (a week from yesterday). My student is moving into Lehigh this week from now to start his first semester, so he gets the week off. He was a really sweet kid, I think Mike and I will miss seeing him around. He gave us a baby gift that he picked out--a duck outfit and a giraffe outfit. I told him, you didn't know this but there is a special place in my heart for ducks--I had a pet duck for 13 years!

Mike and I (and I suppose Elaine, by default) had another date night Friday. Mike took me out to see the new Will Ferrell/Zach Galifianakis comedy called "The Campaign." I really enjoyed it (and my pop-corn); I always get a kick out of Will Ferrell. Mike enjoyed it too, though he's more of a Galifianakis fan.

Saturday we did absolutely nothing. Not completely true--we stayed home and got caught up on our to-do lists. I did have to get up early to go get blood work done to check for gestational diabetes (I hope Mike's batch of cookies doesn't skew my numbers!). We went for a walk that was supposed to be a long one, but it was cut short by rain and thunder. At 9PM we decided to run out to Barne's and Noble to look for food science books. Since Mike has such natural talent for cooking, we thought it would be great to put aside one night a week for him to work on creating new recipes/tweaking old ones. He'd also like to look into taking a cooking class somewhere.