No Hurry

Not a bad way to kill some time. 

Nursing It

This is going to be Liz in about 2 weeks. 

Just Sittin

Just sittin on our deck in the Bay

At the end of a warm summer day. 

Just sittin here restin my bones

With this little girl who looks like my clone. 

Handy

She loves to help. As long as it's fun. And it doesn't involve cleaning up her toys, washing her hands, eating dinner, or turning off the tv or generally doing what we ask. 

Hot Mama

You can't really tell from this picture, but Liz looks amazing, like 38 and a half weeks ain't no thang.

I took Friday off of work and we spent the day together- shopping, eating, and even caught a movie in a theater! 

Wherever she goes, people totally gawk at Liz because she's very preggo, but mostly just in the belly. While we were out Friday, and today at the farmers market, multiple people pulled her aside to tell her how great she looks. 

They're right. 

Survey Says

Accordingto this data, Liz, at 38.5 weeks, has a nearly 28% chance of going into labor in the next 8 days and a nearly 39% chance of going into labor in the next 10 days. 

The kicker- only about 75% of babies were born spontaneously in the next THIRTY DAYS! That's means almost 25% of babies go til 43 weeks, when they have to be induced!

Recital

At the end of the 10-week session, each class has a recital where the parents are allowed in the room and the kids can show off what they've been working on.  It's more of an open class than a recital, but Liz and I weren't going to miss it.

There's only one other girl in her class- a 5 year-old.  But with us there, Huelan didn't see anyone else in the room.  She's definitely got the show bug- she just beams up there.  She could hardly focus on what her teacher was asking her to do, but everything she did was with a huge smile.

PS last night when we were getting ice cream at Tara's, she did First Position, a plie, and corrected me- it's not an "airplane," it's an arabesque.  Money well spent.

High Alert

I remember the time immediately before Huelan was born as some of the most fun in our marriage.  Not only were we in a anticipatory, completely naive pre-glow, but it was around Christmas, and my family had just come to the Moss house for the holidays on a roll of the dice that Huelan would arrive early (the official due date was Dec 23).  Huelan wasn't in any hurry to join us, so our last few days as a kid-less couple stretched into about week.  A glorious week of restaurant dinners, quiet home meals, movies in the theater, vegging in front of the TV, and full nights of undisturbed sleep.  Huelan gave us a chance to take it easy and we took it.

This time, no such luck.  The boy's due July 2, and the OB says this one's in a hurry so we shouldn't expect to make it to the end of June.  Our timeline just got compressed and we have a ways to go before we really feel comfortable with our level of readiness.  A few things got checked off the list- room's painted, some furniture's arrived, and the closet's about halfway there.  Liz's hospital bag is about 80% ready, and mine is about 50% ready (I charged the cameras).  Smoked some ribs.  Seeing friends while we can.

Liz's first day off was Monday, and we're hoping for another week to get ourselves sorted out and do some relaxing before our world is rocked.  Really though, the weirdest thing is that these are the last few days of it being just the three of us.  Though there's probably a little less anxiety this time, less nervous anticipation, we're definitely aware that this chapter is ending and a new one is about to begin.  Our little family, the center of our world, is about to totally change.

So while we're incredibly excited to meet our son, if he wants to take an extra day or two, we're fine with that.  We've got the rest of our lives to be the four of us; the three of us have just a few days left.

Here are some pics from the first half of June.

Flower Girl

Oops forgot to post this vid from Tom and Adrienne's wedding!

Dating

These three all have about the same due date. Which one will deliver first? Now taking bets. And if you haven't submitted your guess as to the baby's (our baby's) birth date, time, length, and weight, might as well do that now so that we can put it up on the Big Baby Board. Winner gets the baby named after him (or her?).   

Liz's due date is July 2 if that helps any. At the OB yesterday, her doc basically said expect it anytime now, which is not exactly what we wanted to hear- we were promised four more weeks! Huelan was four days late so we probably have even more time than that....

NOLA

A couple of SFW pics from the New Orleans trip.

Plus these two videos that are, like, 99% SFW.

This one is really loud:

Lee Family and Friends

A beautiful a wedding and the start to a beautiful marriage! Family weddings are always a little more special because, unlike with friends, we don't usually see our family letting it all loose.  But the Lee Family certainly got loose Saturday to celebrate Tom and Adrienne's Big Day. The friend contingent did a pretty good job keeping up too....

But not with Huelan.  No one could keep pace with that girl. From the Flower Girl walk down the aisle through to the last song, she did her best to steal the show.  Want to get a taste of her night? Imagine five-plus hours of this:





More pics here

Mini-moon

About two months before Huelan was born, Liz and I took a leisurely drive down Highway 1, stopping at a few B&B's and seeing the sights.  A Baby-Moon.

This time, we don't really have that luxury.  We don't really even have a ton of weekends left before the little one is due, and even fewer free ones, so we decided semi-spontaneously to make a short roadie down to the Monterey Peninsula for some sun and fun.  Still down the coast, just a quicker round trip.

But first, we weren't going to miss the Greek Festival at the Oakland Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension, just down the hill from us.  I was kind of hoping for Zeus and stuff, but they're some sort of Christians, in case you were wondering.

It was billed by our friends as one of the best food festivals around, and it did not disappoint.  In addition to the Gyros (average), we sampled some tasty pork skewers and their version of donut holes (tossed in honey- fresh, slightly crispy, warm, and gooey).  The grounds were very nice and I am kicking myself for not going into the chapel itself, which was ornate and topped with a classic dome of well-patina-ed copper.  

The best parts were the music and dancing.  Huelan had no reservations about jumping in with the other young girls and circling hand-in-hand.  None of them really knew the steps, so she fit right in.

My favorite (non-edible) part was the teens dancing - they had a pretty elaborate routine that finished with some very cool solos.  It was like a Greek Step Up, which I have a weakness for.  You could just tell that the teens looked forward to the dance performance all year, probably for years even, as an adolescent rite of passage where the boys and girls check out each others' moves and do their best to put on a show for one another.  The smells, flavors and sounds- probably not very different than 200 years ago. I thought that was a fantastic way to build and maintain a community bond many years and miles away from its origin.

Saturday morning we packed up the car for Santa Cruz.  The Boardwalk probably also largely unchanged from a few decades ago.  Only now with waaay more terrible tattoos.  I mean really bad ones in really bad places.  But we were there to get some sun, some thrills, and some empty calories, all of which we accomplished.  

Then we drove a little further down to Monterey so that we could wake up on Sunday and visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  In contrast the to Boardwalk, I saw almost no terrible tattoos here.  And they do a wonderful job of making the entire place very interactive for youngsters.  Huelan got to get up close with tons of different critters and hands-on with a bunch as well.  I thought the highlight was feeding time in the Deep Ocean exhibit- 300lb blue fin tuna booking it around a 1.3 million gallon tank- but Huelan's favorite seemed to be touching kelp. Go figure.  

Actually, what might rival that for Huelan's favorite was the hotel.  The room was nice but unremarkable except for one thing- an orange chaise lounger that Huelan saw and immediately said was a bed "Just my size."  So we threw a sheet over it, tucked her in, and got a bed to ourselves unexpectedly.  Mini-Moon indeed.

More pics here

Inside the Dancers' Studio

At 3.5 years old, it's really just getting the girls in a room with a big mirror, some music, and a kind-of-granola teacher to give them some direction.  And that's all Huelan needs.

She's about five weeks in to the session- it's ballet/tap- and there's only one other girl in this class.  We're not sure if that's a plus or minus, but just for something different we hope that there are a few more girls in the next session.

Parents are not allowed in the studio during the class- we watch via closed circuit TV on the waiting room.  But there's a "recital" on June 16th where we'll be able to watch live and we already know she's going to go nuts.


(at 0:14 and 1:13 she says, "My butt itches.")
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Here are three more videos I shot that day.  The class eventually devolves into chasing each other around the studio and making animal sounds, but then so do a lot of her activities.

Tapped

The only place she's allowed to tap upstairs is on the tile in the entry.  So that's where her tap shows take place.  Like Tyler Perry, she plays all the parts in her productions, and all the parts have different moves to showcase.